Sighing...

Last year, at the Tarjay Boutique's One Dollar Department (when you spell it out, it's much more sophisticated,) we bought a couple of polyester Gilligan hats for the little boys in their favorite colors. They were "good enough" for whatever, but they weren't AMAZING.

Yesterday, at his last trip to REI before we head out, DaddyDoc found a really great floppy hat for Captain Stubborn. It has mesh on the sides like DD's hat. It has green (CS's favorite color) under the brim. It has a buckle to adjust the size to his head. It has a strap. It cost much more than the Gilligan hat, too, but for all the outdoors stuff we will do on this trip and we regularly do in Scouts, it's so worth it. Right?

Just now I showed him his amazing hat.

He wants to know where the green hat is.

This is me SO not amused.

The redeeming thing is that once we're on the road and we all put on our hats, including the big boys with their (not even as cool as CS's new hat) floppy hats, he'll be ok with it, I'm sure. Believe it or not. But in the meantime, here's one of my trademarked eyerolls.

This morning we got a duffle bag for DaddyDoc at Sports Chalet. We don't even bother going to any other sporting goods stores anymore. We always end up at Sports Chalet finding exactly what we'd looked for already in 5 other stores. When we were in the parking lot getting ready to leave, my cell rang with an unnamed phone number. I answered it rather ditzily, but it turned out to be a friend asking for "J@AAA"'s 411! (So of course I came home, e-mailed it to her, and gave her a link to this blog...)

I called AT&T to adjust the Message Center VoiceMail to answer after 4 rings instead of 6. I turned off the answering machine and I'll retrieve our voice mail from message center every so often while we're gone.

Now I'm just doing one of the things I do really really well: PROCRASTINATING. (My family is just rolling their eyes at me nodding right now.) Here's what I have to finish packing (Are you bored yet??)

• Six Duffle Bags: Each person has a duffle for clothes, and all of our bathroom supplies, pharmaceuticals, first aid supplies, eyeglass wipes, etc are in a sixth. 

* The Household Box: Non-perishable snacks, paper plates, utensils, napkins, paper towels, small travel games (oh! Gotta add Rummikub in there,) laundry soap, quarters, small stash of cleaning supplies, you just never know, ziplock bags of various sizes, etc, etc. Oh we also have Gatorade powder and funnels to dump scoops of powder into water bottles. (The individual packets are too expensive for "Notoriously Cheap" me, plus each packet is a lot more powder than the kids use for one bottle.)

• The Igloo: It's that new 40 something size one they have at Costco, with wheels. and a drain plug (Important!) The bottom will have sodas and waters in it. In one of those Igloo "trays" from our big honkin' Igloo, we'll have cheese sticks, little bags of carrots, and whatever else we collect along the way...

• The Boys' Soft Briefcases, Case of DVDs

• My junk, to include: Laptop & cords, ipod & accessories (will use for entertainment AND as an external hard drive to save pictures off camera. Yes, my MBP hard drive IS that full,) camera & accessories. Also: Bag of yarn & needles to knit dishclothes to keep busy in the car (if you use knitted dishclothes, LMK.) Bag of Paperwork for hotel reservations, maps, etc. Cellphone cords.

• Doc's Junk, to include: His backpack, GPS, Ham Radios & accessories. Emergency electrical supply thing that jump-starts the car and stuff like that.

* And don't forget: Sleeping bag, twin airbed, Awesome "small" Maclaren stroller, Cheesy Booster Seat for the Suburban when we tour Canyon de Chelly in a Navajo Guide's Suburban. 

• Kid's each get one pillow and have the option to bring a blanket and no more than two small stuffed animals. I've veto'd SBS's request to bring three. One Small and one REALLY small, that's it. He wisely did not push to bring the lion or the reindeer. 

* Last but not least: Cases of water bottles, Some extra Diet Pepsi and maybe some beer for Doc. I do have one extra bag of pretzels and Trader Joe's Pirates Treasure aka Pirate Booty to throw in on the top.

Believe it or not, typing it out, it sounds like less than I was worried it would be.

DaddyDoc needs to reprogram the X-10 system for the lights to go on and off as if we're actually home. And he's going to cut PVC pipes to fit in the downstairs windows. The boys dumped their blow-up pools so the yard is set. 

Oh. And I should clean the kitchen a bit and do some more laundry.

PerkyMommy procrastinates and it clutters up your computer screen.