My husband and I have been camping together for a long time. At some point along the way, we agreed upon the following division of labor: Sawblock packs the equipment, I pack the food, and we each pack our own clothes. As our family has grown, my packing responsibility has grown as well--I am now responsible for packing clothes and personal items for four* people, toys and books, as well as all of the food for the five of us. At times, it is too much for me. It's a lot to keep in my head, and even with my myriad lists, the responsibility is crushing. What if it rains all weekend and I forgot to pack the rain coats? What if it's in the 100s and I only packed one pair of shorts for each boy? I pack with the constant, nagging fear that I'm forgetting something essential.
My husband, his Dad, and our two oldest boys are ice fishing this weekend. Hubby was responsible for packing clothes and equipment for three and half of the food for five. I noticed this morning that he forgot a few things, like eggs for the French toast, condiments for the brats, and carrots (but that could have been an intentional omission--Sawblock doesn't seem to be quite as concerned as I am about our children eating vegetables every day). My first thought was, "oh no!" But then, optimist that I am (always looking at the silver lining), I thought, well maybe now Hubby will have a little more compassion when I'm whining and complaining about how difficult it is to pack for camping! See, Hubby, it's not as easy as it looks.
*Yes, it's true, Code-man and Logo are old enough to pack their own clothes, but left to their own devices, they would forget such essentials as underwear or toothbrushes, and so, even with a list to work from, they still require close packing supervision, which falls to me.
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Speaking of "oh no," I was watching some short track speed skating last night (can you see where this is going?), and who was skating, but Apolo Anton Ohno, in the 500M final. Apolo was in fourth place, and then he scooted up into third and I was cheering for him (go Ohno!), but then he dropped back into fourth. As the skater in fourth was making his move I was moaning, "Oh no, oh no, OHNO!" He couldn't hear my warning and the other skater accomplished his pass. Ohno finished in second, but got disqualified for shoving another skater out of the way. One of the Canadians, who finished first, also shoved someone out of the way but was not disqualified.
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