So busy; so stressed. I always hated packing for myself, and my hatred of packing has gotten exponentially deeper with each person added to the family for whom I must now assemble belongings into a suitcase. This time, I'm finally conceding that Mom wasn't just being a control freak when she made lists of everything going into our bags for family trips; I've got my own little list going, and we're going to live by it. Three outfits each, plus the one we're wearing, plus extra "blowout insurance in the diaper bag. Rita's offered up her washing machine, and we're going to use it, darn it.

A bare minimum of toys are coming with us. Sam has a little backpack, and I'm thinking that's all he'll be allowed to fill. Not to the brim, either; people are getting him toys for Christmas, so he'll need room for the trip home. Gabe's things will be in the diaper bag, period. In fact, since my diaper bag is really my purse and carryall, all of my non-clothing and non-toiletries will be in there, too. Eric can do whatever he darn well feels like, so long as he's the one carrying it.

I wish I could get the house into some semblance of order, too, before we leave. I hate coming home to a messy house. Unfortunately, with all the gifts that haven't found homes yet in our house, in addition to the extra work of packing, I'm not sure that cleaning will be a possibility. I'm just trying to sweep the piles out of the main thoroughfares. Sam's going to be as mad as a chicken facing a garden hose when he wakes up from his nap and sees that I've put his train set into a plastic tub; I just couldn't handle it taking up most of the living room floor anymore.

Before tomorrow, I need to:

• Finish the laundry
• Finish packing: clothes, toiletries (well, that can wait until we've used them tomorrow morning), whatever other items we're taking (camera, toys, diaper bag)
• Clean the fridge, at least a little
• Change the bed linens (if I have to come home to a messy house, I'm at least going to have a clean bed to lie in)
• Get Eric to burn for his parents a copy of the photo CD I had made of the pictures since Gabe's birth
• Do the dishes
• At least toss the Christmas presents into neat-looking piles under the tree
• Tell the neighbors we're leaving
• Get myself some kind of reading material for the offhand chance that Gabe actually does sleep the whole way there

That list seems short; I must be forgetting something. With my luck, I won't remember until I'm on the plane.

While I'm making lists, here are a few things upon which I've been idly musing, regarding our trip:

• Gabe is still a teensy bit yellow. Nobody here is concerned, but I wonder how often I'll hear Rita say something about it.
• Likewise, I wonder whether Bryan will wonder, from a medical standpoint, about our treatment decisions.
• The sleeping arrangements bother me a bit. Eric and Sam will be in the guest room, Gabe and I will be in Rita's and Ronnie's room, Rita will be on the couch, and Ronnie will be on a blowup mattress. I hate kicking them out of their bed, but I didn't get to be involved in the decision.
• Since their mattresses are crazy soft, Gabe will be sleeping in a Pack and Play cot next to me for the bulk of the night. He's been doing wonderfully in the cosleeper, so I think he should be fine; I just wonder whether I'll be able to handle putting him back there after nursing him.
• Wonder whether Ronnie will try to get Sam using the potty again, like he did on our last visit? Wonder whether he'll be as easily put off by Sam's firm resistance? (Wonder whether, miracle of miracles, Sam will actually decide to listen to Papou and (gasp!) finally take to the potty?)
• Should I offer to make baked pumpkin again? It's been a couple of years since I made it for a Christmas and nobody ate it.
• Will this be the first holiday visit of his life that Sam doesn't get sick? Will the allergist be right, and will we get to put that rescue inhaler to use?

Well, Eric's home from a brief jaunt to work, and there's much to be done, so off I go. We're assuming for now that I will be able to access the Internet while we're there. If I do disappear, let's just pray that it's because our dial-up plans have fallen through and not because our plane has plunged into one Great Lake or another.