Item seven on Nico's packing list says "stiks (3)." Item eight is a drawing of a sock. Item nine is "ranjr hat," which is the felt hat from his Halloween costume, and he would like everyone to know it is not a costume anymore.
We leave for Jekyll Island the day after Christmas, then Savannah, Charleston and St. Augustine on the way home. It's our first real cold-weather trip north, and this year the kids wrote their own packing lists. Here's how that went, and the one check we still do ourselves.
Why we let them write the lists
Last January at Long Pine Key it dropped to 47 degrees, and I had packed both kids' bags myself. They were warm enough in the end, but at 6 a.m. in a cold tent neither of them could find a single thing, because they hadn't packed any of it. Maya, who is nine and runs her life on lists, asked this fall if she could do her own. Nico, who is six, heard that and wanted the same deal.
So the rule is simple. Each kid writes a list, packs their own duffel from it and can tell me where every item is. Then Dana or I do one layers check before the bag gets zipped. That's it.
Maya's list
Maya's list is two pages, color-coded, with a key at the top. Blue is clothes. Green is sleeping stuff. Purple is "journal and fun." Orange means "ask Mom," which so far covers her toothbrush and whether she can bring a second book.
She counted socks: two pairs a day plus one pair for sleeping, "because Dad says sleeping socks have to stay dry." She listed her nature journal, the watercolor pencils, her headlamp with fresh batteries, the iPad Grandma Linda gave her with audiobooks already downloaded through Libby, and a sea turtle book for the aquarium in Charleston. She also packed for Driftwood Beach as if it were the Keys and wrote "swimsuit" in blue. We had a short talk about the Atlantic in Georgia in late December. The swimsuit stayed, "in case the hotel has a pool."
Her one real miss was gloves. She didn't forget them. She doesn't own any. She's a Miami kid. A Walmart run fixed that for both of them.
Nico's list
Nico's list is half words, half drawings and all heart. The words are first-grade spelling at full confidence: "flashlite," "hot choklit," "shark" (the stuffed one), "ranjr hat" and "stiks (3)." The drawings include a sock, a moon and something that is either a sleeping bag or a hot dog.
What wasn't on it: pants, underwear, a jacket or a toothbrush. He packed the shark first and wrapped it in his pillowcase so it wouldn't get cold.
The sticks needed a negotiation. He's the family kindling manager and takes the job seriously, but three sticks were not riding to Georgia. We settled on one, the walking stick he found at Juniper Springs over Thanksgiving, on the condition that it comes home again. He also gets a second pair of sneakers in a bag of their own, because Nico loses one shoe per trip. After Juniper Springs the left one turned up under the Pilot's back seat two days later.
The layers check
This is the part we don't hand over. Before the duffel closes, each kid lays a cold-night outfit out on the bed, in the order they'd put it on:
- A base layer, top and bottom
- A fleece or a sweatshirt
- The puffy jacket
- A hat they can sleep in, not the one with the pom-pom
- Gloves
- Dry sleeping socks, in their own zip bag
- A rain jacket, just in case
If it's all there, the bag gets zipped. If something's missing, they go find it. It takes five minutes, and it's the one place I want a grown-up's eyes, because Jekyll could be in the 30s and our kids think 65 is sweater weather.
The cost of all this is close to zero, which I like. The only new things were the gloves. Everything else came out of closets, hand-me-down bins and one drawer of thermal leggings Dana has been quietly collecting since last winter.
The best part was watching Maya check her brother's bag without being asked. She found the missing underwear, added it to his list in purple and drew a little box next to it so he could check it off himself. He did, very slowly, with his tongue sticking out.
When I asked Nico what he'd do if he got cold in the middle of the night, he said, "Put on my ranger hat." I'm counting that as a correct answer.
