We’re heading out to Japan and Hong Kong in a week, and I can hardly keep it all together.
I had a few things that I had bought weeks or months ago for the kids and had vaguely earmarked for the trip, but last week I went out to Dollarama—we live down the street from one—and picked up a few last things. There are likely more to add to it. I know it’s all about traveling light, but it’s more like I want to bring enough to ensure the kids (and I) survive, and I’ll shed the used goods, excess items, tattered books along the way. I keep dreaming of what it’ll be like to travel without the kids, and then have to remind myself that I love them.
Now that the kids are older, we’re hoping to do more and more traveling. The shop gives us certainly some opportunity and reason to go, and I’m sure it couldn’t be too hard to find other reasons.
Here are some of the books we’re bringing.
A few activity books, sticker books, sticker activity books. Colouring books. I let Caleb pick out a few super hero books that we’ll read together on the plane and then probably again and again. I also bought a set of “readers” that he’s been reading in kindergarten and that he can actually begin to read on his own. I bought his level plus one or two up, so maybe we’ll get 10 minutes of reading practice in here or there. Summer slide and all.
The 20th Century Children’s Book Treasury was a great Value Village find, especially because it was half price off books day, which brought it down from $1.29 to 65 cents. 65 cents! It’s a tome of various children’s books, from toddler favourites like Goodnight Moon and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to classics like Dr. Seuss and Alexander and the Terrible…Day to longer stories like Stellaluna and Mike Mulligan, which is perfect for a 1.5 year old and a 4.5 year old both.
To be honest, if I’d known this book existed, I might have bought it at full price to bring along on the trip, as heavy as it is, because it contains just so much, both ones Caleb has already read and loved and new ones to introduce. While it’s not abridged (thank goodness), they shrink down and condense some of the pages of the original books to fit more, so, for example, Good Night Moon is on 8 pages. It’s interesting to note in the introduction for parents that part of the process of selecting the stories was to consider how much the integrity of a story might be compromised by the illustrations being reduced to fit the format, which really is so important. There’s obviously been a lot of thought into which illustrations take up a full page, and which illustrations can be shrunk down together with the next few pages, and so on. It’ll be fun to see how Caleb recognizes some of these stories in a new format.
A few other books: the Fisher-Price Little People Big Book series is quite old and out of print—published 1989. I got a few of them used and loved them so much that I found a more complete set on Amazon US second hand, and had it shipped to a family friend’s parents in the US as the seller didn’t ship to Canada (it wasn’t supposed to be that complicated, I swear!). They’re great, even if they contain some obsolete or archaic information. Each book is on a topic and includes formats like poetry, non-fiction infographics or “newspaper articles,” longer stories, activities, silly word plays. The illustrations are obviously a little outdated as well, but it’s fun to explain how things used to be and what sort of changes have come about out of technology, and what’s still the same.
I got these little books that are theoretically emergency pull out of a bag books for throughout the trip. Some have activities in them, like mazes or colouring, and other have stickers. There is some ongoing internal family turmoil with regards to if one child has something the other child has to have the exact same thing or everyone is going to melt down including mama, however, (strangely now that I reflect on this logic) I feel like even if Naomi scribbles in one, she’s not going to scribble on every page, and so she can Caleb can eventually trade and I’ll get more out of both of them.
A few puzzles. Both literal jigsaw puzzles and a few clicky or wooden block type things.
And some toys. Stickers. Rubber bands (actually I just find these hand in general, tying up snack bags, hair, keep things closed). Some animals, foam stickers, light up bricks. Some packs of markers. Perhaps the kids might glue these Pom poms onto something. Who knows. The plan is not firm yet. There’s a set of mini post-it notes, because these are actually a fantastic occupation for Naomi. She can peel off one post-it note at a time for a shockingly long amount of time, just letting them flutter to the floor, as though she’s wondering if it’s an eternal supply. Keeping my fingers crossed she’s not reached the end of the run of fascination for her.
For the plane ride, the kids will each have their own little backpacks, where, Caleb, at least, will select a very small number of small items, such as maybe a book or two, a noiseless toy, some snacks, as his own set of colouring pencils and pencils and erasers, etc. I also got Caleb a notebook with the intention of helping him document the trip, as I have a little photo printer that he can tape photos in and write short little descriptors for (egads the teacher in me).
I normally relish the opportunity of traveling to partake of some overpriced airport food and junk food from airport shops, but with the babies, of course we’ll pack snacks as well. I’ve been trying to convince Jon to stop feeding the kids some of their favourites, like goldfish, so when we pull them out on the plane it’ll be a delight. I don’t know if it’s Jon or some other part of his demographic, but planning for the plane ride doesn’t seem to be high on his priority list when the babies are grabbing at his pants.
I bought some dollar store plastic containers for food, and then perhaps as we eat them out we can store the blocks or things in them again on the plane. I contemplated taking them all out of the packaging first, but they’re quite neat and tidy like this, and additionally, the joy of unpacking things is another 2+ minutes of occupation that I’m certainly not taking for granted.
Okay, long-winded! Trying to forge on with documenting some of this life stuff, especially as we head off on this adventure, and not getting too swallowed up with the busy-ness. It’s fun to look back on how we did things, and possibly also how crazy I was.
making wild rice 