Thursday Thirteen--Packing for a Trip

If you have ever had your child walk out the door wearing an orange and pink t-shirt, with red plaid pants, and one blue sock and one yellow sock, today's post is for you.
1. Get a box of gallon-size zip bags.
2. Pick out a shirt, shorts, and socks that match.
3. Lay the shirt on the table.
4. Fold up the shorts.
5. Put the shorts, a pair of undies, and a pair of socks on the shirt.
6. Fold the shirt around the aforementioned garments.
7. Insert the resulting bundle in one of the zip bags.
8. Repeat, until you have a number of outfits bagged that corresponds to the number of days you plan to be gone.
9. Repeat at least twice more, to allow for extra changes of clothes.
10. Every day of your trip, hand a bag to your child, and put his/her dirty clothes in the empty bag.
11. When you get home, the dirty clothes will not have had the opportunity to odorize your remaining clean clothes (if any), or your suitcase.
12. If your husband has ever turned your suitcase inside out looking for his clothes, undies, socks, razor, etc., make a set of baggies for him too.
13. And if you, like me, have trouble coordinating an outfit in the dark (because you don't want to turn on the light and wake up the kids) after only two hours sleep (because one of your kids threw up all over you, the bed, and the floor during the night), make a set of baggies for yourself.

Enjoy your trip.

P. S. If you (like me) are too cheap to buy the baggies, Wal-mart bags work equally well, except that once you put dirty clothes in them, you need to tie a tight knot to keep the scent confined to the bag, and not all over your remaining clean clothes.