Packing for a trip. It’s the first of several coming up and I’m going through the familiar clambering mental list– What to pack? What am I forgetting? If this happens, will we have enough of that?

Unlike my usual day-before-a-trip madness, I’ve realized I’m not particularly stressed out. Perhaps part of it is where we’re headed this weekend — up to Vermont to meet up with family (both my brothers and my beautiful sister-in-law) to see Dead and Co Saturday night at SPAC. It’s hard to combine stress with songs filling the air, but there’s more of an explanation for my relaxed, groovy mood. It’s because there are three of us packing up for this trip.

Three is better than one.

Anna is home for the summer before starting medical school in August. Not only are we all loving her brilliant smile and willingness to listen to our stories and laugh at our jokes, but we’re also loving how helpful she is. She grocery shops and cooks and cleans and organizes and even wallpapered two bathrooms. So today, instead of me scrambling around to buy more diapers, fill Jack’s prescriptions and figure out where we hid our cooler – I just ask Anna.

It was also Anna who decided that we weren’t going to leave Jack behind for this trip. She reminded Dan and I just how much Jack loves music and dancing and any chance to meet new friends who share his love of . . . grilled cheese sandwiches. I’m so excited that the four of us are doing this together. And, with three of us doing the packing and driving and occasional diaper change, this trip will be fun and quite manageable.

Anna has made it clear that her summer of being a “1950s housewife” is getting a little old and that being a doctor seems like a way easier line of work, but until she leaves in August, we are going to enjoy another set of hands at our house.

Thanks Banana. Thanks to you there is nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.

Love, mom

I want to be clear that we are a family of four and Jack is very much in the center of our circle — it’s just that he is more of the cheerleader than a packer/shopper/organizer/driver.