At it turns out...

I didn't need to feel stress after all.

On Thursday, I wrote on my Thursday's List that I was stressed out about getting Meelyn and Aisling's stuff packed up for their week's lakeside vacation with Nanny and Poppy. I was dreading the washing, folding and suitcasing of clothes; the making sure that miscellaneous items, like toothbrushes, were stowed away, and that Aisling doesn't leave the state without Izzie and Meelyn without her MP3 player.

Although my husband tells me that they do, in fact, sell toothbrushes in states other than Indiana. Who knew?

On Thursday afternoon, I heard something going bump-bump-bumpitty-bump down the stairs and went to make sure that Wimzie wasn't going tail over teakettle after spying that black, white-booted cat from an upstairs window. She hates that cat. It wasn't Wimzie, I was Meelyn. And she wasn't falling, she was bringing down the laundry hamper that she and Aisling use.

Meelyn, my beautiful, sweet, funny, volleyball-playing girl, washed, dried and folded all their clothes. She and Aisling carried them all upstairs and put them in our biggest suitcase. They got out my vanity case and put all their toiletries in there. They put the PlayStation2 in the suitcase and cushioned it with their beach towels and packed two tote bags to take in the car, full of books, music and DVDs (Nan and Pop have a fancy van that plays movies. I know! It's pretty cool, isn't it? Our van is so old, it's carpeted in purple shag and an 8-track player with a wizard painted on the side making the words "Pure Magic" spin out of his staff.)

(Okay, that was a slight exaggeration, but it doesn't have a DVD player.)

In short, they packed everything. By themselves. All I did was make a packing list here on the blog.

All mothers know that our job as mothers is to work ourselves out of a job. Today is one of those days when I know that I have worked myself out of another job to add to my list of feeding, potty-taking, shoe-tying, tooth-brushing, toe-and-fingernail clipping and jacket-zipping and other myriad tasks that the girls are competent enough to do on their own, possibly even better than they did when I was helping them.

I still do kiss owies, however. That is a task I will never relinquish.