So three kids, three months? The packing

I got the question a few times from friends and I  had the question for myself during months and months prior to departing. Then I asked around, read a bit on specialised fora, then packed, bought, packed, bought again, asked around, unpacked and packed... Etc... Then I let go on my Ideal Plan to have just two pieces of luggage, and decided that having three pieces of big luggage was for us and given some of our irrational but hard to get rid off fixations , our forced destiny.

In two big scout-backpacks we have mainly clothes : toiletries  and a dozen of ziplocked bags of the vacuum kind a type. We all have (well Pierre and I with some slight variations) more or less two trousers, two shorts, two short sleeves shirts and two longs sleeves shirts, a short and a long pyjama, underwear (5 or 7 - have I told you it had been challenging starting the trip with potty training - gastroenteritis sick twins??) A sweater. Kids have a jogging outfit we call the airplane-uniform...
Add to that for every person a hat, sunglasses, swimgear (full for the kids: t shirt uv, brassards et maillot) , a fleece and a (damn.... Not that  waterproof) rain&wind jacket.

A bag of cables and chargers, a heavy pharmacy and first aid kit (thanks to the valuable advice of a sister in law emergencies nurse and full-of-good-sense-mum-of-3 as well as from my favourite pharmawhatsapp friend pharmacist! Now given the weight, is it OK to say I am almost happy every time I can use it? Mat got burnt by boiling water on our first day. Flamazine check. Some #cousinswirtz needed cortisone cream. Check. Long flight and need of Antihistamine sir... Sorry, nothing. Didn't say anything. ) an umbrella (still hoping to use that one). Bedsheets 2 pairs a boy and a coton sleeping back for Amélie (with the clothes drawing stifts as suggested by travelling mum Caro to draw her main souvenirs) and our own travelling sleeping bags.

Shoes! Forseen: one pair for the kids - but water resistant, all ground, protected toes and... Machine washable ! (At the end of week 2, surrounded by two barefoot kids of mine, I am already #thankyoukeen for that and looking forward to it!)
Reality check in cold new zealand; we bought some cheap rainboots...
Pierre and I are more lucky. Pierre has and wears his all time docksides (#decathlon à fond la forme), havaianas and keen sandals. I have comfy walking bailerines (decathlon bis) , keen sandals and wedding-havaianas. I received from Mary an extra pair of Argentinan i-forgot-the-name-and-have-no-internet-to-check-it-nor-a-husband-who-knows-anything-about-it espadrille-type of shoes that I am gratefully wearing.
Macgyver also brought a few Colson bandjes (un-used so far) different kind of tapes, a leather man knife (greatfully used to make those needed extra holes in the boy's 'ceinture' at the wedding) a kitchen knife. We already bought and added to the 'varia-bag' a bottle opener, different kind of soaps (vaisselle, lessive et special peau excema). The rainboots. The fleece sleepingbags  / petits paquets tout chaud.

We carry around - but don't tell anyone - an iPad and a small portable computer , a few phones and my fotocamera. The kids have three little #deuter bags with a drinking can and some things to play with or draw, read,... which, when un-used or whilst in transit, are put in a light weigthed little bag (#decathlon) . a winner in this category is the no-mess and re-usable draw with water wow from Melissa and Doug.
we have a day backpack which content changes regularly but usually contains a mini version of the farmacy, food, water, drinks, inflatable football, spare underwear for the boys (did I mention they where ... Sorry... Repeating myself again) hand washing alcohol (nope. Not the alcohol for the parents) , some drawing stuff and usually a little ziplock bag with some treasures (read: shopping tickets or stuff like that from matthias).

The third big bag contains the books we haven't had the time to read yet (argh... Those social and family obligations.... ;-) ): a travel book of new Zealand, the book of ex-colleague Pieter stockmans for me about jihad and understanding multi-perspectives in the actual context and the one of Pierre's cousin Veronique Lobert for Pierre himself. The mayor space of that third bag is occupied by bulcky kids stuff which wouldn't necessarily be necessary to any kids travelling, but which we decided to take along and haven't regret yet (the fact that we spend 3 weeks in a camper van, or travel by and then fly back to Bangkok and so have the option to leave un-used stuff there, did influence our choices) two deryan tents for the boys. Comfy, fast, anti-mosquito. Kids know it s their fixed place, no fuzz going to sleep. 2 manducas, baby wearing backpacks going up to 20kg so even when Amélie is the one falling asleep in the evenings, we can carry her in there too. If we had a third back, a third one would come in handy. A pram simply wasn't a go, and  twinprams are just by definition not the kind of thing you want to travel with, and bringing a Singleton one might just have been the most efficient way to start figths between the kids (should the kids ever experience a lack of inspiration to start one by themselves... Which I sincerely doubt would ever happen) and at last, we also carry around three in-between-solutions for our obsession about car seat safety. Looking for a decent safe way to travel, jump into a taxi,... , but not to bulky  Amélie has an inflatable boosterseat and for the boys we carry around and have been at the source of mixed "oh great / oh freaky parents" looks with their imported (and officially aproved ) USA car-jackets. All that, together with the tents and the books, fits in the third bag.

So that s it: two backpacks and one baby gear aka irrational stuff / typically us duffle bag. Then on the go a day pack for us and sometimes a second one with the kids backpacks.

See, everyone can do it (and without our specific obsessions, you could do with less!!)