The Dopp Kit

I’ve been packing up this evening in preparation for our spring break vacation to end.   Tomorrow my son and I head home on one flight while my husband and daughter remain behind to leave the following day for Detroit and a checkup with her retina surgeon.    I typically do the packing for the children and since this was a more complicated return home trip I spent some time deciding what should go with which parent and in which bag.

As I came to the Advil bottle we purchased the other day when my son showed up with a fever (he’s fine now) I decided to send it on with my husband to Detroit, remembering the last trip where my daughter got very sick but likely completely unrelated to the surgery the day before.

I came into the kitchen where my husband and father-in-law were and told my husband I was putting the Advil into his…”dopp kit”…   I asked him and my father-in-law if they knew what that phrase meant because it had meaning to me, but I wasn’t altogether sure I was saying it correctly or that it actually meant anything to anyone other than me.

My husband didn’t know what I was talking about so I said, “that leather thing you guys keep your toiletries in when you travel.   My father-in-law, however, knew exactly what I meant.  

My father always traveled with something he called a “dopp kit” when I was a child.   When I look at one, it is just called that.    But other than my father’s leather container from my childhood, I didn’t know if it was an actual thing so when I went into the kitchen to tell my husband about the Advil, I asked about it.

So it turns out it was the name of something and not a nickname my father had for his toiletries case.    You laugh, but you haven’t heard the story about the goats on the mountains with the legs longer on one side my father told me about when I was eight-years-old.

The Big Boy Update:  On the way home from dinner yesterday my son chimed out from the back seat of the car, “when I grow up I’m gonna have 10 children.”  I asked him what he planned on naming them.   He immediately replied, "Max, Rafter, Raider, Creeper, Crank, Roo, Cram, Cree, Raurow, and there is no more. Wait, Cutie.  And their nicknames are, Sample and…”  And folks, I’m sure there would have been more but it was at that point that my husband and I couldn’t help but laugh and we interrupted his train of thought.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My father-in-law was getting the pool cleaner hose and attachment out this afternoon so the pool would be clear for the guests arriving shortly.    The cleaner component (nicknamed ‘Little Guy’) disconnected from the hose and sat at the bottom of the three feet of water.    My daughter swam down and brought up the not-light cleaning head.   My father-in-law and I were both pretty impressed, saying things like “wow” and “that was great, thanks for the help!”   My daughter said nonchalantly, “thanks, just doing my job.”