Well, I call bullshit on all the lip gloss, hair brushes, lotions and potions that celeb moms claim to keep in their bags. And let's be real. No mom of young children carries a purse. We all carry bags the equivalent in size to what we would have packed pre-baby for a long weekend away. Yes, mom = luggage size purse. And new moms, don't fall prey to the cool/hip looking diaper bag. It's too small. Trust me. If you want to actually be able to carry with you all the basics and troubleshooting tools on the market, you need more than a diaper bag. You need a weekend bag.
Now what, you may ask, is in the average mom's bag? Well...as far as I can tell, here's "What's in her bag":
- Goldfish. Both in a small ziploc and also crushed into an orange powder lining the bottom on the bag. You can only remove the remnants by fully emptying your bag and shaking it out Something you will never do, so stop being bothered by it.
- Pacifiers. For a first child, stored in a sanitized pod. For a second child, it's just loosely tossed in the bag.
- Baby wipes for diaper changes and wiping off puke (both from you and whatever public surface you child boots on while you're running errands).
- Boogie Wipes for runny noses.
- Hand sanitizer for after your child jerks his/her head and you miss their boogies with the wipe and end up just using your hand.
- Excedrin because you need the boost of caffeine and to manage the dull headache that has lingered ever since leaving the hospital post-birth.
- Diapers. And if you ever run out of them while on the go, remember this. Moms and diapers are like smokers and cigarettes. Just as it's smokers etiquette to always give a stranger a smoke when they kindly ask for one, it's mom code to hand over a diaper to a mother in need.
- Sippy cup. A leaking sippy cup. They all leak. Don't be fooled..
- Gum. Like goldfish, the gum is all over the inside of your bag. It's fallen from the package and you just hope that it's not soggy from the leaking sippy cup.
- Wallet. Not a good, pretty wallet. But a beat up, receipts from doctor's appointments, no coins because your kids throw them in fountains, crumpled up bills because your kids make a game of emptying your wallet contents regularly, kind of wallet.
- Poop bags. Like dog owners, as parents you also need to carry these for polite disposal of dumps.
- Candy. Because the number one successful rule of parenting is BRIBERY.
- Phone. A must carry item, not in case of an emergency, but because you only catch up with friends on Facebook, you need to time breastfeeding sessions (yes, you read that correctly), and for an older child you need some mechanism for getting them to sit still after the sugar high of the candy bribe wears off.
- Change of clothes. You will - mark my words - one day pick up your smiley sweet baby from a car seat nap and find that even while seated, they managed to shoot poop straight up his/her back. It's really quite an achievement. Really. I mean, how do that do that?!
- Hooter hider. As you no longer go to the bathroom by yourself once you become a mom, this gives you at least a small amount of privacy. I know... I'm grasping at this one.
- Breast pads. Oh yeah. I saved the sexiest one for last. Nothing says "new mom" like a wet stain around your breast because you forgot the pad and leaked through your clothes. Yes. This is real. And it's happened to me. And I didn't know until I got home and realized I had sat through an entire group dinner with one wet boob. You're welcome.
I could actually add to this list, but now all I'm thinking about are the number of things I need to restock to get ready for tomorrow. Or...while the bag is only half full, I'm thinking about dumping out the goldfish.
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