Almost as important as knowing what to carry in your diaper bag is knowing what NOT to carry. When Bean was born, I tried carrying everything he could possibly need in my diaper bag every time we went out. Actually, I have to confess that I carried a diaper bag like that when Gracie was born, too. And the only thing that made me change what I toted around was that I simply couldn’t fit it all in the bag. So I had to readjust. Had I known how easy readjusting would have been, I would have streamlined my diaper bag from Day One. The thing I learned about slimming down my diaper bag is that just because it’s not in my diaper bag doesn’t mean it won’t be there when I need it.
For example, I used to carry several diapers, a container of diaper wipes, a tube of diaper rash cream, and a diaper changing pad. But when Gracie came along, and before Bean was potty trained, I just couldn’t carry around two different size diapers along with all of that diaper stuff. Plus, I found that I hardly ever changed the kids out in public. I hate using public restrooms, so I usually took the kids out to the car to change them on the backseat, if I had to change them at all. I decided to streamline my diaper bag by leaving all of my diaper changing stuff in my car instead.
Now, I keep my diaper changing pad, a small pack of diapers, wipes, and diaper cream in the very back of my SUV in a reuseable grocery bag. If Gracie needs a diaper change while we’re on the go, I take her out to the car and change her there.(By the way, there have been only two times I’ve had to actually LEAVE a store due to a diaper situation.)
Another thing I streamlined was carrying a purse. My diaper bag isn’t too big (which I like), so my purse never fit neatly inside of it. Usually, I tried to either stuff it in the top, which never worked out, or tried to carry it on my shoulder along with the diaper bag (and Gracie or Bean, if I had to carry one of them). It was too much. So I went on the hunt last year for a larger wallet carrying thing that would carry my wallet, cell phone, and maybe a chapstick tube. I tried all kinds of wallets, but nothing worked quite right. I wanted something small enough to stick inside my diaper bag when I was out with the kids — or in my purse if I was going somewhere by myself. I finally found just what I was looking for around Christmas. I bought this really cute wristlet by Coach (thanks to a gift card from my mother-in-law!).
It is very thin and small to carry or throw into a diaper bag or purse, but it actually holds a lot of things. I fit my entire wallet in there (including my checkbook!), plus my cell phone fits in the dollar bills fold perfectly. I even keep a clear lip gloss in the bottom of it at all times. Now I throw that into my diaper bag, into my wallet, into my school bag on weekdays, or sometimes I just carry it on its own. It has really lightened my diaper bag load.
The last thing I have started leaving out of my diaper bag are a lot of toys. I used to carry a bunch of hand toys for Gracie and a bunch of bigger kid toys for Bean. But what I’ve found is that usually when we’re out somewhere, the kids are much more interested in what we’re doing and where we are than they are in their toys. Now, I carry one or two toys, depending on what we’re planning to do while we’re out. I couldn’t believe how much lighter my diaper bag load became when I eliminated about half of the toys I carried around that never got used. These days, I have a small bag of various toys in my car that I keep there and I usually grab one or two out of that to toss into my diaper bag when we’re out.
Diaper bags are essential when you have kids, but sometimes they can become quite the nuisance when you stuff too much into them. Knowing what to take is important, but knowing what you can live without is almost as important. If you think your bag is too heavy, cumbersome or disorganized, dump it out on your floor and make two piles — one pile of things you use every time you’re out and one pile of things you have never used. Kick the never used stuff to the curb (or at least to your car!) and try to whittle your “always use” pile down to half its size. You’ll be amazed at how much lighter you’ll feel and how much better you’ll get around!
Don’t forget to check out the Huggies Mommy Answers Facebook app and then visit the Huggies page on BlogHer.com to read about other bloggers’ who share their own experiences of motherhood.
12Apr
One of the things I was the most apprehensive about when I first had Bean Man was the diaper bag situation. I just didn’t know what to do with it. I couldn’t figure out what to carry in it, or if I should even carry one at all. When I went to the grocery store, was I supposed to take my diaper bag in, too? If we were going out to dinner, should I change out what was in the diaper bag that Bean took to daycare? And how the heck was I supposed to balance a baby, a baby carrier, and a diaper bag all without falling over? While I have learned a few things in my two and a half years as a mom, I still haven’t conquered the balance issue when carrying baby things. I fall or drop things quite often, I must admit.
The other questions, however, I have managed to figure out answers to. Diaper bags have different functions for different families, but here are a few tips we’ve discovered over the years.
Where do I take my diaper bag?† When both the kids were fresh out of the baby oven, I carried my diaper bag everywhere. Both Bean and Gracie had acid reflux, so spitting up happened often and was quite a production. My diaper bag was mostly a burp cloth carrier, really. We couldn’t go far without burp cloths, and so we couldn’t go far without our diaper bag. Also, with newborns or infants who spit up frequently, you need to have several changes of clothes handy, and a diaper bag helped with this. Once the babies were not spitting up so often, I found I could leave the diaper bag in the car sometimes if we were running in quick somewhere. The emergency phase was over, and should I need anything in the bag, I could get out to it quicker now that my babies were older.
Should I change out my diaper bag for different purposes? I tried this at first with Bean. When he started daycare, I had a big daycare diaper bag for him that he took every day and then I had a smaller weekend bag when we were running errands. I know some families who use this two-bag approach flawlessly, but for me it was a little messy. Things wound up in the wrong bag, leaving me at crucial times without something I really needed. It was more of a hassle to juggle two bags for me. What I ended up doing was using Ziploc bags to compartmentalize my diaper bag. I have one Ziploc with Gracie’s toys, one with Bean’s toys, one with a change of clothes for each kiddo, one with eating-out supplies (bibs, spoons, disposable placemats, etc.), and one with diaper changing materials (a diaper, a small pack of wipes, and a small tube of diaper cream). Now, depending on what we are doing or where we are going, I just pick and choose which Ziplocs need to go in or come out. It also makes it really easy to find things when you’re digging them out in public somewhere.
What kind of diaper bag should I buy? The first diaper bag I had was my absolute favorite. It was so functional, and totally by accident. I didn’t know what I was looking for when I bought my first bag, but I ended up discovering that my favorite kind of diaper bag is wide open with hardly any compartments. I loved the first because it was huge, easy to reach into, and had very few pockets for things to hide in. When that one was taken during our home invasion a couple years ago (we guess that they must have used it to carry things in?), I bought another one that was the same style. It is so convenient to be able to throw everything into the diaper bag and not have to worry about if I’m putting the bottle in the pacifier spot, or if the sippy cup is in the diaper compartment. Everything goes into the center and I used my Ziploc bags to compartmentalize myself according to my needs. To me, it’s just a lot easier to get into and out of if the central pocket is large with a wide open top. Just be sure to find one with a zipper. The diaper bag I have now is beautiful and very functional, but I do miss having a zipper at the top so that things don’t spill all over the place when your diaper bag tips over or when you bend down to pick up your baby with your bag on your shoulder.
I’ll do a few more Huggies posts this month about dealing with diaper bags. I’ll talk about what we pack in ours, what we’ve taken out of ours, and what we used the diaper bag for at different ages. Feel free to leave comments below giving your own advice about diaper bags. As a new mom, I think the black hole of a diaper bag is one of life’s greatest mysteries…
Check out the Huggies Mommy Answers Facebook app!
Find more posts from bloggers sharing their experiences of motherhood on the Huggies page on BlogHer.com.
18Mar
This post is more of a scheduling pep talk for myself than anything else. In the next week, there are so many major events happening that I can hardly keep myself straight. I get tired whenever I think about it, and then I just want to take a nap until April. But I can’t because I have too much to do. So, I thought I’d make peace with the next couple days by blogging about it to help calm my nerves. Plus, if I’m blogging then I don’t have to deal with the other things. It’s a win-win!
1. On Tuesday I have my formal evaluation at school, which means my principal and vice principal will be in my classroom for an entire period evaluation my teaching. I’ve got a great lesson planned and I feel good about it, but the lesson requires a lot of prep work (including a sample of an art project that I have to make – oy!). And besides the prep work, it’s just very nerve-wracking to know you’re being observed, no matter how prepared you are. I have my pre-conference with my principal and vice principal tomorrow, so cross your fingers that that goes well.
2. On Saturday, my agent is coming to town from New York. She’s here as a guest lecturer at the University of Florida for a couple of days, and so I am going up to meet her for drinks on Saturday. It’ll be nice to see her, but the real reason for the visit is so that I can hand deliver her my final draft of my book proposal. I haven’t blogged about my book in over a year, and, to be honest, I doubt I’ll be blogging about it very much in the next few months. But know that I am working so very, very hard on it. I don’t think I’ve ever worked this hard on anything professionally in my whole life. I am in the third year of the process and am, hopefully, in the homestretch now. In the next few months, my agent will be sending my book proposal out to publishers to see if we can get a book deal. I try not to think about how much I want that, so that I don’t get disappointed if it doesn’t happen. But I really want this. I’ll be light on the blogging this week as I finish my draft up in the evenings, so bear with me and think happy thoughts for me while I’m gone.
3. GRACIE TURNS ONE NEXT SUNDAY! I can’t believe it is finally here! Gracie Girl is turning the big O-N-E next weekend, and we’re having a small family get-together to celebrate. My mom came down this weekend and we went shopping for decorations and menu items, so I feel much more prepared for her party than I did last week, but there’s still so much to do! I have Friday off of school, so I’m hoping to finish up her party plans then. We’re having her party on Sunday afternoon, which should be fun for me because my book proposal will be done and delivered, so I will definitely feel like celebrating. Sometime before now and then, I have to get her birthday video together, too. I made one for each of Bean’s birthdays so far and I’ve already started compiling Gracie’s. I’ll post it on the blog on Friday. I can’t wait for you all to see it!
4. Chris and I leave for Costa Rica the Monday after Gracie’s birthday. We are both looking forward to some time away, but neither of us have had a chance to really get anything ready. I’m hoping Sunday night after the party we’ll be able to pack…which is about 9 hours before our flight. Nothing like a little last minute suitcase stuffing! I’m hoping to be able to blog from Costa Rica, so definitely check in next week for blog posts about what we’re up to. I know there will be zip lining, surfing, and hanging bridges on the menu. (What, pray tell, does one wear while crossing a hanging bridge over a ravine in the rainforest????) I’ll be posting to Twitter and Instagram (my user name is MarriageConfessions) all week from my phone, so be sure you’re following along! Costa Rica is going to be so wonderful for us! Our travel coordinator sent us our itinerary and we were just blown away! It will truly be a Gift of Happiness. On that note, I have been contacted by two different blog readers in the past month or so who said they also won a trip! How exciting! And what a fun thing for the country of Costa Rica to be doing!
5. While Chris and I are both so excited about our vacation, we are both a little anxious about leaving the wee ones for so long. Chris’s mom will be keeping them half of the week and my parents will have them the last part. We’re trying to keep it as routine as possible for the kids, so they’ll be in daycare all week. Hopefully, that will help them adjust to us not being there a little easier. I’m actually alright about being gone. I know I’ll miss them, but I’m really looking forward to some alone time with Chris. This will be like a second honeymoon for us! And it’s free! But Chris is a different story. Two or three times he has said to me out of the blue, “Maybe we should just stay home…” or “This isn’t a great time for us to be away. Maybe we should cancel.” Each time I told him if he wanted to stay home, that’d be fine but Sarah and I would be going instead. (How’s that for sympathetic?) The closer we get to leaving, though, the more I think about not being with the kids. I know they’ll be fine, but we’re just going to miss the little goobers!
So, there you have it. The next week for us is going to be chaotic, but so exciting! It’s been a long time since we had so many GOOD things happen to us at once!!! I’m trying to enjoy them all one at a time and to appreciate how important each adventure really is, but sitting here on Sunday afternoon looking at the week laid out before me, all I can think is, “How will we ever make it to April?!?!”
Last weekend, my BFF, Sarah, made me run another 5k with her. Chris said that since I have now run two 5k’s, I am officially a runner. But I don’t think it counts if the ONLY time you run is when your friend drags you through a 5k…
(Do you like our socks???)
I put pictures on Facebook and Twitter and I had so many people congratulating me on being so “athletic.”
I feel like I should clarify.
I am about as athletic as a bag of Doritos. I want to work out. I want to be healthy. But I just don’t have time! And, I know, I know. You make time for what is important. But I have made time for my job, my kids, my husband, this blog, my home life, my church life, and, occasionally, a good book. There just aren’t enough hours in the day for any other priorities right now. So, working out falls to the wayside.
Well, not the wayside exactly. I try to let it fall to the wayside, but freaking Sarah keeps trying to force me into healthy living. At least every other day, Sarah calls to ask me to go do something healthy – walk around the neighborhood (yes, we grew up together, teach together, and we now live in the same neighborhood), go for a jog, explore a nature park, take a yoga class. Every other day, Sarah calls or texts me with some activity for us to try. Which means every other day, I have to come up with an excuse. It’s becoming tiresome.
LET’S STOP THE CHARADE, SARAH!
But, she won’t stop. She is tenacious and unforgiving. It’s kind of like I’ve stepped in chewing gum and it won’t come off my shoe. I keep telling her I liked her better when all we did was drink and shop, but she will have none of my complaints. She’s tough, that Sarah.
So, last weekend, we ran a 5k. Well, “ran” is really ambiguous. Bless her athletic, vegan, little heart. She stuck by me the entire time and pretended to be as winded as I was. I started out alright. For the first mile(ish), I ran pretty good. I was passing people, tossing my hair, and picturing myself looking somewhat similar to those paparazzi pictures of Carrie Underwood when she works out. Then, I got a cramp in my side just as we came up on the first mile marker.
Now, I would like to pause here and appreciate the fact that I even made it a MILE. The last time I ran was in December at a 5k in Sea World. A mile without dying was a miracle to me.
With that cramp, I told Sarah I thought we had to stop and walk a bit.
“Oh, good,” Sarah said politely. “I’m tired, too.”
Now that was just a blatant lie. Sarah runs all the time and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t sweat. Like, ever. So the fact that she pretended to need a break for my sake was nice of her. We slowed to a quick walk pace for about 10 minutes.
“Okay,” I said. “I think I’m ready.”
We started running again for about 5 minutes and then I was POSITIVE I was going to either:
a) throw up
b) pass out
c) die
We were running on a cobblestone road and I really think that it was looking down at those cobblestones that made me suddenly get sick to my stomach. Well, those and the fact that in the past two months I hadn’t run further than to my car in the Target parking lot when it was raining. I told Sarah we had to stop.
“Oh, good,” Sarah chirped happily. “I’m winded.”
But she didn’t look winded. She looked windblown in that sitting-beside-a-breezy-beach-drinking-a-margarita way. But she stopped and walked with me anyway.
And we never ran again.
I walked the last almost two miles and I thought I was going to either:
a) throw up
b) pass out
c) kill someone…preferably Sarah
In the last fourth of a mile, the cameras and crowds started lining the street and yelling to encourage us. I wanted to yell back at them to shut the hell up and let me die in peace, but Sarah insisted that we actually RUN across the finish line. When I started running again, I couldn’t feel my legs. At all. I figured that meant either:
a) I was about to throw up
b) I was about to pass out
c) my legs had actually fallen off sometime during the second mile and I hadn’t even noticed
But, I did it. Dammit. I ran my short, fat legs across that finish line and I even resisted the urge to hit the runners who had already finished the race and looked all fresh-faced as they cheered for us and congratulated us. So, there’s a win. Nobody got punched.
The moral of this pathetic story? Find friends who are lazier than you and who want you to become lazier than them, instead of friends who want you to be healthy and live a long, full life. Those kinds of friends are overrated. So is running.
Get updates via Facebook |
Become a fan of Marriage Confessions
Categories
Weddings
blogging
Around the House
Changes
Childhood
Husbands
Jobs and Careers
Laundry
Lucy
Marriage
Molly
Money
Moving
New Haven
pregnancy
Random
Suburbia
The Dog Pound
travel
Vacation
Yale
Friendship
health
holidays
photography
Book
Communication
Etsy Day
Fights
Flashbacks
Florida
In the Kitchen
Letters to Chris
Operation BWYP
Reader of the Month
Southern Weddings
Stalking the Pioneer Woman
Understanding Chris
Understanding Katie
Videos
Giveaways
Out and About
Dads
FamilyBellycasts
Depression
Faith
Parenting
Just for Fun
Fun Things
31 Gifts
Reviews
Running
