Here comes the bag lady

Call me a tomboy but I’ve always been perfectly happy with just carrying my wallet, cell phone and keys in my pants pockets. (I still carry my keys in my pockets just in case I happen to lose my purse.) In the past few years, I’ve found the need to carry a few more things with me — oftentimes a PDA (back in the days when I carried one), camera (always with me), notebook and pen (ditto) and more recently, a voice recorder.

Despite my lack of bag carrying, my parents have always seen it fit to give me some type of designer bag for my birthday and/or Christmas. Don’t get me wrong — I’m grateful to my parents for spending the money to get me nice handbags but since I’m so far from girly, it kind of makes me wonder if their ulterior motive for buying me such girly presents as a handbag are to help awaken my slumbering girly-girl side?

Whoa, was that a tangent

Anyhow, as most every mom knows, a diaper bag becomes your out-and-about survival kit. Honestly, I dreaded the idea of carrying around a diaper bag. There’s something about being overburdened with baggage that annoys me and it seemed to me that a baby was enough to tote around. Luckily, on a maternity shopping trip we happened to find the  JJ Cole Logic bag which The Hubster ™ promptly dubbed the “Mommy Commando” bag. As far as diaper bags go, I love, love, love this bag. It is small and utilitarian and held Just Enough ™ for our former needs. It did well for very quick trips as well as babywearing.

While I still do a lot of babywearing at home, I don’t necessarily wear The Little Empress everywhere we go anymore. For example, grocery shopping is MUCH easier done with her in the cart. Up until now, I’ve had her in a back carry in our SSC (Pikkolo). These days, she’s prone to grabbing at things without me being able to effectively stop her as well as arching her back when upset. Plus bending over isn’t always easy when she’s on my back.

But more importantly, TLE’s needs are changing. The days of being able to run out with our Mommy Command bag ™ with just a pack of wipes, diaper and maybe a change of clothes has disappeared. These days, TLE needs toys to keep her occupied on car trips which she may or may not nap during, snacks if we’re going out to eat with her in tow and all the accessories (and cleanup items!) to go along with that.

I currently have two dedicated diaper bags — one was a formula maker freebie that came with the mail and another is a pink paisley bag that my mother got for me on Mother’s Day. I can see why my mom chose pink; I’ve gone so overboard with the pink with TLE that I’ve pretty much guaranteed that she’ll harbor a seething hatred for the color once she’s old enough. Though I’m not sure what made her decide that paisley was a good pattern to gift me with. Yikes.

So now I am in the process of debating what type of diaper bag to get. There are so many choices that it makes my head spin. While I’ve been looking at various diaper bags, I haven’t forgotten the great suggestion that  Cousin L gave me while I was pregnant — to carry around the necessities in clear vinyl pouches and then just pop the pouches into the bag of choice. This way, there’s no need for a dedicated “diaper bag” when you can so easily convert another bag. (And these days, isn’t one of the selling points of diaper bags is that it doesn’t look like one?) I am leaning towards this choice if only I could find a bag that I’d like. I am a messenger bag kind of person but am also considering just a plain backpack.

The Hubster ™ however had a different suggestion.

The Hubster ™: Hey, why don’t you just use my XBox 360 bag?
Me: … you’ve gotta be kidding.
The Hubster ™: C’mon, it carried around my 360! It’d be plenty big enough to be a diaper bag.
Me: … dude, that is so gamer geek. Besides, we don’t have a 360 anymore.
The Hubster ™: Which is why it hasn’t been used much.
Me: I dunno. It gives me the feeling of “this baby sponsored by Microsoft!”
The Hubster ™: We could slap a Playstation 3 logo over it?
Me: No.

Be Sociable, Share!

•