The Caboodle

Upon first inspection to the unsuspecting male, this might seem to be an ordinary, albeit pink, little box.  But any female born circa 1980 would beg to differ.  When I found my old Caboodle tucked away in a bathroom at my parents' house, I was instantly transported to the time of  scrunchies, crimping irons, and Aquanet hairspray.  Oh to be a girl in the 80s!  Home perm?  Oh yes.  Gravity-defying bangs?  You betcha.

I had no immediate use for my Caboodle, yet I couldn't bear the thought of throwing it out.  By happenstance, around the same time, Jeff let drop that he was looking for a storage bin for his soldering supplies.  But could he really bear to store his manly tools in a box that once held a collection of Wet n Wild nail polish?



Good thing he is secure in his manhood.  And I love him for it.

Grocery Shopping Checklist

I love grocery shopping.  Is that weird?  Back in our pre-kid days, I used to love lingering at the store, leisurely reading labels, analyzing choices, and imagining new meal ideas.  Jeff and I would sometimes go together and make an event out of it.  Many of our early dates were spent studying at the U Village QFC, which is where we learned that it is indeed possible to eat a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream with a pair of plastic knives.

Then along came the kids, and suddenly grocery shopping wasn’t so fun anymore.  It became more of a race to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible.  No more lingering in the aisles.  And if I made it to one end of the store but forgot to pick up an item from the other end, we’d just have to live without cheese for the week, or whatever else it was.  I needed to get organized.



Based on the suggestions of other wise shoppers out there, I created lists of our staple items, broken down by aisle or section, for the three main stores we frequent: Safeway, Trader Joe’s, and Costco.  When we run out of something, we draw a little box next to the item on the list (hearkening back to my residency days of endless checklists).  This serves two purposes:  (1) at the store, I check things off as I go, aisle by aisle, and I don’t need to dash back to the start for a forgotten bottle of mustard and (2) it jogs my often foggy memory to recall whether we might be running low on a staple, such as garlic or . . . canned pumpkin :)

How do YOU manage grocery shopping with kids?

Diaper Bag Checklist

Who packs the diaper bag in your family?

I'm willing to bet this wasn't covered in any premarital counseling sessions on assumed division of labor in the household.  We long ago decided that I would happily do all the laundry if Jeff took out the garbage, but we never discussed who would make sure we never left the house without a binky.  Hint:  it's me.  It seemed a natural decision, maybe because a diaper bag is somewhat an extension of a purse.  A big, heavy, crumb-filled purse.  Now I'm not complaining about the task; I'm just pleading my case for why I'm often the last one out the door on our way to church.



The arsenal of goods needed to leave the house with a baby and toddler in tow is daunting.  Is it just our kids, or do all newborns have a way of pooping so explosively that you need a ballistics expert to explain how poop could simultaneously blast its way up to the shoulders and down to the knees at the same time?  Also, both of our kids were big time droolers and spewers, going through a dozen or more bibs and burp cloths a day.  Now that she is a toddler, AJ requires a battery of snack options, each getting more and more enticing to be saved for more and more dire situations.  So between the diapers, clothes, bibs, burp clothes, binkies, raisins, bananas, cheese, sunscreen, hand wipes, etc., something is bound to be left behind.



After leaving the house one too many times with insufficient supplies of burp cloths, I wrote out a quick diaper bag inventory list.  This little 3x5” notecard allows me to quickly scan and restock the bag rather than relying on my often foggy mommy-brain memory.  As a fringe benefit, it also allows other people to pack the bag for me.  Last week, Jeff asked, “What else do I need to pack?” and rather than me listing off twenty different items, I just referred him to the list.