Lightening my load...

"There's a really cute, hot pink, Kate Spade diaper bag I'm looking at. Mother's Day gift?"

This was the text I sent to H as I wandered around Buy Buy Baby, helping a friend register for her baby shower. This bag, pictured left, was so cute and so me. It was the antithesis to the camouflage diaper bag I bought in a fit of pride upon discovering my last child was male. H's reply?


"Maybe, if we still used, you know, diapers. I think what you carry now is called 'a purse'."

Huh. It really had not dawned on me that I have, in fact, moved out of the diaper, and therefore, diaper bag, phase of my life. I have, on occasion, still dragged out the camo bag for particularly long, or dirty, outings, like to the zoo, not wanting to sully my fake Tory Burch with sunscreen and juice box straw wrappers, but on a day-to-day basis, I have actually been carrying a purse. When did that happen?

Then I began to realize, without any great pomp or circumstance, I have reached a lot of parenting milestones for the last time and didn't blink an eye. The biggest one, as H mentioned, is diapers. Little Man still wears one at night to sleep, and to take a massive shit in while he lies in bed in the morning, the consummate male, too lazy to get up, lounging in his own filth, rather than use the potty two feet away from his bed or coming to get me once he has unloaded in his pants. But other than that, he is potty trained during the day. A jumbo box of diapers gets us through almost three months (and no, I won't buy Pull-Ups. Twice the price of diapers, four times as hard to get off, and ten times less absorbent, LM can do without the fancy Cars and Toy Story logo, thank you). At Target the other day, I realized I do not, for the first time, need to buy swim diapers - which are really diapers in the academic sense in that they prevent any solid waste for causing a baby Ruth situation at the town pool. Although I've seen enough brown-streaked toddler legs to make me gag. Regardless of the type of fecal containment system it is, I don't need one during the day.

The list goes on and on. Sippy cups, for example, used to come tumbling out of our over-crowded cabinets in an avalanche of character themed plastic, and now we only have four or five of them that are used in the morning at breakfast, when I really just can't handle any spills without turning into Mommy Dearest. Those adhesive plastic table liners you use to stop your kid from eating finger food directly off the filthy Friendly's table are a thing of the past, as are the need for a booster seat at restaurants. And now that LM is hell on wheels on his new Cars 2 bike, I think even my stroller days are numbered.

Out to dinner with last night with avid reader, turned new pal, A, she showed me the lovely clutch she had just bought as her new everyday bag. Having preteen children, she was able to get all of her vitals into a bag the size of a large sandwich. I stared in wonder, but really, I am not that far off. Taking inventory of my own emergency supply list, I realized, the necessities come down to a bottle of water, a bag of pretzels, a spare pair of tighty-whities and shorts, and, having a son, Band-Aids. Lots and lots of Band-Aids. A small hobo** would do nicely.

In the end, the bag I wound up buying this spring was a hot pink, monogrammed, LL Bean tote. Big enough for the supply list above, but small enough to prevent me from overloading it with crap. This bag is a baby, or should I say, big-kid step, toward the new phase in my life. I'm not ready to commit to a bag not big enough to lose my phone in on a daily basis. Someday, will be able to buy an every day bag that is not machine washable, and when that day comes, the bag department at Nordstrom had better be prepared.

*And thank God I only buy fakes, since during Mother's Day brunch, #1 dropped a full glass of ice water, glass, and all, sideways into my purse.
**The style of bag, not a homeless midget