Bag of Tricks

Unfortunately, my demeanor is a far cry from that of Mary Poppins. But, I do have a bag that's similar, so that should count for something. Remember when she was in Jane and Michael's room and pulled a lamp out of her bag, {WOW!} and then more and more stuff just kept coming, and coming... Well my purse has become quite a bag of tricks over the years, getting bigger and bigger with each additional Ruffling. I used to carry just my wallet and chapstick, boy, those were the days.
I was at a party at my friend Erin's house, and her friend told me about a scrapbook layout she'd seen of a woman's purse emptied out, so you could see all of it's contents. So after a recent visit to the dermatologist with all of the boys, in which my ridiculously stocked purse saved the day, I thought I'd steal the idea.
So here's the set-up: Like I said, we were at the dermatologist's office because I had hives all over my hands and arms, don't worry, I'm not contagious. I just get this sometimes when Todd is out of town, apparently some stress reaction. I guess I'm allergic to being a single Mommy. So after days of scritchity-scratching, I was tired of waiting for it to clear up on it's own. So off we went. Now the problem was that the twins had been to the pediatrician's the week before and had SHOTS, so as soon as we walked into the doctor's office, the smell of stainless steel and gauze had them screaming and clammering for the door. Literally, they were screaming by the time we sat down in the waiting room. Oh joy, this should be fun... So they were in the double stroller and Dawson was tagging along behind. I'd packed his little metal Toy Story lunchbox full of snacks to keep them (and myself) happy. We burned through every item while still in the waiting room, a bad sign. And then it happened again, more screaming. So I tried to play a little game by pushing the stroller away from me, then pulling it towards me fast and saying "boo!" or whatever the heck I could think of to make them laugh. It worked a few times, then I somehow managed to pinch poor Charlie's finger in part of the stroller tray and the cryng screaming began yet again. So by now we've waited 30 minutes and are finally getting called into a room. Thank you Lord. Little did I know we'd be there another HOUR or I would've asked for a sample of Xanax. I have thee worst luck with long waits when I'm with my kids. Lord have mercy. So this is where my purse comes in handy. Man oh man did I empty that thing. I used every fruit leather, every granola bar, 2 pieces of gum for Dawson, bandaids for fake owies, rub-on tattoos, suckers and fruit snacks. They brushed their hair with my comb, looked in my mirror, went through my brag book/photo album, washed their faces with wipes, sanitized their hands 18 times. I gave them coupons for ripping, my pen and paper for drawing, the whistle on my keys, chapstick, Advil (for me. Oh and I found an old Zofran from the twin pregnancy vomit-fest), stickers, I even let them tear open tampons for crying out loud. Then they were bored of all of that, so I used about half a dozen latex gloves to make balloons, we used tongue depressors, q-tips, about a jillion wet paper towels to clean up the stroller after it was assaulted by two 1 year olds with suckers. Ay carumba. I finally peeked my head out and told the nurse we were going to have to leave if someone didn't see me, like yesterday. So finally the nurse practitioner came in, which really didn't matter because I couldn't hear her above the horrifying screeches, and she couldn't hear me either. I think she understood my primal grunting, scratching and pointing, because she looked at my hands and arms with that magnifying, light-up mirror thingy (which is by the way a woman's worst enemy) and wrote me some prescriptions. Another day that aged me 7 years. I think by now I'm 10 years older than Todd, not the other way around.
So here's what's inside that magical bag. And by the way, I am type-A so all of these things have a home in a bunch of teeny pouches to keep it organized, but I dumped everything out for full effect.

And this is a light load, depending on where we are and what we're doing I may have a water bottle, some dipes, my camera, some crackers, my sunglasses....I'm just one step up from a camel.