Our trip to San Francisco is officially less than seven days away, and not surprisingly, I’ve become frantic, frazzled, restless, and obsessive. I’ve been waiting for Crazy Packing Mama to emerge, and folks, she, along with anxiety-induced Shopaholic Mama, have arrived.
I mastered the art of car packing a long time ago, but air travel with two kids for six hours across three time zones in coach with picky eaters, no Kefir, and the inevitability of having to take both boys (together and/or separate) to the (scary, germy, yucky, smelly, small, and loud) airplane bathroom is new territory for this Mama.
Last summer, my anxiety-induced shopaholism honed in on flip flops (yellow) and sun dresses (maxi). That was all in preparation for a beach vacation. This summer, as we prep for our big city San Francisco adventure, it’s The Bag. I capitalized the “T” and the “B” so you’ll have a better understanding the intensity (and idiocy) of this bout of shopaholic hysteria.
Here’s what I’ve been searching for:
An airplane-riding, city-roaming, café-dining, beach-walking, island-hiking, lap-top, wipes, and Transformer-holding, wine-tasting, kid stuff-schlepping bag with two outside pockets for water bottles/kid cups. It cannot be leather or a technical diaper bag, it must have generous shoulder handles and a cross-body strap option, it will preferably be made by Marc Jacobs, and must be on sale for, oh, $19.99.
I haven’t found The Bag yet (surprise, surprise), but I get an “A” for effort (or an “A” for a serious nut case). Perhaps if I just looked in my closet I’d realize I already own The Bag, but that would be no fun. I’ve been to three malls in the last two weeks, including an outlet mall (and I don’t like outlet shopping or outlet mall parking lots), but The Bag (I’ve added italics for the sake of drama) is still out of my reach…unless I decide to buy the $198 Marc Jacobs “Pretty Nylon Medium Tate” bag at Nordstrom. Fear not, I haven’t sunk that low…yet. But I’ve sunk low enough to buy some other stuff essential travel accessories.
Kid headphones:
A travel DVD holder that holds up to 24 movies (Dylan is very happy about this):
A housewarming gift for my sister. I realize I’ve ruined the surprise for her because she’ll read this, but I cannot withhold my excitement about this strange and amazing pointy plastic holder thingy from The Container Store that does its ingenious “holding miscellaneous crap” job in the kitchen, bathroom, office, or the moon. Seriously, this is my Favorite. Find. Ever. (More capital letters.):
An owl wallet. $4.99 at Target…how could I resist? Do you think it’s a mean owl? Just wondering:
And last but not least, backpacks on wheels for the boys:
Thank you, Grandma Irene! Since I will inevitably end up in charge of schlepping the boys’ bags through the airport when they’re “too tired” to do it on their own, I thought it would be nice to be able to roll them. They’re so excited about the trip that they’ve already started to fill the backpacks with toys. For some reason, they don’t hear me when I tell them we’re bringing a few toys to California. (They don’t seem to hear me when I ask them to brush their teeth either.) I just hope I can convince Dylan to check his massive collection of Squinkies rather than bringing them on the plane. I can’t think of anything more terrifying than Squinkies on a plane.
p.s. At the time of publication, the Runaway Crazy Packing Shopaholic Mama shifted her focus to the sweater jacket/wrap/cardigan. In black. Preferably with pockets. Perfect for cool San Francisco fog.
The Runaway Mama by Jen Gregory 