Diaper Bags

In a given week, I need the following diaper bags:

1.  My diaper bag--It's big.  It holds the things we need to get through most outings.  It has my wallet, my camera, my phone, and all the usual diaper bag components times four.  It's actually a bag I spent some money on.  I learned right away in my foster parent experience that my cheapo diaper bag with a big open center and very few pockets caused countless wasted minutes of searching and frustration.  The more little ones you have, the more you have to carry with you, and the more essential a decent diaper bag becomes.  This bag has lots of pockets in all the right places.  I know exactly where my phone can be found.  I have a spot for pens and hand sanitizer.  It's a handy bag.

2.  A diaper bag for Miss Personality:  This is a small one, with a change of clothes, two diapers, wipes, a sippy cup, and a snack.  This goes with her to her visits with her mom.

3.  A diaper bag for Wee One and Miss Independent:  This one is fairly small, with two diapers, wipes, a rattle,  a Pull-up, changes of clothes for each, a bottle, formula, and a sippy cup.

4.  A diaper bag for Saturday night church:  This one holds one diaper for each kid, changes of clothes for those most likely to need them, a bottle, and wipes.  I had a diaper bag that always stayed in the van with extra clothes, diapers, wipes, bibs, and spoons.  It has now been thrown into rotation as Diaper Bag Number 4.  

5.  The Saturday night church diaper bag plus a second Sunday morning diaper bag:  the babies go into a separate nursery on Sundays, so Wee One has to have his own bag with a diaper, wipes, change of clothes, and a bottle.  The others can reuse the Saturday night bag.

It seems silly to want that many separate bags, but it's necessary in my little world.  I'm not about to hand over my diaper bag to parents and nursery workers.  That would be like giving someone different my purse to dig through a few times a week.  It's mine.  If there are stale Cheerios on the bottom, it's my business alone!  If I have a receipt for a fudge shop, it is not for others to see.  (Me?  Send my teen into a fudge shop to kill time while littles are sleeping between visits???)  Uh-uhm.  

I can tell you from experience what happens if my bags have to do double duty.  Right now I have a pile of Miss Personality's things on my counter since I dumped it all out to use that same bag for a second Sunday morning bag. Tomorrow morning, I will dump the bag again to switch it back to a family visit bag.  That annoys me and messes up my counters.  I much prefer to have each bag have a set purpose, so I know whose clothes will be in it, what size diaper I will find when I open it, and which one to grab when I am running late.  So, the next time I'm at Savers, I will be looking for yet another cheap, small, decent bag with a zipper to serve as Bag Number 5 in my line-up.  

Isn't my life exciting?  I felt the need to blog about diaper bags...