“Mommy, I’m a schlepper.” I swear to god, Poopies, this is exactly what my 5 year-old declared the other night right before we walked out the door to go to dinner. See the picture below please, as these are all the items my darling A wanted to take with her to the restaurant :

Exhibit A: Schlepping Syndrome

(pictured above is Jesse from Toy Story, a pink car, a Strawberry Shortcake Clubhouse (see post on Target guilt), Plum Pudding (god forbid you didn’t have a doll to sit in the clubhouse) a Polly Pocket, a beaded necklace, Flounder (you know, that red-headed Mermaid ho’s best pal), a Nerd scented chapstick (sans lid of course), Ken (looking his finest in the Chippendale-esque attire), Barbie of course, as that bitch goes wherever he goes and 1 white pom pom (no freakin’ clue why she insisted on only bringing one). Thankfully, D only wanted to bring a blanket and a book.

So…my lovely Poopies, I started thinking about where all this schlepping comes from and, as always, I had to look no further than right in the mirror. For you see, I’m afraid to admit that the “schlepping gene” has been passed down to my daughter from me. I wish it weren’t so, but I’m trying to keep it real of course, and after I conducted a little experiment of my own, I didn’t need to look any further than myself to find out where she gets this from. Poops here is a major schlepper. Anyone who’s been in my car since having children can definitely attest to that. And the little experiement I’m referring to? Well, let’s just say, I took a look at the contents of my purse a few minutes ago and compiled a list of my own based on its contents. It ain’t  pretty, here’s what I found:

- wallet

- ear phones

- insoles of my running shoes (no joke, i wear orthotics in my gym shoes and left the unused insoles in my purse)

- 2 bruised clementine tangerines (dangerously close to rotting and unloading funky “smush” into my purse)

- 3 packs of travel kleenex (it’s cold season, c’mon!)

- 2 packs of travel wet ones (for my girls…you never ever know when you’ll end up in a sticky situation)

- 2 boxes of yogurt raisins (for my girls)

- 2 small bags of pirates booty (also for my girls)

- a pair of gym socks (sadly, i have no idea what day these were worn, as I often change into my uggs in the car when i’m done working out. i mean to put them in the laundry when i get home, but they don’t often make it there)

- my i-phone

- mints

- gum

- hand sanitizer

- Bath & Body Works Vanilla Sugar Body Spray (cause ole Poops here stinketh after her workouts and doesn’t shower til 4 o-clock in the afternoon)

- 4 diff kinds of lip balm of various scents and brands, though all with spf : )

- box of apple juice (for my girls)

- 3 protein bars (1 Lara bar, 2 standard bars)

- my daytimer/calendar

- several birthday party invitations

- several “lunch bunch” sign-up forms for March for preschool that should’ve been turned in already to the office (oops)

- a double-shot can of espresso from starbucks (that will no doubt explode all over me when i eventually get so desperate for caffeine and open it, forgetting that it’s been shaken all around in my purse)

- tons and tons of loose change

- several pens from places I have no recollection of ever visiting

- d’s 4 year wellness visit check-up sheets from several weeks ago

- 2 Princess headbands

- a bunch of Polly Pocket outfits and shoes

- Band-aids and travel neosporin

- 2 pairs of cheapy shmeapy sunglasses

- 2 string cheeses (no clue how long they’ve been hiding out in there…def wouldn’t let the girls near those)

- a ton of loose receipts

- a ton of loose bobby pins

- a ton of loose gum wrappers

- 1 bottle of water

OMG. I’m a fucking purse hoarder! Until I took inventory, I honestly had no idea how much shit was actually in there. It’s such a big, deep black purse that I didn’t even realize how much I was fitting in there. Wow. Poor A, it’s not her fault she’s a schlepper! Poops is the biggest schlepper of all! But, and my friends can bear witness to this, I always have something for the kiddies to eat when we’re at a park and someone gets hungry. I always have something for them to drink. I always have something for them to wipe their nose on or wipe their hands with…and if no restrooms are available and it’s an emergency, I’ve got something for them to wipe other things with too! : ) So…some of the contents of my bag can’t be all that bad. They definitely come in hand and make life more convenient. But what’s with all the other unnecessary stuff? Why don’t I throw some shit out? And why don’t I remember what all is in there?

Oh wait, I know. BECAUSE I’M ALWAYS FOCUSED ON THE TWO LITTLE PEOPLE THAT DOMINATE MY FULL ATTENTION 90% OF THE TIME. Excuse? Not really. Instead of taking time to constantly clean out the contents of my bag, I would rather get in a workout at the gym. I would rather run my errands to the grocery store sans children or squeeze in time for coffee with a friend and have a grown-up conversation (you know the kind where you actually get to use your brain and no one whines or complains in the middle) or I am racing home to make my house immaculate so a prospective buyer can come check it out and decide they only want it if we literally give it away (ah, the joys of today’s current housing market). But I digress.

Ok, so maybe I need to devote 5 minutes a week to taking stock of what’s in my purse and getting rid of things in there that I don’t need (or things I’m wasting, like Clementines that should’ve been eaten or re-stocked in the kitchen!) Maybe because A always sees me carting around so much crap she thinks it’s perfectly normal to leave the house with tremendous amounts of crap too. But it’s not! And there’s no way I’m letting another generation of my family become cursed with schlepping! It stops now! I made her cut down on half of what she took the other night, so we only ended up with the pink car, the Plum Pudding doll and some of the random Polly Pocket stuff from my purse at dinner (see? it came in handy! : ) But it was a struggle to get her to leave Ken and Barbie and Jesse and all the other stuff at home. She was annoyed and put up a bit of a fight. She only relented a bit when I told her that if she brought all that stuff with her then she’d have to share it all with the friend we were meeting for dinner. Nothing like preying on a 5 year-old selfish streak to get your way!

From now on, it’s the 1 toy only rule. No matter what. And that’s going to have to apply to me as well. 1 thing only for Poops too! Not multiple snacks or drinks or wipees or kleenex etc. I’m downsizing to a smaller purse in order to put my non-schlepping plan in action. If the girls don’t see me lugging a zillion things around then they won’t want to either. This is definitely an example I need to be setting. I don’t want to have the ”schlepping kid” at elementary school who is loaded-down by their gynormous back pack filled with things they don’t need. You all know you knew kids like that back in grade school! A little sympathy is in order now…it wasn’t their fault! Their mom and dad were probably schleppers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a MOMtra for the weekend! Comment-it-up Poopies!!!Hope you all have an awesome afternoon and for you local followers, hope you were able to get outside and enjoy this fantastic weather! And please sign-up to follow my crazy ass on Pinterest if you haven’t already! My pins and boards are as ridiculous as me : ) Lots of laughs I promise! Click the Pinerest icon at the top of my blog. Oh and look-out for the Poopie tweets soon!

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