“Mom, did you bring my ipod?” This question is coming at me from the back seat of the car quite a bit lately, and I have only myself to blame. For the past 8 years, my son has not had to look any further than my ‘magic bag’ for anything and everything he needs once we leave the house. Well, within reason. He knows he won’t find his basketball in my bag, although we do keep one in the car these days, just in case. He knows he won’t find an ice cream cone in there, but he knows he will find the cash to buy an ice cream cone, the napkins to hold around the cone and the hand wipes to clean up his sticky hands after indulging in the ice cream cone. In fact, my bag is so well stocked, that when my son was a toddler and we joined other kids for play dates, his little friends would stare longingly at my bag upon our arrival, wondering wide-eyed about what treats I might have for them that day. Apparently, I carried the best snacks. The freeze-dried fruit was very popular, and I also indulged in the name brand Gerber puffs instead of basic cheerios. I arrived with juice pouches instead of sippy cups, and mini corn muffins with blueberries baked in them. Or maybe it was just that I always had some kind of new surprise in the form of a snack, and it is common knowledge that toddlers are all about the snacks.
It’s my own fault that I have seen fit to carry everything from some kind of hand-held entertainment device to a change of underpants for my son all this time. But once he graduated to the ipod, I decided he needed to take responsibility for himself. Oh, I still provide the basics from hand wipes to benadryl to band-aids to a small flash light to search for things under the seat of the car to scotch tape for an emergency repair of homework sheets to extra baggies so I can divide up snacks into separate servings for each friend so no one bogarts the treats. And then there are those special days when I have a role of duct tape, always a handy item to carry with you, an extra mouth guard, or those sour candies for times when a snack isn’t quite right but you’ve gotta have something. Yes, it’s as if my bag is straight out of a Harry Potter or a Percy Jackson book. It looks relatively small compared to what I pull out of the darn thing. No tents, swords, compact kitchens or magical beans, but it’s still pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. But I should draw the line at the ipod. If my son wants it, or more importantly, if he is allowed to take it on whatever field trip we are on, then he should remember to bring it himself, right? Or am I being a mean mommy now that he’s so used to me having everything he needs in one compact location? Boy, I like being the one with the answers and the ipod. I think maybe I’ll sneak that thing into my magic bag for a few more years and really ruin him for his future wife, that’s okay these days, right?
