To my fellow dads out there; have you ever been the one to pack the dreaded diaper bag? For those who have, thank you for your service. For those who haven’t, or those who are going to have to in the near future, let me give you a crash course on the absurdity that ensues while packing the Mary Poppins bag of wonders.
The wife knows best, correct? If you answered otherwise, get it together and be honest with yourself. She does. So when it came to picking out diaper bags, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that my wife would pick not one but TWO diaper bags for our ONE child. In her mind, the $300 leather fashionable bag is for “going out” and for “dressier occasions”. As if you want to take a baby in need of a diaper bag to any dressy occasion where they will most likely cry, scream, pee, poop (and its never the easy one when you go out, its always a huge explosion), but I digress. Wife knows best.
The second diaper bag is the “sportier” looking backpack that can “be yours honey! It’s the man version of the diaper bag!” Yeah ok, dear. This bag may be gray, but having my daughters flowery headbands and hair clips dangling off of it really shouts Manly Man. O well, I am a supportive dad who loves his daughter so flower bows, sign me up. Anyway, as you could have guessed, do we use the expensive leather bag at all? No! We use the backpack version no matter where we go, but that’s compromise. She is happy with the two diaper bags (one being useless), and I get to pay for it and have a happy life…
After watching my wife pack the bag several times, it was finally my time to shine. I was finally asked, ” babe, can you pack the diaper bag”? This was my shot, the coach finally put me in, and I needed to prove that I could play the game. Diapers; check. Wipes; check. Spare outfit; check (although it wasn’t “a cute one”). Pacifiers; check. Blankets; flippin check. I had everything. The bag was bursting and I could barely zip it closed. We were well prepared for our maiden voyage to visit my brother and sister-in-law who live an hour and a half away.
Once we got there, it became very apparent how awful of a job I did preparing the bag of tricks and magic. “did you bring the wubbaNUB?” my wife asked 5 minutes into us arriving. Crap, what even is that again? No, I forgot the special pacifier that has nifty stuffed animal attached to it. Will our baby survive? Yes, but in my wife’s eyes, I might as well have dropped her down the stairs. “Let’s all go outside and hang out there its beautiful out!”, my sister-in-law said. Well, just go ahead and throw a monkey wrench in the mix why don’t you! I was not prepared for an outside excursion.
“Did you pack the baby’s hat?”, my wife asked. Uh, no, forgot that too. I could see the flames of hatred beaming out of my wife’s eyes at me. No big deal, I brought a blanket! We can totally cover her with that. Genius idea I thought, but then everyone kept dropping it on the ground, and I could see my wife fidgeting in her chair about to lose her mind. After some fun family time (and it really was so much fun! Sister-in-Law and brother shout out! We love you so much!), it was time for her to have her diaper changed. Remember when I mentioned previously about the explosive poops? Well, this was one of those times. It was all up the back and the clothes were a mess. But hey, I brought the spare un-cute outfit!
I got her all saddled up, and I put on the nice white bib I packed. Now, I don’t know about other people, but in our household, apparently we also have 2 types of bibs; decorative bibs, and bibs used for feeding. The nice white ones were on top of the drawer, so I went with those. WRONG. SO WRONG. Those are decorative ones only!! I don’t think I have ever seen my wife slap her forehead in disgust so quickly. It did get the job done, so at least that went smoothly.
After she was done feeding, some spit up got all over her outfit. That now makes two outfits ruined by bodily functions. Quiz time, how many outfits did I pack? If you answered one spare, you are correct!! I am really bad at math, but even I know that means we are now out of clothes. My wife basically needs to sit down and breathe at this point. Quick thinking; throw it in the wash.
As we are waiting for the clothes to get cleaned and dried, the baby has peed through her diaper twice. Now, I realize I didn’t mention how many diapers I packed, but I packed 6. We now only have 3 left. Within the next 30 minutes she did another aggressive poop sesh, that took down not only one but two of the diapers. Don’t ask me how, but it happened. We are down to one. I am now hyperventilating, my wife is practically in a coma, and the baby is just smiling away babbling. We figured at this point, it was time to go.
We quickly packed up, thanked them for having us, and prayed to God that we make it home without another accident. I didn’t even get to try one of the awesome looking chocolate covered pretzels I bought. I was assured they were great.
By the time we got home, the baby was still sleeping from the car ride, and although my wife wanted to stab me while we were there, we both cracked up laughing at all of the events. Needless to say, I now have broken in the second diaper bag for the overflow of items I now pack. I basically shove her entire bedroom in two bags, hoping I have enough.
If I learned one thing from this experience, it is to not take things too seriously, there is always a solution, I love the crap out of my wife even though she can be a bit much with the baby stuff, and I appreciate my family for not judging us (too much).
1st Time Dad Probs 