Just One More Thing

Okay, I don't want to just list all of the problems without any solutions, but I realized something that I left off my list yesterday. My car is full of crap, and I never clean it out. I have a friend that I used to tease because her car always contained the most random stuff. Not just the usual sports gear, umbrellas, beach blanket kinda stuff. If you needed a new pair of pants (hey, when you work with kids, sometimes you get peed on), you could probably find some in her car. Or pretty much an entire new wardrobe. She used to tell me, "When you have kids, you'll understand." And I thought, "I doubt I will ever understand why you drive around with a blender and a sandwich maker in your trunk." But I think I sort of get it. When you have kids, you have more stuff, and it seems like you're always transporting it around. And when you get back home, your hands are never free to be able to carry all that stuff back inside and still be able to reach for your keys to unlock your door. Especially, I might add, if you're carrying a baby.

I took an inventory today of all the things in just the front of my car (driver's seat, passenger seat and floor):

1 t-shirt
1 toy car
1 half empty coke can
2 jackets
2 Toys R Us coupons
1 1/2 Gerber puffs
1 can of spray sunscreen
2 McDonald's toys
1 lip balm
2 crumpled receipts
1 sock
1 pair of tweezers
2 kid's artwork from preschool
1 broken bluetooth
1 formula dispenser
2 rocks (collected by the preschooler)
8 push pins
1 marble
1 baby spoon
1 bottle top
3 dirty Kleenex (yuck!)
1 toy spider

This doesn't even include the stuff that I would have found if I looked in the back of the car below the kids' seats or in the cargo area (dried peas and wet wipes, anyone?). So, I decided that I must add this to the list of things that I'd like to change. Tomorrow, I'll clean out my car and do my best to keep it that way on a daily basis.

How did today go? Well, I started thinking about solutions. Chris took the day off work to help out with the sick baby while I went to work. Significantly less stressful for me, and we made dinner at home. Not enough exercise, but no eating out or fast food. It was a decent start.