Does your Mom Car have a purse? Well, mine does! Let’s do a “What’s in My Mom Car’s Purse? Summer Edition.”
First off, I’m sorry if I confused you. I call my car my “Mom Car” because it’s basically the mode of transportation that chauffeurs my kids around, especially in the summertime. My two kiddos and I are stuck together like peanut butter, jelly, and banana in the summer. It really only becomes my car again on the rare occasion I get to run errands alone. Therefore, I carry a lot of things around in my car’s “purse” just for the summer months. This “purse” is actually a trunk organizer–and it holds all of our family summer essentials.
Meet My “Purse”
For my own sanity, I like to keep this “purse” (or trunk organizer) stocked with essentials for my family all year long. But summer is its own kind of beast since we’re out and about so much. The items I keep stocked in it have saved me on many occasions. I highly suggest keeping summer essentials in your trunk at all times.
My biggest tip here is to tailor your trunk organizer to your kids’ individual needs and ages. If you have a child with food allergies, this would be a good place to store allergy necessities (just be mindful of extreme outdoor heat when it comes to medicine). When my kids were babies, this is also where I stored extra diapers and wipes. I rarely had an emergency occasion where I had to run to the store to grab extra during an outing, because I was always prepared.
I’d be happy to share with you what’s in my car’s “purse” for the summer:
Extra Clothing
To start, I like to keep one extra outfit per kid in the car. When they were younger, I would keep multiples. But now that they’re older, one is enough for us. This is for the inevitable ice cream spills, hot dog ketchup-and-mustard disasters, impromptu water-balloon sessions, potty accidents for younger children, etc. I use an old outfit that’s semi-small, so we’re not wasting perfectly-fitting clothes.
One Bathing Suit Per Kid
This is for the same reason as the extra clothes above, except when swimming. I learned the hard way that bathing suits aren’t ketchup-and-mustard-proof either. It’s better to have an extra on hand than to soil a clean swimming pool with gross ketchup and mustard stains (or worse).
Summer Essentials
I also always have extra sunscreen and hats in my trunk organizer because of the amount of time I’ve forgotten to put sunscreen on my kids while at home. This also goes for insect repellent!
“Busy Activities”
Like yours, my kids also act like they’re moving out whenever we go somewhere. Thus, they bring every activity and toy they own. But sometimes, we’ll have an impromptu outing where they can’t gather nine chapter books that they’re absolutely going to finish reading on our 15-minute car ride.
On these occasions, I’m so glad I thought ahead and kept a bunch of activities in my car. I like to keep extra colored pencils, activity books, magnetic toys, mini puzzles, drawing notepads, plain old lined paper, etc. These are for the doctor’s office waiting room, if I have an appointment somewhere, lengthy dinners, music class while waiting for a sibling to be finished, sports practices, etc.
First-Aid Kit
I always keep a first-aid kit throughout the year, but during summer this GROWS. It becomes a chubby first-aid kit, filled with items such as large-sized band-aids, alcohol pads, bug sting medicine, tweezers, kids’ antihistamine medicine, and more. This is due to the extra amount of time we spend outdoors!
Cleaning Supplies
As for the cleaning supplies, I keep extra hand sanitizer, paper towels, tissues, hand wipes, and mini garbage bags for spills or messes on hand too.
Grooming Necessities
This goes for both boys and girls. I like to keep extra deodorant, hand and face wipes, a hairbrush, hairpins, hair ties, travel-size leave-in conditioner, and hair clips in my car “purse.” This way, after swimming, if they’ve forgotten to bring a hair brush (which happens more often than not), I always have one.
Don’t Be Overwhelmed . . .
I know, I know, after reading through this list you’re probably wondering why you want to carry extra stuff on top of the stuff you’re already carrying daily. But here’s the thing: you’ll pack it once right now at the beginning of summer and won’t have to pack it again except to restock. I genuinely can’t state the number of times this trunk organizer full of our summer essentials has SAVED me over the years!
