a diaper bag saga

the other day, we spent some time running errands. we were about to turn onto our street when i had a sinking feeling and suddenly turned to jeremy and said, "do we have the diaper bag?" i frantically spun around to look for it...sure enough, it wasn't there. jeremy immediately turned the car around and we went into panic mode. where did we see it last? which of us was the last person to have contact with it? we came to the conclusion that we had left it at the last store we had stopped at and that it must have been left in the shopping cart in the parking lot. we also concluded that it was jeremy's fault, and decided that we were not going to have a fight about it.

the fact that it was jeremy's fault was really not a big deal. you see, in the last year, we have left our diaper bag behind at least four other times, and we have each had our turn being the one at fault. in fact, the worst leaving behind of the diaper bag was my fault...when we were on a road trip to my mom's house and i left it at a coffee shop forty-five minutes away from her house. the bad part was that neither of us realized we had left it until we got to my mom's house, so jeremy had to drive all the way back to pick it up.

so, the frantic realization that the diaper bag is missing is not unfamiliar to us. however, the fact that we decided we were not going to have a fight about it was a big deal. you see, we have had fights over several of the other diaper bag mishaps, so this was a big step for us. and we actually stuck to that agreement and didn't have a fight. hurray for us.

we thought that things were looking up in terms of keeping track of our diaper bag. before we had our boy, we just had a small little backpack type bag that was our diaper bag. it was gray and was easy to leave behind. after the fourth time we lost our diaper bag (in the shopping cart at a grocery store in california) jeremy announced that our next diaper bag was going to be very large and neon in color. we realized that neither of us really wanted to carry around a neon bag, but after realizing the amount of stuff we have to schlep around with a baby and a toddler, we now own what just might be the world's largest diaper bag. you would think it would be impossible to leave behind since it is so big, but apparently it's not.

anyway...back to the car ride to retrieve the forgotten bag. i, of course, start listing off everything that is in the bag that someone could steal (including my wallet). my heart was pounding and i felt helpless as we were several miles away from the store and all i could do was wait out the drive there. jeremy was more calm and was sure that we would find the bag and all would be well. he even prayed out loud on the way there.

sure enough...about ten minutes later we pulled into the parking lot and there was a worker retrieving the shopping carts from the cart corral. he must have seen us frantically scanning the parking lot and he asked if we were looking for a diaper bag! why yes, we were! he told us that it was waiting for us inside the store, safe and sound.

it was, and all my fears were relieved. our diaper bag came home with us, and on the drive home we brainstormed ideas to prevent this from happening in the future (a diaper bag tracking device? an alarm that goes off whenever we get too far away from the bag? permanently attaching the bag to one of our bodies?). in the end, we came up with a simple system that will {hopefully} keep us from leaving the bag behind again any time soon. in addition to the new system, we just might be on the lookout for a huge, neon diaper bag...