First, I want to thank everyone who left their congratulations on our big news.  We are definitely excited and I am counting the days until the temps drop below 90 degrees here!  It’s killing me!  My nesting instinct is in high gear already and My Mr. Right just rolls his eyes at each new projects I take on.  Mostly because he knows I’ll run out of energy before I complete it and he will have to help me.  But, he’s amazing and always steps up.  I have some fun stuff along the baby theme coming up, so be on the look out for that.  Now, let’s get down to business.

 

Being a busy momma, I have, on more than one occasion, run out the door with my purse flung over one shoulder, the diaper bag over the other and Little Monkey tucked under my arm while my other hand fumbles for the keys or the Sippy Little Monkey thought would be fun to throw or the toy slipping out of the diaper bag, all the while running down the stairs and up the hill to the parking lot..  After everything is in the car, the seat belts are buckled and our house is in the rearview mirror I realize, “Shoot, I never ________!”  Insert a variety of activities in the blank.  Finished my make-up, finished straightening my hair, put eyeliner on both eyes, found my matching sock (or knee high, if we’re on our way to church), painted the rest of my toes (which means some of them are painted… and some are not… new trend?  I think not). 

 

As I’ve mentioned before, My Mr. Right travels a lot with his job.  So, errands are done with Little Monkey and, if you have any experience with two-year olds, you know that their patience for sitting in a cart at the store or the hot car seat in the car is always ten times shorter than your errand list.  I try to run errands in the morning so that we are home in time for lunch and Little Monkey’s nap time.  In the rush of getting up and getting breakfast and dressed and ready, I always seemed to get shorted on some part of my routine.  Forget to brush my hair?  Yep.  Mascara on only one eye…?  Yeah, uhm, that one was awkward since I realized before our first stop and had 6 stops to make.  The looks I got were kind of finny though.  It’s simple things, but things that make a difference.  I got tired of being the harried, frazzled-looking mom while running errands.  The pity looks got old.  So… I came up with the emergency kit.  However, this baby doesn’t have band-aids, antibiotic ointment or cold compresses, no sirree.  Not that those things are bad.  But, this is Momma’s Emergency Kit.

 

        

Here’s the How:

1)  You will need:

– A container of some sort.  I found my bag at Target in the travel-size products section.  It was a whopping $.99 and they had several designs to choose from.  I, myself, am a little obsessed with polka dots.  You could use a zippy bag or up-cycle an old sour cream container or whatever.  You don’t have to buy anything.

– Extras of your most trusted and favorite beauty supplies.  Some ideas:

– foundation, or at least a cover-up stick or tinted moisturizer

– lipgloss or chapstick

– mascara

– eyelash curler

– eye liner

– liquid to powder blush or a color stick

– eye shadow

– brow pencil

– nail polish remover pads

– extra pair of hosiery (or socks, or mittens, a scarf, whatever it is that you ALWAYS forget)

– Q-Tips

– nail clippers and file

– tweezers

– lotion

– $20 cash (or however much you prefer)

– small package of wet wipes

 

2)  You can put whatever you need or want in your kit.  Maybe you do want band-aids and antibiotic ointment in yours…  This is totally personalized to your needs and hectic life.  Just make sure that whatever you put in your kit can handle temperature changes.  It would be really lame (and not very helpful) if you went to use your foundation and it was frozen or something.  Depending on where you live, the temperature changes may be extreme.  You can check the labels on cosmetics for best storage temps.  Oh and if you’re up-cycling an old container, feel free to decorate your little heart out.

 

3)  Take your “extras” and open any packages.  Packaging takes up space and this kit is meant to be compact.  Use a permanent marker and label them with the date you open(ed) them.  You should replace items approximately every three to six months, depending on the specific item.  Rotate your cosmetics if you realize something is coming up for replacement soon.  You’ll minimize waste. 

 

Most of my stuff I didn’t pay more than $2-3 for.  The exceptions are the brushes and the mascara.  (Little secret: check out the Dollar Store cosmetics aisle while you’re there.  The Maybelline blush and the Lorel eye shadow are slightly mis-tinted, but they are what you pay $4 for at Target, even down to the labeled packaging.  I can get over a little mis-tint for a 75% savings… Oh, and speaking of Target, they now carry the E.L.F. make-up line.  Check it out for your extras.  Most of their stuff is between $1-3 and I have been very satisfied with the quality.)

4)  This may be the most important step.  Ready?  Take your kit to the car!  Leave it there.  Tuck it under the passenger seat, in the glove compartment, or in the console.  You’ll want it somewhere out of the way, but still easily accessible.  Now, the next time you think, “Ah, I forgot to _______!” you’ll be covered. 

 

**Ok, please don’t apply make-up or remove toe nail polish or put on stockings or whatever while you are driving!  Be safe.  It won’t hurt you to take a couple minutes when you reach your destination to finish up whatever it is you need to do.  If you wreck your car, you will most definitely be late… and this emergency kit is fantastic, but that’s one thing it can’t fix.**

 

Now, go put your kit together and be the hottest, most put-together (and possibly fashionably late) lady out there!

 

Krista

 

Do you have any other ideas for what to put in your “emergency kit”?  Please share in the comments.  I’d love to get more ideas.

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I love to travel.  I hate traveling with toddlers.  I don’t mind sitting in a car for eight hours reading magazines, listening to audio books, snoozing and jamming out to awesome road trip tunes.  Unfortunately, I can’t plug in a glue gun though.  But everything changes when Little Monkey is in the backseat.  Well, not the glue gun… still can’t plug one of those in…  Instead of being eight hours of magazines, audio books and road trip tunes, I get to spend eight hours trying to convince my two year old that it’s ok to wear a seat belt, we will eventually get out and we are all “stuck” in the car.  Not my idea of fun. 

I’ve been gathering ideas and supplies for an upcoming road trip.  We’ve actually got two road trips planned.  One approximately 700 miles in length, one way.  And the other, a month later, 2500 miles in length.  That’s a lot of car seat time.  Enough to suck the sanity from my life.  So, I’ve been searching high and low and racking my brain for things to take and do to keep Little Monkey, and my sanity, from whining and crying the entire 3900 miles.   I went through my To-Do List, my snips, snails and puppy dog tails pinterest board and my 101 Things to do with Toddler’s book.  Here’s what I came up with:

1)  First and foremost, a shallow 9×13” baking sheet.  This is a great size for Little Monkey to hold on his lap.  It’s small enough that he isn’t struggling with it, but big enough to provide a decent surface area to play on.  It sits nicely on his car seat, yet is compact and easy to store when he doesn’t need it.  It slips right behind my seat for easy access.  More than one kiddo in the backseat?  The baking trays stack nicely for your convenience. 
2)  Colored pencils and color pages.  I bought a cheap pack of colored pencils, cut them in half and sharpened both halves.  This way the pencils fit in his little fist better and I have twice as many pencil at my disposal to hand out.  And, unlike crayons, I don’t have to worry about it melting if he drops one.  We also splurged on some Color Wonder pages.  No mess is a must in the car.

3)  Paper and stickers.  With extra paper taped to the baking tray, it’s ok if Little Monkey spreads his creations across the whole surface.  It’ll be easy to remove later with no sticker adhesive left behind.

4)  Mini busy books.  Similar to quiet books, but not totally quiet.  I made mine out of felt, so there was no sewing involved.  I’m on a time crunch, so no-sew was a must.  Sorry, some of the pictures are sideways, I couldn’t get my computer to save them right side up… I apologize for any neck kinks…

 
5)  Felt Play Mats.  Little Monkey has one for his cars and a couple for his Fisher Price animals.
6)  Pipe Cleaners.  You can get them at the Dollar Tree.  I twist them together and Little Monkey untwists them.  The more complicated the contraption, the more time I have between having to find something else to entertain him with.  Although too complicated and he gets frustrated, so I have to be careful.
7)  Kid’s Music.  Ok, these aren’t road trip tunes, but for the music loving kid, it’ll buy you some tearless minutes.  Have a good old sing along.  We like some of Raffi.  It’s one of the few kid’s music artists that we can listen to for more than five minutes without getting a migraine.
8)  Magnets.  They stick right to the baking tray, as long as the tray isn’t aluminum.  Little Monkey can play with his animal magnets, letter magnets, my homemade magnets and his Lightning McQueen magnets.

9)  I Spy bags.  I also used plastic water bottles filled with random items and rice.  Hot glue or super glue the lids on.  You can also fill your water bottle 2/3 full with water.  Put some food coloring in it.  Fill the rest the bottle with veggie oil or baby oil.  You can put little items in the oil too.  Just make sure you fasten the lids with glue or you will have a huge mess to clean up.  Test them with several good, firm squeezes before handing them off to the kids.
10)  The DVD player.  We don’t actually have a DVD player.  We use my laptop.  It’s small and fits nicely between the seats.  We have an external hard drive with Little Monkey’s favorites loaded and ready to go.  This is usually our last resort though.  You can only listen to Cars and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for so long.  Splurge on a couple new movies for your trip.  Kids will sit still longer if it’s not something they have seen ten times before.
11)  Mega-Blocks.  Two or three pieces can keep my little one busy for a while.  He loves to pull them apart and try to push them back together.
12)  Mr. Potato Head.  Little Monkey isn’t quite dexterous enough to do Potato Head all by himself yet, but it only takes a few seconds to pull all the pieces out and hand them back to him so he can start over with a new Picasso-style creation.

13)  Masking tape.  We often play with masking tape.  I’ll give Little Monkey a piece and he goes to town.  Masking tape is pretty easy to pull off almost any surface, so it’s virtually worry-free.  Just make sure you do a masking tape sweep before you get out and leave the car, and it’s contents, to bake in the sun.  Heated tape is absolutely stickier than stuff right off the roll.
14)  Stories and books.  My little one loves books.  Small and easy to handle with pages that don’t easily tear are the best bets.  Recently, we started telling stories like The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  Little Monkey loves the Big Bad Wolf “huff and puff and blow the house in” part.  And he says “chinny-chin-chin” really cute. 
15)  Picture books with family photos.  You can find cheap photo albums at the Dollar Tree.  Print off some of your favorite family photos and put them in the albums.  If you are headed to a family reunion, get photos of extended family members and help your kids learn who they are (if they don’t already know).
16)  Lacing beads and lacing cards.  Little Monkey can’t lace them on his own yet, but he likes to play with them once they are laced and strung.
17)  Black construction paper and chalk.  It’s easy to clean up the dust with a wet wipe.  Colored chalk gives variety, while the construction paper is a cool texture.  Kids love it.  Minimize hassle by handing out one piece of chalk at a time.

18)  Muffin Tins.  There are a lot of things you can do with muffin tins.  Little Monkey’s favorite is water play, but that’s not gonna happen in the backseat!  Pom pom balls are fun and separating the colors into separate cups is a good activity.  You can sort all kinds of things: buttons, colored goldfish crackers, yo-gos, different flavored cheese cubes, foam shapes, colored craft sticks, colored clothes pins, ect.
19)  Sensory Bottles.  I have been wanting to make these forever and figured this was a good time to take the initiative to do it.  I’ve been trying to keep them hidden from Little Monkey so that they are new and cool.  Hopefully, he will think so.
20)  Alphabet bank.  Little Monkey is almost 2, so he definitely doesn’t know the ABC’s yet, but I made him a little bank from a formula can I saved and stashed away from the good, ole days and some canning lid seals.  I printed the letters onto scrapbook paper and then traced the lids and cut them out.  I purposely left it a little large so there would be some paper to cover the sharp edge (although it wasn’t that sharp.  I tried to cut myself with them, to test for safety, and had no success.  The things we do for our kids… oh, boy).  I used LocTite spray adhesive to adhere them to the lids and then coated them with a thin layer of Modge Podge to try and shield them from Little Monkey’s destructive tendencies.
21)  Puzzles.  Choose ones that will fit on the baking tray.  Little Monkey is into all things Cars right now, so this nine piece, inter-locking foam Lightning McQueen puzzle I found at the Dollar Tree is a big hit.  It’s nice that the pieces can go anywhere too.

22)  Nesting Blocks.  Little Monkey isn’t so great at stacking the blocks tall, but he’s getting there.  He does like to put them inside each other.  And he learns about big, bigger and biggest.
23) Finger puppets.  Little Monkey has just discovered the fun of putting things on his fingers.  Olives?  Absolutely.  Bugles chips?  Of course.  Felt finger puppets?  Yup.  These were easy to make and I found the idea at 1000 Points of Creativity, whom I found while surfing one afternoon.

24) Small chalk board and chalk.  It’s less wasteful than paper.  It’s easy to clean up.  And it’s cheap.  I found this board at the Dollar Tree.  It came with two sticks of white chalk and a foam eraser.

25)  Cars and trucks.  I really like the little Tonka Chuck and Friends trucks.  They have big pieces, so if they do break, I don’t have to worry so much about Little Monkey choking on the pieces.  But, they can be kinda pricey.  I’ve found some knock off at the Dollar Tree a few times and I’ll grab some of them when I see them.  Check the quality before you buy though.  It is the Dollar Tree.

These ideas came from Mom’s Minivan:
– Tin foil sculpting.  Give each of your kids a piece of tin foil and let them go wild.  Who can make the coolest dinosaur?  Flower?  Hat?
– Surprise packages.  Give your kiddo a surprise package every 25, 50, 75, or 100 miles.  A toy, an activity book, a snack and juice box.
– Mini MagnaDoodle and Etch-A-Sketch.  My Little Monkey loves his MagnaDoodle.  It doesn’t always last long, but a few moments of peace are worth it.

Car-Friendly Snacks:
–  Apple slices.  Cut the skins off if your little one still has trouble with them.  Slice them thin enough that your kids won’t choke on them.  Dip them in Sprite, 7-up or lemon juice to keep them from turning brown.
–  Cereal Mixes or Gerber Graduate Puffs, depending on age.  The Puffs come in generic (and less expensive) brands and dissolve in your little ones’ mouth.  Minimize the choking hazard?  Yes, please.  Little Monkey will inhale these, not literally, but you know…  And when he has food in his mouth, no sound comes out… =]
–  Trail Mix.  It can be a little spendy, but I think it’s totally worth it.  You can make your own and put all the stuff your kids (and you) like in it. 
–  String Cheese or cheese cubes.  A small, soft sided cooler will keep these cold.
–  Juice boxes.  Even if your kiddo doesn’t use a juice box, it’s a lot easier to store these than a whole bottle of juice.
–  Bite-size crackers.  If the whole cracker will fit in your kids’ mouth all at once, you’ll minimize mess.  And crackers come in lots of varieties, so if one kiddo doesn’t like cheese flavor get him peanut butter instead.  Or graham crackers.
–  Fruit cut into bite size pieces.  Take a piece of tin foil that will fit on your tray.  When you feed things like grapes that will make a little more of a mess, lay out the tin foil, wrap it around the tray and let your little one have at it.  When they are finished, wipe the foil down with a wet wipe and fold it up for next time.

Some of these ideas I also ran into around the web, but I racked my brain long and hard before I started looking for help.  My pinterest board was super helpful and Mom’s Minivan is a pretty good site for all things travel.

Good luck and safe travels!

Krista