If you're like us, and you travel much with your kids (or you have one child who is the "have suitcase, will travel" with anyone child), then you probably have a kid's travel bag that's mostly ready. Not a diaper bag, but an overnight bag with essentials that other people (without small children) probably don't have at their houses.
The one we use for the boys is an old Clinique bonus bag of Mommy's (a nice boyish purple and orange, no less) that has worked out well - it includes essentials like wipes, lotion, baby wash, shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste, butt paste (best stuff ever), children's Tylenol, fingernail clippers - well, you get the idea. It's a toddler bathroom bag, so to speak. And that's where we keep it - under the sink in their bathroom - within easy reach when packing suitcases in their bedrooms or unpacking in the laundry room.
But it also comes in handy at other times. Like tonight, when Sawyer decided to fall dead asleep at 6 p.m. Have I mentioned that the boy fights sleep with every ounce of his being - all day, every day - until he just literally crashes. He started crying in the kitchen as I was starting dinner. I picked him up for a minute (maybe two) and started to sway a little to try to calm him down. And he fell dead asleep, eyes closed and limp in my arms. So off to bed he went - at 6 p.m.! Of course, he had been awake since before 6 a.m. Not out of his room, mind you, but awake none the less.
So, back to my lesson. That overnight bag comes in handy when one of the co-sleeping brothers goes to bed early. We keep most of the night time stuff in a cabinet in the little guys room, where it's in easy reach as we're getting ready in the morning and as we're going to bed each night. Rather than go in and hope Sawyer has not gotten his nap out (he's known to sleep a few hours and then be ready to get back up at, say, midnight), I can pull out the overnight bag from the bathroom and have everything I need to get Xander ready for bed in the hallway. Then all I have to do is carry him in to bed, get him settled, and sneak back out.
That's it . . . nothing magical, just convenient in more ways than one. It's there when Connor gets invited on a moment's notice for an overnight visit or when Sawyer crashes and Xander isn't ready for bed or Xander is taking an afternoon nap and Sawyer needs something from their cabinet.
