So as I said, we were at the park last week hanging out with a friend and I was super impressed with how prepared she was. She had chalk, buckets, shovels, a blanket… all of the things that I always think I should bring to the park, but then forget when it actually comes time to head to the car. Then she shared her secret- she keeps a park bag in the car! Genius!
I pulled out Kate’s old diaper bag (which I spent way too much money on, but which I still love!) delighted that I had found a new use for it.
We don’t use plastic containers to store food, but we seem to accumulate them at a rapid pace nonetheless. It seemed like they would work for holding the chalk. Initially, I wanted to put the chalk in a cute little drawstring bag that I was planning on making at a later date, but actually the plastic container was kind of perfect.
We used to have 10 of the stacking cups, but they’re disappeared over the years into the great toy box in the sky. I gathered up the remaining few along with a shovel and added them to the bag. Side note: I always put Kate’s name on them. I’m more than happy to share while we’re at the park, but having her name on them makes it much easier to make sure that they come home with us. Especially when 12 kids have the same shovel.
Finally I added our super snazzy new picnic blanket. Eventually I want to add a granola bar or 2 for emergency snacking and a travel size Benadryl. Maybe an extra set of clothes (although am I the only one who gets super irritated to have two outfits tied up at school, one in the diaper bag and now possibly one in the park bag?) Other suggestions? What do you always wish you had at the park?