Clearly I made that statement LONG before I had kids. Katie has some hillarious diaper bag dilemmas, which spawned this entry.

Last fall when I outgrew the Capa and got the Harrier, PC reminded me what a nice car I now drove and encouraged me to keep it cleaner than the trashed out Capa. And he was right. Im not even a car person and I Luh-HUV my car. If it weren’t for the fact that I think it would be a pain in the ass to go through a drive through (and maybe cause a lot of confusion as to what side of the road I should be on) we would consider bringing it home. Even though its 10 years old, it has only 40,000 miles (I know, I KNOW) and it is super fun to drive. I only wish we had somewhere we could punch it a little more because its a nice car- but also a fast car. I could only dream of owning a car like this back home (I assure you, I wont. I refuse to pay that much for a car) so I’ll love this one while I have it. So, you’d think with that in mind, the inside of my car wouldn’t look the way it does. Its like I tell PC- I only have two hands to carry stuff in, and usually I feel the baby should go in one of them.

Pretty outside:

Don’t be deceived :

Lets see….first we’ve got two strollers. No, not a double stroller, just two strollers. Because if one is good, two must be better. An inflatable seal. One lone unused baby wipe. Three bags of beach misc. Most of them contain WET towels/suits. Only upon going out to take these pictures did I realize it was all still in the car. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have realized it until the car reeked of mildew. Pleasant, I know. Thankfully in Okinawa, that wouldn’t take long.

The front seat is looking outstanding actually. This is the best its been in awhile, and this is only because I was sitting in it this weekend. The black bag has taken up residence there. Its what used to be the diaper bag. But I decided Im done carrying a 40lb diaper bag, looking like Im some sort of homeless mom, having stained bibs and goopy spoons spilling out of it. Back to the seat itself- normally there is a healthy amount of trash, random rec’ts, junk mail, sippy cups, “handups” (you know, those are when the child in the backseat says “here mom…..mom……here…..take this.” And “this” could be almost anything….half eaten breakfast bars, sticky popsicle sticks, wrappers, a slice of apple from a week ago, a lone raisin, a mushy cracker,  a cheerio that was stuck to the baby’s thigh, snotty kleenex, etc.)

I bought this backseat organizer, not so much to be organized (as you can clearly see) but mostly to keep the seat clean because Nathan insists on putting his feet on the seat. Its junky though. My favorite part is the section with 16 little slots for crayons. That might be practical if you lived in, say, Alaska where the inside of your car never gets hotter than 75 degrees. I’d love to know what genius designed that. Random comic book that some mildly crazy lady in the shoppette gave Nathan (while trying to give me movie suggestions), and a healthy amount of sand. It blends in. So do the crumbs.

The picture doesn’t really do justice to the center area that is filled with random toys, books and a clothespin. The basket on the floor has a random pair of shorts, a sweatshirt (useful in summer), a shopping cart cover and a blanket. Also, worthless infant neck pillow about to fall out of door.

Again, the picture doesn’t do it justice because you can’t see the sticky film that was sprayed all over this area when I opened a bottle of juice for Nathan that was, unbeknownst to me, carbonated….and it had been dropped in the store multiple times before purchasing. I wiped it out once but there is still some residual. A detailing might be in my future.

I’ve tried some different things; trying to clean it out once a week, keeping a spare shopping bag that I can load up all the riff-raff in every day and then, in theory, emptying it out and bring it back (empty) to the car. As is evidenced by the pictures, Im still looking for the perfect ‘method’ of keeping the car clean.

Filed under: This Is My Life, its not just good-its just good enough