Summer is here. Time to clean out your diaper bag, pocketbook and stroller, give them a scrub down and load up on these 10 summer essentials.
1. Frozen Fruit. Who wants dry goldfish on a sweltering day? Not me. Pre-cut frozen fruit is the best summer snack. Cut up grapes, strawberries, mango and kiwi circles and stick in several small containers in your freezer. When you head out grab one and by the time you’re ready to eat, it will be frozen, cool or someplace else delicious in between.
2. Water balloons. They are not the same as regular balloons. Buy balloons specified as water balloons and keep a stash in your bag.
3. Portable fans and water bottles with built-in misters.
4. Slip and Slide. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
5. Chalk, more chalk and fancy chalk contraptions
6. Umbrella. Stick one in your bag, not for rain but for sun. You can get a few more errands done or last at that outdoor concert an extra half hour if your little ones can duck under an umbrella and out of the glaring sun.
7. Soak a wet sport towel and stick it in the freezer. Pop one in a Ziploc bag on your way out. As it softens you can use it too cool the face and neck.
8. Bubbles. Get the kind that you squeeze and the wand pops up, no hands dipping into a messy solution.
9. Water shoes. Buy an inexpensive pair to keep in your bag or car. You never know when you’ll stumble on a new playground with water sprinklers. It stinks having to cram wet feet back into socks and sneakers.
10. Extra clothes and a towel. You likely stopped carrying an extra set of clothes when your kids turned 2. Time to grab an extra set including a bathing suit and a few towels to keep in your car. Don’t be the party pooper whose kids can’t join an impromptu pool party or trip to a water park.
*A note on sunscreen. Put on sunscreen a half hour before leaving the house. Not only does this spare you the trauma of tackling your kid mid-play to spray them down, but it takes 30 minutes for the active ingredients in sunscreen to absorb into your skin. So, putting on sunscreen at 11:00 means you aren’t protected until 11:30. Thirty minutes of bare skin = burnt skin. (Editors note: Instead use a good blocker sunscreen that doesn’t use chemicals and then it works right away.)
Abby King is a writer, aspiring yogi and flywheel addicted single mom of two. In her spare time she bakes and pretends it’s for her kids. Find her at Yoga Class or on The Huffington Post.