Helpful Handbag

What do you keep in your handbag? If it's anything like mine, it isn't just your phone and your keys, but an entire jumble sale covered in biscuit crumbs and lip gloss.

My handbag is the size of a small car, and is packed full of all sorts of things that I might need if I am ever stranded on a desert island….or more likely in a park with a tired one-year-old wielding an ice-cream.

In amongst the tubs of tiny teddies, piles of petrol receipts and my growing collection of tissues are some really useful things that have saved me from insanity over the years. I wouldn't want you to learn this stuff the hard way so, as my gift to you, I'm going to share my Life Saving Handbag Absolutes:

1. Hand sanitiser. In case someone hands you a poo in the park. These things do happen. I speak from experience. Enough said.
2. Wipes. For hands, faces, bottoms and everything within a 3-mile licking zone. And if you have a little one still in nappies and are in the know, you'll have a b.box Nappy Wallet!
3. Snacks. Littlies are always hungry and often need distracting, or bribing.
4. Chocolate AND paracetamol. Because you've been up for hours, and it's still only 9am.
5. Band aids. For accidents, broken trucks and decorating walls.
6. Crayons. Will buy you at least 3 minutes in a cafe, a short phone call, or half a sandwich.
7. Tampons. Look like mice, so great distraction at Passport Control. Again, I speak from experience, so enough said.

As a mum, you never know what's around the corner, but you can be quite sure it'll be sticky, noisy and wriggly for the first few years, so get yourself a fab handbag, throw out that leaking lip gloss, and don't scrimp on the chocolate.