The Ubiquitous Backpack

Two years ago my then-four-year old, who for the sake of this blog I will call Critter, began toting around what I liked to call “a backpack of random stuff.” Okay. Those who know me will assert I did not actually use the word “stuff,” but this is a family blog and I don’t want to risk losing readers by using a word that begins with a “c” and ends with a “p,” but is not spelled “carp,” because that’s a fish. And if there’s one thing she did not carry around, it was a fish. Fish are not particularly welcome in our household. But I digress.

I blamed my older daughter, who for the sake of this blog I will call Boo, for this development. For years Boo had filled bags with the oddest assortment of things. Once when I opened one of her toy purses I found two plastic pieces of play-food (like half a green pepper and a doughnut), a blue plastic lizard, two marbles, a twist-tie from a bread bag, three scraps of paper, one penny, a Polly Pocket dress (sans Polly Pocket) and a small hat.  I would open it the next day and find a bottle cap, a fake cell phone, a real but defunct cell phone that I gave her to play with, a chap-stick, a used gift card, and a toy bird. The third day would be completely different. I had three theories on this: 1) Boo was the future MacGyver. 2) Her purse was a random plastic generator that aliens had beamed down to earth to experiment on unsuspecting children. Or the most likely, 3) Boo was a very special kind of hoarder–one whose gathering and storing showed absolutely no consistency, rhyme or reason.

But at least Boo only filled tiny little purses. Her younger sister fills BACKPACKS.

I will admit that I have, over the past few years, indulged the girls in buying them a new backpack every school year. My intention, of course, is to clean out and donate the old backpacks to the children in our church mission in the Dominican Republic. Yet as soon as the backpacks are emptied of wadded up tissue, half-empty water bottles, random pieces of artwork and yard mulch–and then run through the washing machine and dryer–the kids magically decide that they are made of awesome and cannot part with them. They don’t want to show up at school in the fall with the same backpack, but they’ll keep it in their closet in case there is a “backpack emergency,” thank you very much.

And so they probably each have about three old backpacks in their closets. And when I’d go in there I’d look at them, giggle, remember when they took them to school, and then close the closet door. Until Things Started to Go Missing. And I don’t mean Polly Pockets. I mean underwear. And dresses–not play dresses or day dresses or old dresses or doll dresses, but good dresses. Church level dresses. Dressy dresses. They were NOWHERE to be found.

Initially I thought the clothes might be at my mom’s house. Maybe I’d left a bag there, I thought. Or maybe someone had mistaken one of their dresses for something of mine. Yes, this quite honestly has happened, though I don’t quite know how ANYONE would think I’d fit in a child size ANYTHING. I can barely fit into a normal adult size (thank you forty-year-old female metabolism, lack of endorphins, and Girl Scout cookies). Still, I went through every closet, every drawer, and called my mom who went through every closet and every drawer. Nothing.

So I started looking again and noticed those backpacks were looking a little fuller than they were before. They weren’t laying in the bottom of the closet all empty and deflated. They were . . . bulging. And so I picked one up. And what did I find? The missing clothes! But far more than I had thought were missing. The bags were full of socks, underwear, good dresses, nightgowns, shoes, a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, shampoo–it was a “go bag.” Seriously. The children could have easily just grabbed those bags and been ready for a trip in less than five minutes. Bag, blanket, pillow, go.

I was amazed at the organization. So I called Boo over to both praise and yell at her for packing the bags. “That’s where those dresses went!” Boo exclaimed. “I’ve been looking EVERYWHERE for those!!!!”

So I turned to Critter. “Did you do this?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Did you pack bags for yourself AND your sister?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

The four-year-old did a better job of packing for herself and her sister than her father does for just himself. He invariably forgets something. Usually it’s underwear. Or socks. But once he forgot the pants to his suit. That he was supposed to wear to church. To a Christening. At which he was the GODFATHER. Had the jacket. Had the shirt. Had the tie. No pants. Twenty minutes til the Christening. No pants. We had to BORROW pants. PANTS!

Critter would have checked to make sure he had pants. I decided to put her in charge of packing everything for everyone from then on. She hasn’t done a bad job. She always packs extra underwear, which comes in handy because Boo never packs enough. And they’re only two years apart in age, so while wearing each other’s underwear is slightly uncomfortable, it’s better than going commando.

“Why did you pack these bags?” I asked.

“We have to be ready to go to college,” she answered, nodding sagely.

“College,” I replied.

“Yes, like our babysitter is going to college. You have to pack all sorts of stuff to go to college. Your BEST stuff. Your FAVORITE stuff. Because you’re leaving home. And you won’t be coming back for a LONG LONG time.”

Now, I knew the girls knew that our babysitter was heading off to college. I had no idea my youngest daughter was taking the idea so seriously. I still don’t know if she thought our babysitter was taking the girls with her, or if my daughter just wanted to be VERY PREPARED, VERY EARLY, but that was essentially the beginning of The Ubiquitous Backpack.

Critter is now firmly six years old, and she traipses around the house with her blanket and her backpack like a soldier in basic training. She’ll have some friends over for a play date, and they’ll be running around the house hunting the cat, or something (is it really a hunt when your target just lays there, sleeping, on the same chair all day?) and Critter will run out of the hallway behind her friends with this backpack just slapping against her back.  I have taken to calling her “Sherpa,” because the backpack is absolutely bursting with . . . things.

“What do you HAVE in there?” I asked her the other day. Because after that first time with the clothes, she knows that clothes have to stay in her closest. At all times. No More Hiding Clothes in the backpack.

“My favorite things,” she said, smirking.

“Like what?” I asked.

“I’m not telling,” she said, then wrapped her arms around the backpack and ran into her room. Because, yeah. I so desperately want her sack of randomness. That is the fulfillment of all my wishes as a parent. To steal her bag.

Her reasoning for carrying the bag has changed since those college days. Between the ages of four and five she carried the backpack around because she wanted to have her stuff with her when I’d drag her to various meetings and volunteer things I did during the day. I’d bring her into a clinic where I volunteered and she’d happily sit under a table with her backpack and pull out–I kid you not–seven books, her blanket, a stuffed animal and a floor mat. A FLOOR MAT. I don’t even know how she got the mat into the backpack. For a moment I thought she might have found that Harry Potter spell Hermione put on her bottomless bag or something. But no. She just squished it in REALLY good.

Between the ages of five and six she carried the backpack around because she just liked having her stuff. “No matter where I go, mommy,” she said, “I can be sure to make myself a happy place!” And she always did. No matter where she went–she was in school all day, so I no longer dragged her to all that many volunteer meetings, but we did go to friends’ houses, my mom’s house, hotels on vacation, places like that–she’d cordon off an area for herself that was hers and hers alone. Boo would have, like, a stuffed doll, some lint, and a fake lipstick, but Critter would have seventy-two items carefully selected from every toy bin in the house. One vacation was almost exclusively Littlest Pet Shop creatures. Our latest trip to my mom’s was a bag full of Moshi Monsters. But it’s always some sort of collection with a very specific theme and selection of items. No randomness at all. Very. Precise. And she does not share. “Boo can just pack her own bag!” she tells anyone who will listen if Boo dares to even glance at one of the items Critter has spilling out of her bag.

The latest reasoning for backpack toting was stated just yesterday. Boo and Critter were exhausted from staying up too late and so came home from summer camp and fell into a nice nap. Boo woke up hours later and climbed into my lap on the couch for a snuggle. Critter woke up a few minutes after her sister. She came out of the room with her blanket in her arm and her backpack on her back, then climbed up into my lap next to her sister with the backpack on. “Hello, Critter,” I said. “I trust you slept well,” and then I gave her a hug. “Hello backpack,” I said. “I don’t know why you’re here, but there seems to still be enough space on my lap for you.” The girls giggled, because the naps had put them into an excellent mood. “Why do you have this backpack attached to you today, Sherpa?” I asked.

“In case of a fire,” Critter said. “I want to have all my most important things with me.”

College. Entertainment. Happy place. Now fire preparedness. Is there anything this backpack CAN’T help with? I think not. And so I have a feeling that it will be lugged around with us for a long, long time. Which is not a bad thing. Especially if Critter always makes sure to pack an extra pair of underwear for her sister, and pants for her daddy.