My girl loves herself a backpack. Or a purse. Or better yet, someone else’s purse. So if yours is pink or has a butterfly on it, you’d best keep one hand on your handbag at all times.
In typical female fashion, she stuffs her bag full of completely unnecessary items. I wrote about her handbag hoarding tendencies here along with a list of the typical contents of her bag on any given day.
Our backpack pack rat often comes home with things she’s collected at school: her teacher’s sunglasses, a classmate’s pencil case, somebody else’s journal, one sock belonging to some poor sockless child, sheets and sheets and sheets of paper, a creepy doll, a glue stick…and the list goes on.
To be clear, she’s not stealing. She has no concept of it. She merely likes to collect items and is happy to dole out the goods to her friends and family.
She also attempts to bring things from home to “share” at school. I’ve intercepted many household items stowed away in her backpack, destined for some epic Show and Tell session. I’ve retrieved her brother’s homework, water bottle and one of his Crocs before she made it out the door. I’ve also caught her red handed packing a ladle, a dog dish and more toys than I can count, but missed her stashing my grocery list in her school bag. I’m sure her teacher wasn’t surprised to see WINE on it. Underlined. Twice.
Yesterday she absconded with my blog post calendar. I keep a running list of story ideas, which she slipped into her agenda. Thankfully there wasn’t anything exceedingly embarrassing on it — just the chicken scratched ramblings of a mother in need of a nap. Clearly I need to keep a better eye on ol’ Sticky Fingers. God only knows what she’ll try to sneak off to school next.
*Addendum: This morning after a pre-school backpack shakedown (thanks for the suggestion Jen!) we found big brother’s mini laptop and Avery’s toothbrush. Not even kidding! And Mary, I will be taking your advice too. 😉
