Hospital Bag

When my youngest son was born he spent his first few weeks in the hospital. People left all sorts of goodies on our doorstep - flowers, meals, notes, Diet Coke, bags of Cadbury mini eggs (that is all I ate for three weeks). My sisters would haul the goodies up to the hospital and it always lifted my spirits. One of my favorite gifts was given to me by friend from high school. She sent a bag with an egg crate cushion for the chair/bed I was sleeping on, a notebook, a pen some lotion and chapstick. It made my stay in the NICU a hundred times better! Now whenever someone has a child in the hospital I send them a "hosptial survival bag." More than once I found myself at the hospital with no purse, which meant no money, which meant no Diet Coke and we all know what that means. I have also gone up for a short appointment to find myself there overnight unexpectedly with no clothes, toothbrush, comb etc. So I encourage poeple to leave this survival bag in their car so that always have a few comforts of home. Here is what I include:

-An egg crate for that horrible bed/chair you sleep on (if the friend lives locally).

-A cute bag.

-A makeup bag with lotion, carmex, toothpaste and toothbrush, deodorant, a comb, tampons.

-A comfortable pair of sweats (in case of throw up, spit up, blood).

-A funny book you can read a little at a time and set down.

-A notebook and pen for taking notes when the doctors come in.

-Cash, including change for the vending machines.

-A nice note (I made a cute one in My Memories Suite software** that matches this bag which is for my girlfriend in Minnesota)

One of my girlfriends received a box of thank you cards when her son was in the hospital because the giver thought it might be good for her to stay caught up on her thank you's while she was sitting with her son. NEWSFLASH! That is not a good idea. If your child is in the hospital people should not give you stuff that makes you feel like you have to do ONE MORE THING! You have enough things to do. And I don't care what Miss Manners says, I think this is the one time the thank you notes are optional!

**The card I created was made in the MMS software from scratch. I simply opened up a background and flourish embellishment from the Tinkering Ink Designer Pack that is available in the Design Shop. The rest is created with my cool fonts. But the best feature of the software is the color matching/color picker...I can easily match the text with my backgrounds and/or photos and I think it's one of my favorite features in the software.