Organizing Your Car for Back to School

The Morrison swagger wagon is usually in a state of complete disarray. Every few months I give her some TLC and a deep clean, which lasts about 6 hours in a house full of three boys! Since I spend a lot of time in the car schlepping kids around from school to activities and home, and then back again, I am on a mission to keep the minivan cleaner and more organized this fall. If you would like to play along, see below for some tips and tricks for organizing your car or kid taxi. I think we could probably all live in our cars for a few days, living off the random bits of food that find their way under the seats and just about everywhere else! 😉

• Keep a small box, bag, or other storage container in the trunk that contains a COMPLETE change of clothes for each child. Yes, I mean down to the underwear, because we all know what happens during potty training! I place each complete outfit in a Ziploc bag with the child’s name in permanent marker on the front. Remember to replace any items that you remove from the bag when you get back home. You would be surprised how often you will raid this bag for a dry shirt or a clean pair of socks!
• Designate another small container or basket for cleaning supplies. As I mentioned above, we all know what happens during potty training. Enough said. In this container, I keep Clorox wipes, a roll of paper towels, and a few plastic bags to contain any hazmat! 😉
• Store your child’s travel toys, DVDs, and snacks in a backseat organizer. It’s so much easier to keep your children’s gear organized if the storage area is right in front of them. We have one for each seat in the back of our van. I find that it helps a lot with keeping stuff off of the floor.
• Store plastic shopping bags in the console of your car for quick trash removal. I have a center console in the Sienna where I put all of our extra plastic bags. When I need to do a quick clean up, I always have a trash bag! Recently, I gave my oldest his own bag for the third row, so that he can make sure he cleans up his seat area after snacks, etc.
• Use an organizer for sports gear for your trunk or rear storage area. With two of our boys old enough to do sports now, we have a lot of equipment! Keeping it organized is much easier with a large storage bin.