New Mom Finds It’s in the Bag--Along With Everything Else

Where’s Monty Hall when you need him?

Now that I’m a mother, we could make a deal any time for me to pull just about anything from my purse--sledgehammers, encyclopedias, rubber balls, a lampshade or a can of pork and beans--and he’d have to fork over a cash prize.

No one, you see, warned me that the extra weight you carry around after childbirth is the 10 ugly pounds in your handbag.

No one told me that, postpartum, you are doomed to a life of oversized hand luggage.

Why else would the Queen Mother cart around such a huge pocketbook?

If I were to dissect my purse and expose the ugly innards of its bulging flesh, you’d probably understand that I am the mother of an impatient omnivore.

The contents of a woman’s purse reveal much about her personality and lifestyle, more even than all the crossed stars and retrograding planets that Joan Quigley could chart.

First, the telltale stains of milk and formula on the outside of my purse are a maternal give-away.

Inside, there’s always a bottle of milk and a juice box or two with a straw. The half-full plastic bags of pretzels, animal crackers and Teddy Grahams signal the presence of an errand-hating child who tends to wail and gnash his teeth upon sighting a dressing room.

Then there is the signal that I am an Overachiever Word Pusher: the half-dozen books that squeak or sing or have holes to put your fingers through (a real trick when your child is in the back seat and you’re driving).

In my purse, there’s a place for 400 paper napkins to wipe a runny nose or a gooey upper lip after aforementioned pretzels, animal crackers and Teddy Grahams.

There are rattles and noisemakers, a change of clothes (size 4 toddler), a kazoo and a flute.

My purse also houses the favorite stuffed animal of the week, such as the bear whose head turns completely around, the purple bunny with the toothy smile, or the lamb that plays (you guessed it), “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” if you turn the key in its stomach.

Each morning, I pray my son won’t beg for the 2-foot moose to accompany us on our outing. It can’t fit in my purse so we’d have to stay home.

All this pediatric paraphernalia has evicted the adult accouterments of my pocketbook.

I no longer carry a wallet or a checkbook.

There is no room for makeup, or even sunglasses.

I carry a single VISA card and my driver’s license, and hope that is enough. I long for a merchant who will let me sign my initials and not ask for my signature, as well as my phone number, address and favorite colors on the credit slip.

You see, I’m usually attached at the hip to my son, and he has a habit of pulling the pen I’m signing with or the nose I’m breathing from.

I wish some merchants would feel sorry enough for me to let me just sign, “X.”

True, some salespeople are sympathetic. My first taste of vendor pity came from a salesman in a liquor store just before Thanksgiving last year. I rushed in shortly after noon carrying the overnight bag I call a purse and the 23-pound temper tantrum I call a son.

“Give me the smallest, cheapest bottle of bourbon you have!” I demanded, not thinking his next call might be to a child and family services agency.

I didn’t feel I had to explain that I was making a sweet potato souffle that called for bourbon, and, being already six eggs and 12 potatoes into the recipe, I wasn’t about to abandon the pan just because all we had in the house was a bottle of cheap champagne someone gave us (and which was waiting to be given to someone else).

The clerk let me dig into my purse for the credit card and didn’t even wait for me to sign my name before he slipped my copy into a brown paper bag along with the airplane-size bottle of bourbon. I heard him sigh from behind me as I rumbled through the door.

I wasn’t always like this, a pocketbook pack rat with a dozen pacifiers in varying stages of decay lodged in the sacred zippered compartment. I think I used to be kind of exciting; in my purse I used to carry lipstick and cash.

In college, I carried one of those microscopic “disco bags.” Not that the purse itself could dance, but it was so small it could only fit an ID, a set of keys and a comb. I wore the long strap slung over one shoulder with the bag at my hip, so I could dance to the Bee-Gees without fear of losing a larger purse abandoned at the bar. I was all encompassed and cool with my 3-inch disco bag at my side. I was so full of attitude back then that sometimes I didn’t even bother bringing cash.

These days, I look longingly at all the fashion magazines with those tiny Chanel bags, neatly quilted with the elegant gold chains.

No way could I ever use one of those.

It would fit maybe a half-dozen pretzels and no story books.

I surrendered the options for such impractical accessories when I was pregnant, when this whole maternalization of my purse began.

I won’t get graphic, but to combat morning sickness, I had to fill my purse with at least 100 Saltines and a few rolls of antacids.

I stopped carrying any compacts with mirrors attached because I didn’t want the visual reminder that with each passing day I was evolving into Shelley Winters.

I suppose I’ll always have to carry a big purse. I know my mother still does.

Now that her six children are grown, she has filled the compartments with another generation of needs: a spare hankie or two, chewing gum, candy and an index-card-size photo album bulging with snapshots of her 17 grandchildren. The dozen pages are full, and there are so many extra photographs that she has to keep it closed with rubber bands.