I don’t even like purses. In high school I would find the smallest one that would still hold the bare minimum of things I needed to carry around. It was basically just a wallet with straps. So you can understand how I hate carrying a diaper bag.

I am picky about my diapers bags. If I have to carry around a ball and chain, then it should do its job and make my job easier. But I have never, until now, found a bag that truly does that.

For Christmas this past year my mom got me the Skip Hop Duo and I fell pretty instantly in love. This is a bag that had to be designed by a mom. It has the absolute right amount of pockets for a bag hater like me.

This one has a nice large main pocket for baby things that has elastic pockets inside it to organize diapers. The inside is so well organized that I can reach into it without looking and find just what I need. Because when you are changing a diaper on a precarious public restroom changing table, you can’t really dig with both hands.

There are two zipper pockets along the top edge of the bag. One is big enough for my stuff, and I use one to hold a change of pants for my potty training child. You see, I refuse to carry a purse AND a diaper bag. So any diaper bag has to have a pocket big enough for me to carry my purse items in: wallet, lip gloss, some paper and a pen, and of course my cell phone.

There is a water bottle/sippy holder on one side and a cell phone pocket on the other, and two pockets along the front of the bag that I use for quick access items like keys and my planner. There is a big flat pocket across the back for the changing pad – no trying to shove that down inside the main bag. The main pocket and front two pockets are closed by strong magnets, which means my arms aren’t getting scratched up by velcro and it is silent to open and close.

A lovely surprise for me was the introduction to stroller clips; specially designed clips on either side of the bag that allow you to attach the bag to your stroller without having to take off the main strap. That means no digging around in the under-stroller basket to drag out the one item you need. It is all right there at your fingertips!

After spending a few months with this bag I had the opportunity to carry a certain high end diaper bag and realized that I may have been spoiled for life, I hated the other bag. The Skip Hop reads my mind. It works with what I have in it and makes it all easy to access. (Have you ever had one of those big bottomless bags that you stop even using anything in it because stuff is too hard to find? This is NOT one of those.)

I really hate to gush over a mere diaper bag like this. But this bag is so far above anything that I have ever used, I just can’t help myself.