Before becoming a mom, I thought snacks were food you ate because you were a little hungry.

That was adorable.

Snacks are now logistics. If I leave the house without one, I feel like I forgot something important.

Phone.

Keys.

Diapers.

Wipes.

Snack.

Another snack in case the first snack is rejected for reasons known only to the baby. Food issues make this even more interesting because I cannot always assume there will be something available wherever we are going. So I bring food.

Everywhere.

I have snacks in bags I forgot I owned. I have snacks in the stroller. I have found snacks in my purse and genuinely not remembered putting them there. This is apparently who I am now. And honestly? It makes leaving the house easier. I have read posts from parents who worry that food allergies are going to make their kids miss out—birthday parties, playdates, school, restaurants, travel. I understand why those thoughts spiral so quickly. You get one diagnosis and suddenly your brain is at your child’s future sleepover ten years from now. Mom brains are efficient like that.

But I have also read parents of older kids saying their children learned to ask questions, their friends learned what they could eat, teachers learned, other parents learned. That made me feel better. Not everything has to be solved while they are babies. Right now I can bring the snack.

That is enough.

I also like having something familiar when we are somewhere new. Even without allergies, babies and toddlers are not famous for being adventurous eaters exactly when you need them to be. A familiar snack buys time. It can turn “we have to leave” into another half hour at the park. It can rescue a restaurant meal. It can prevent me from becoming the hungry one, which is also important because I am significantly less pleasant when I am hungry. And I no longer feel weird about bringing our own food somewhere. Would I prefer to know there is something available for us?

Of course.

But if bringing crackers means we get to go, I am bringing crackers. The crackers are not ruining the experience. The crackers are enabling the experience. I do not want food issues to make our world smaller if I can help it. So yes, my purse is full of snacks. There are worse personality traits.

At this point, leaving the house without food feels a little like leaving without diapers. Could we technically survive? Probably. Do I want to find out in a Target parking lot with a hungry baby? Absolutely not.

So the snacks come with us. Sometimes too many. Usually too many. And I am completely fine with that.

There are enough unpredictable things about having a baby. I am happy to let the emergency crackers be one of the predictable ones.