Be Prepared!

Nozomi-chan helps prepare our 72 hour kit.

I've been singing the Lion King's "Be Prepared" for the last hour.  Today I decided to update our survival/disaster kit.  It was an all day project.  I had to make a couple trips to the store to find all the stuff I needed.

Do you have a disaster kit?  We never had one until we came to Japan.  For the first year we pretty we just had a bag with a few soy joy bars and cups of ramen.  Then when North Korea started threatening Japan we decided that we should be better prepared should we need to suddenly leave the country because of war, etc.  Oh yeah, and there are earthquakes and volcanoes here, too.

So what's in a 72 hour disaster prepare kit?  For ours I did a bit a of research.  There are great lists online to help you prepare your kit.  You should have one for your home and one for the car.  Our list includes lots of baby friendly items.

Ideally, everything should be in one spot.  You should also be able to carry your kit with you.  Your home might be unsafe and you might have to evacuate.

We had to be creative with how to carry things.  Nozomi can't carry anything...and one of us will have to carry her.  We asked all sorts of if-then questions.  What if one of us is not home? Where do we meet?  How will I carry baby and our stuff...especially if I need to climb over things on the street?

In the end we decided it was best to have a "We're screwed" bag.  (Okay, we have an inappropriate name for it, but I can't write it here).  We put everything we would need for 24 hours into a backpack.

We then used a second bag for the next 24 hours and a wheeled suitcase for another 24 hours.

To help you prepare your kit, here are some things we have in our bags:

The Everything is Screwed We're Leaving Japan Tonight Bag

• Formula (Should mom & baby be separated)
• Bottle
• 7 Diapers
• Diaper Wipes
• Clean Shirt & Underwear per person
• Two Outfits for baby
• Light Swaddle Blanket
• Water (It's recommend that each person have 2 liters per day for drinking and 2 liters for washing, water is heavy and hard to carry, so we went with what fits).
• Stuffed Animal & Book
• Passports & Birth certificates
• List of important numbers (Like the Global Mission Office and US Embassy)  
• Cash & Change
• Candles, Flashlight, Lighters, Whistle
• First Aid Kit including Baby Pain Relief, Motion Sickness Med., Diaper Cream, Band aids
• Face Mask for dust
• Toothbrush and Toothpaste
• Washcloth
• Spoons for Baby
• Collapsible Cup
• Snacks (Power bars, canned fruit, peanut butter, nuts)
• Chocolate...because I'm going to need a Snickers 

Our other bags include more clothes, food, water, diapers as well as soap, shampoo, deodorant, razor, scissors, playing cards, trash bags, hand towels, blankets, and toys.

Some of the food we put in the bag: peanut butter, nuts, crackers, chocolate, power bars, soyjoy bars, gummies, energy goo, canned fruit, baby food jars, tuna, rice

I don't recommend cans of food, but I had to find things that baby could eat.  It was also easiest to go to the regular grocery store and buy some canned fruit.  You could find all sorts of lightweight food at a sports store.  It would be more expensive.  I also picked things that didn't need to be cooked...because we won't have a way to boil water.  If you have a small camp stove, you can add it to your kit.  (Preparing our kit was like packing for a 3 day camping trip).  We also have extra water stored in our home.  

It's important to update your kit.  I check mine twice a year (October & April).  I throw-out old food, put warmer/cooler clothes in, and put bigger clothes in for baby.

Here's your reminder from Scar to "Be Prepared."  Just pretend he's singing about disaster kits and not over throwing Mufasa's Kingdom.