Wee Green Mummy has not in fact dropped off the face of the Earth. I’ve just been feeling a bit buried under the earth. Figuratively, not literally. I feel the need to clarify that because Mr Almost Six often questions my statements just now in a manner that suggests he’s getting real tired of Mummy's drama.

Anyway, where was I? Right. Blogging. Blogging about green stuff. Let’s get to it. Little Leo (I’m only able to type that, if I say little, he shouts), is currently Sir David Attenborough’s biggest fan. He avidly watched Blue Planet II, he has the Open University Blue Planet poster and he sleeps with the accompanying book next to his bed for convenient access to sea creatures. And he regularly breaks his heart over the whale mummy with the poor dead baby whale. Sorry, even just writing that makes me sad and angry and frustrated.

We're fairly careful with our recycling efforts around here but the sad/angry/frustrated combo has inspired us to make some switches so over the next few weeks, I’ll be feeding back on what we've swapped and how it’s worked for us.

First up was our new bamboo toothbrushes. There are certainly more ethical ways to shop than via Amazon but I'm a mum in a hurry most days so we got the grown up ones and the kids ones by typing in "bamboo toothbrush" and reading the reviews.
​
After a month of use, Sam’s needs swapped out already as he’s hard on his toothbrushes but that isn’t any different to how his plastic ones end up. That means that replacement costs will be higher but as more people use bamboo toothbrushes, the price will hopefully decrease. Another friend pointed out that there is a small texture sensation issue, if you don’t like the feel of ice lolly sticks, then these might not be the green option for you.

I'm generally not the kind of blogger that does a "How To" post.Mostly because I spend much of my parenting life feeling like I'm winging this sh*t and there are no numbered instructions for that.

But my play dough making skills are legendary. I kid. My play dough making is at a standard where Sam finds it acceptable and a few people have said they like it. That's enough of a win for me.

Righto, here goes,

You will need:
A non-stick pot
A wooden spoon that you don't mind staining
A sieve
A quiet kitchen (jokes, my kitchen is never quiet)

Ingredients:
1 cup of plain flour
1 cup of water
1/3 cup table salt (huge amount of salt makes the dough less sticky and also discourages toddlers from a second taste)
2 tsp cream of tartar
food colouring
1tbsp of oil (not coconut, it makes it too greasy)

Method:

• 1. Remove baby from leg and then add the flour (swearing if you forget to sieve but carrying on anyway), salt and cream of tartar to the pot.
  
• 2. Add water and oil.
  
• 3. Over a low heat, stir steadily to combine the wet and dry ingredients until smooth and still liquid. This is the best point to add the food colour as it blends into the mix easier. But you can mix it in earlier or later if you're resolving a lego based argument between a five year old who knows everything and an almost three year old who cares about nothing.
  
• 4. Keep mixing and the smooth liquid starts forming firm lumps. This is when I regret attempting yellow because it looks like a newborn's nappy contents and frantically add blue or red dye to change the colour. Keep mixing and it will quickly turn into a dough. Your arm will hurt and you'll wonder how you ever regularly exercised and had muscle tone. That means it's done.
  
• 5. Turn out onto a plate or tea towel or any crumb free surface you can find and leave to cool for a few minutes. Or half an hour while you change a nappy, fix a toy and drink the cup of tea that's gone cold.
  
• 6. This step is optional but I usually knead in a few drops of essential oils to the dough. Lavender and chamomile are very soothing for me and the kids. Spearmint does wonders for a friday afternoon "is it bedtime/wine time?" mummy headache.
  

And that's it. It'll keep for ages in a sealed container and it doesn't dry out fast if it gets dropped and forgotten on the floor for a couple of hours. And it's completely acceptable to keep some to yourself so you can play happily while the kids mix the colours with their stuff.

It takes me five minutes at the most to apply every day makeup. Not that I’d go so far as to say I wear makeup every day. Sometimes I’m impressed with myself for wearing clothes every day. I’m talking about the barest of bare minimum coverage which I sometimes feel compelled to use to disguise the permashadows under my eyes and the black eye liner that acts as my war paint when I need a little boost to conquer the nursery/playgroup/Toddler Troupe combination.

Even with the advent of cosmetic ranges which cater for my almost translucent Scottish complexion, I still don’t like the feel of foundation on my skin so I stick to moisturiser and a mattifying gel as the base layer of my hastily applied camouflage. This has the side benefit of me not needing to look in a mirror, handy when the small humans are using all the mirrors as a complex signal network in their Jedi vs. Transformers battle for world domination. In fact, other than blending my concealer amd slicking on some mascara, I avoid mirrors as much as possible. The undead automaton looking back at me freaks me out too much.

When Sam was nine months old, Euan and I got married. Although I wasn’t a fitness fiend and despite my huge appetite while breastfeeding, the impending nuptials meant I was fairly self-disciplined about getting back to something resembling a pre-pregnancy body. That and a couple of turns at bridesmaiding (one in a godawful blancmange pink dress and one in a drop dead gorgeous dress I was determined to do justice to), meant that I was still steadily working off the pregnancy changes right up until I fell pregnant with Leo.

I had a good couple of months where I was happy with how I looked. And then my second pregnancy treated my abdomen in much the same way as that scene in the first Alien film. Surgery during the second trimester and excess amniotic fluid in the third trimester meant that I struggled to look down in the shower without a wave of revulsion at the way my poor tummy looked after the birth.

Chasing after two kids meant that I shifted the weight steadily enough but I had so much loose skin and almost no abdominal muscle. And in the blink of an eye, I was pregnant again. Chasing after three kids means lots of energy getting expended but not a lot of time for a regular exercise schedule, and reducing the numbers on the dosage of antidepressant prescription is more important to me than reducing the numbers on the scales. The dosage is coming down slightly which means the dropping jeans size is a bonus rather than a focus.

I have no fitness regime to speak of, just walking as much as possible with one child attached to me and pushing another one in the buggy as I try to keep up with my dynamo of a firstborn child. That and worrying, anxiety can be very slimming, silver linings and all that.

The image in the mirror still doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny though, because it isn’t really the one I expect to see. I think I probably looked the best I ever looked right before I fell pregnant with Sam. And the woman in the mirror now is two or three sizes bigger than that as well as distinctly saggy and very tired.

I am blessed with friends who I can trust as a critical eye and a recent compliment from one of them made me concede that I’m perhaps a bit harsh on that woman in the mirror. She might not be a 25 year old with a tiny waist but she can juggle the needs of three small children, cook meals that contain actual vegetables, sink large amounts of gin without a hangover and her eyebrows are surpisingly on point.

So even though Leo often refers to me as Mummy Squashy Tummy, I’m resolving to be a little kinder to myself. Still not going to give up more tea drinking time for my makeup routine though.

Time really does fly. So much happens and happens so quickly that I'm thankful for investing in a Line A Day diary so that I can at least record a snapshot.

In a few years, I'm not sure how they'll feel about the hundreds of Instagram posts of them I indulge in, and whether we keep them in a public domain will be up to each of them. Sam already demands photo approval! But for now, I'll keep posting. Because these moments, little and large, while they are still little are fleeting.

We are just about over chickenpox (more on that when I've composed myself from the horrors) and Sam is off running the nursery. Ben handed me a piece of wooden track when we were "tidying" the playroom and then Leo started directing some Brio construction.

​They played cooperatively for a good few minutes, and although there were an hundred jobs that I could or should have been doing, I stayed and watched and moved trains when the bosses told me to.

And despite a hundred little moments in a day where I'm not sure whether I'm any good at this job, I'm confident that was the right choice.

Dear Barista,

Today, as you applied the whipped cream to the two mini chocolate cream frappucinos I'd ordered, you remarked that it was "like giving your babies crack".

When I challenged you about the appropriateness of those words, you stammered that they weren't about me, you apologised "if [I'd] misunderstood what [I] overheard", and when I spoke to your manager, again saying how inappropriate talking about crack babies was in front of children, you told me you hadn't been talking about drugs.

I drove away, my babies were clamouring for their crack (see, I do have a sense of humour, contrary to what hour eye rolling response implied) and I was shaking. Your manager assured me that she would speak to you, that she did not find your words appropriate.

What she may remind you of is that parents generally can't help be revulsed by the imagery that phrase conjures up. Tiny, low birthweight babies, suffering from withdrawal the moment they're born. What she may say is that twisted humour is probably best saved for when you're not representing your global corporation.

What she can't tell you is that I've seen children impacted by their parents' drug use. That I've watched them be affected by this country's overstretched social resources and our tendency to criminalise addiction. She can't tell you about the way my guts twisted when you drew comparison between that devastation and me giving my kids a sweet treat.

Yes, there was almost certainly too much sugar in those mini fraps. Too much fat, too much flavour. But not too much fun for two little boys (I didn't order one for my actual baby, not completely negligent and he couldn't manage the straw anyway) who had a crappy, boring morning.

You don't know they missed a play date because we had to go to the doctor for the middle one's eczema flare up. You don't know that they played quietly and shared nicely while I spoke to the doctor about the right dosage to manage my sometimes crippling anxiety. You don't know that despite their young ages, they are enormously kind and gentle with their baby brother and incredibly patient when I have to tend to the baby first.

You don't know that those sugary, fatty, processed drinks were my attempt at telling my boys that I appreciate just how good they are because words don't always cut it. You don't know how much hearing you pass judgement (I'm 98% sure that's what you were doing) hurt me. You don't know how much it hurt that my four year old just asked me what a crack baby is, and listened to my sugar coated explanation with a follow up of, "we shouldn't have any more frozen hot chocolate if it's crack mummy".

Please, listen to your manager. Please think before casually dropping that phrase into conversation. Please don't dismiss me as humourless, mummy brained, a complainer. Think about how your actions have an impact on those around you.

Sincerely,

The Mum Who Probably Won't Drive Thru For A While.