No matter what type of mum you are, you’ll have one of those ’moments’.
You know, the ones where you find yourself down the Pinterest rabbit hole, looking at all the fun things you can make and do with your brood. Sure, you’re definitely more of an ’undo your pants while in the car’ type, but that doesn't matter.
You can be anyone you damn well please.
Those other mums with their handmade, quinoa and wheatgrass cupcakes aren’t any better than you, and you can be as Martha Stewart as them. So there.
Inevitably, one of the projects you decide on will be making your own playdough. The mum in the white tennis dress with the bouncy ponytail says it’s easy and you only need 178 ingredients. You can buy most of them from
your local exotic botanist for around $678. But it’s not about that. It’s the experience. The memories.
You’ll take pictures, of course, for your socials. The kids will listen intently, hang off your every, instructional word. You’ll use this time to enlighten their growing minds with profound truths, truths that they’ll reflect on well into their adulthood.
Some day in the future, when they’re guiding their own little ones, they’ll look back on this day. ‘The time we made playdough’ will become one of the pivotal memories that causes them to grow. The other school mums will see your photos and say things like ‘gee, Tracey. I don’t know how you do it. You’re a super-mum.’
You’ll chuckle, feign humility and say something like ‘oh Deborah, don’t be silly. For the little ones, you make the time.’ Only, it definitely doesn’t go like that. The kids won’t stop fighting and you can only find one step stool. That means only one person can reach the bench and the others aren’t having a bar of it.
Nobody is listening. They’re complaining. Their arms are sore from mixing, she got to put the last ingredient in so it’s not her turn again, and the baby pink you were aiming for is now murder-scene red thanks to an overzealous pour of the food colouring.
There’s flour everywhere, and all you can think of is how it could’ve been turned into a giant mud-cake for you to get stuck into after bed time.
You finally come up with something that sort of resembles play-dough, and 2 of the kids won’t stop trying to eat it. The kitchen looks like it housed a frat party and the play-dough smells weird.
Next time, do the smart thing and get some bio-dough.
Naturally scented, bio-degradable, and won’t hurt them if they do happen to sneak some in their mouth. If you want to tell social media that you made it yourself, don’t worry.
We won’t tell.