The dangers of being green and type A

Ah, what a week. We’ve had babies throwing up, Daddies being ill, babies getting colds, Mummies getting colds, torrential rain…clearly we are all under too much stress and need a holiday. (Oh, but we just had one of those. Dammit!) As a result we’re staying in town this weekend. Dot sleeps less well in a strange crib upstate and less well when she has a cold. I think the combo would kill me.

So, another busy week. In terms of greening, I’m trying to get the paper I want to distribute finished (I say “paper”; it will of course be distributed electronically with a line asking receivers not to print unless they absolutely have to). I’ve been working on it for weeks now but only in fits and starts, as a result of which it’s progressing at snail’s pace. I’m blaming the day job and the fact that we can’t afford a cleaner. The hubby, on the other hand is blaming the fact that I’ve developed a pathological aversion to feeding Dot jarred food and simultaneously sprouted a compulsion for making batches of food for her almost every night from fresh organic stuff.

“Has it ever occurred to you that if you stopped doing that just for a week you might actually get your paper written?” he said last night as I wearily forced yet another batch of rice and pear through a sieve. I pretended to ignore him and stomped off to the loo where, while staring morosely at the dust and chest hairs (his not mine) that had already started to accumulate around the skirting board (I only cleaned the floor this morning goddamit), allowed myself to drift off into a reverie about how nice it would be simply to open a jar and spoon it out for Dot.

But I was soon snapped back to reality by the image of baby food jars piling up in the sink - I know the jars can be recycled but as we all know recycling creates a false sense of security and it’s way better to reduce than to recycle - and the certainty that, just as tinned soup is not nearly as vitamin-packed as fresh, so jarred food has to be less nutritionally sound than the real thing.

I am considering giving myself just a few days off. After all, of course Dot would be fine and even I have enough perspective to realize that my health and sanity are more important than a few glass jars.

But will I actually do it? All I can say is, once an over-achiever, always an over-achiever...