With 3 boys under 6, Buggy Blogger mum to J (5), B (4) and S (2) certainly has her hands full. This week she ponders getting long in the tooth whilst clinging creatively onto her yoof.

OK, let’s not beat about the bush, I’m getting on a bit now. I’ve got three sons, three decades and a few-more-than three stretch marks under my belt. But … throws caution to the wind … I’m telling you I still feel young at heart.

That’s probably all self-deluding guff. But, darn it, when I look in the mirror I’d swear I’m still fairly wrinkle-free. Now, is this because I’m:

a) ooh … lucky boon … not prone to worry lines. And besides, what’s to frown about?
b) a tad short-sighted and standing conveniently far away.
or
c) a bit behind with the housework and the bathroom mirror’s all smudged-up with little finger-marks?

You be the judge.

And in the interim … sighs as she squints myopically through the smeary toothpaste blotches … I’ll count the crows’ feet and contemplate the ways in which I’m all grown up.

Cripes. Well I am now of course a mummy and example-setter to three small boys, I sit very responsibly on not one but two PTA committee groups, and I’m an old married dear of 12 and a-very-important-half years (no kidding, it’s a big milestone on the Continent, and I’ve got 12.5 year anniversary cards from my European relatives to prove it. Hallmark UK’s clearly missing a trick.)

I opt, more often than not, for sensible flats, I gnash my teeth at litter-dropping teens and I sometimes (shhhh!) often go to bed before 10 o’clock. I introduce my own mother by her Christian name, my knees creak when I walk up the stairs, and unknown parents in the park sometimes refer to me as a lady – as in “mind that lady with your shin-whacking scooter” – which I think ought to be flattering but somehow makes me feel ancient and / or slightly uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, every inch left of my un-groaning, un-wobbly 34-year-old body (that’ll be about 30% of it then) shouts “no” with the ferocity of S when faced with a plateful of … horrors … green beans and peas. I don’t actually feel I’m ready to be an adult yet, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, and I sometimes have the feeling I’m still only playing at house (albeit it in a larger, messier version of the rose-covered, rose-tinted Wendy House haven of my toddler years).

I still enjoy dancing round the kitchen to the turned-up radio. I love the thrill of sprinkling vile-coloured hundreds and thousands onto fairy cakes, and I have an inability to keep my bedroom floor tidy even though I’m well past my years of teenage excuses. I’m a bit in awe of J’s headmaster, I’m a sucker for elaborate birthday cakes, and I still love to giggle uproariously at silly jokes – J’s recent best being “Q: Why should you never play cards in the jungle? A: Because it's full of cheetahs”. Works for me every time.

Yet while I kick back at getting old, the boys seem bent on speeding up the ageing process. J’s desperate for his next birthday to come round, B’s rejected Bob the Builder pre-school toys in favour of the racier Thunderbirds, and S has the look of an old man on his 2-year-old shoulders when he knits his brows, shakes his head and sucks in his teeth defiantly at the outrageous suggestion of getting dressed each morning. Time and tide wait for no man (or mum?) it seems and my babes are growing old beneath my very nose. Sniffle sniffle …

But stuff getting morose about the march of time, my mind’s on other things. Chiefly the boys’ imminent march around the school playground sporting home-made Easter hats. Admittedly, they’re meant to create their own cheap and chick millinery masterpieces in honour of the occasion, but I’m desperate to muscle in. Let them have all the fun with the tissue paper, fluffy chicks and the Pritt stick? Not on your nelly. Age before beauty then – pass me the pound shop Stetson and let’s get cracking.

Mirror, (smudgy) mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest kid of them all? That’ll be me then.

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