Poor Mother Earth

While aiming to be the best mother I can, I've let down another very important mother.  Mother Earth.  Before motherhood I was one of her staunchest advocates, strongest allies and most steadfast defenders.  Ok, admittedly that might be exaggerating a little but I do feel like too many social conversations in my life end up revolving around recycling or some other way to help the earth.  I was called the "recycling nazi" more than once at my last job.  And here I am one short year later and using paper towels and disposable diapers with reckless abandon.  

Actually I use them with lots of green guilt.  I'm torn with the paper towels about whether the added STRESS (of more laundry), water, energy, would really offset the 3 additional sheets I use per day.  Then there are Ziploc bags of ice and food when I pack Ben's meals to go.  I know they make reusable sandwich bags, I just need to make the investment.  There are also moments where I use stress and convenience as excuses.  For instance, I could and should have hauled around a bag of recycling on this summer's road trip but to keep my sanity, I threw things away.  On many occasions I have seen something in the car and thought, "the car would actually be clean and not "on my list" if I just threw that one thing away, and so I throw it away. 

The ironic part in all of this is that the old me used motherhood as my biggest reason for making no excuses when it came to aiding the earth.  I would mutter, "If I ever get to be a mom, I want to give my kids the best earth I can." I also used this reasoning when pushing others to go green.  One year later and here I am with green guilt and doing less every day to help the other mother.  I think a 12 step program would say that admitting I have a problem is the first step, so here I am admitting I have a problem.  I will keep you updated on whether I do anything about it.