Temu chaos, travel prep, & a little giveaway 🎁
Hello from the land of summer juggle-mode,
I hope you’re managing to survive week 2 of the summer holidays! (How is it only week 2? 😅)
First, the headline: my youngest managed to buy £530 worth of absolute nonsense on Temu without me knowing. I opened my banking app and nearly dropped the phone. The haul? Industrial-sized biscuit tins. A real saxophone. TWO slides. Mountains of sweets. Wigs. Lipsticks. Fake nails. I mean, if you ever wanted a masterclass in chaos… she delivered. In style. 💅
Thankfully, Temu refunded the lot (after I jumped through seventeen hoops), but it turns out the true cost was to my nervous system.
🚗 Road trip prep: let’s talk holidays and car journeys
On Friday, we’re going away away. A long 5-hour+ journey (because apparently I don’t value my own sanity), and I’ve already packed the dopamine bag. If you know, you know.
So I want to hear from you:
What works in the car for your children?
I’ve opened it up on my stories - but feel free to comment on here! I’ll compile them all and share them anonymously - Because we all need an upgraded car-survival strategy.
I had a brilliant session with Haley from Brainstorm recently, she gave me some holiday-specific tips for immune-sensitive kids and I thought you’d like to hear them:
✨ Open all the windows when you arrive – detox the space
✨ Bring dust-mite barrier pillow + mattress covers (we love Allerguard)
✨ Ditch any decorative cushions/old bedding on your child’s bed
✨ Bring hot-washed bedding from home
✨ Stick to filtered or bottled water (Fiji or Volvic are great)
✨ Natural suncream only when necessary (T-shirt and hat works best)
✨ And the one that always catches us off guard: food colourings. They sneak in.
And yes, I’ll be taking the Epsom salts, the bicarb, and a small pharmacy in my suitcase. Naturally.
🧬 MIT update & the wobbles
We’re continuing with MicroImmune Therapy (MIT), and I’ve just learned my daughter will likely be on it for about a year. We’ve had a few rough patches - especially when we popped away for a few nights over the weekend. There were moments that were truly awful. The kind of awful that used to floor me. Now? I feel almost numb to them. I guess you start to expect the turbulence. Like emotional jetlag.
But overall, things still feel like they’re moving in the right direction, the dips have been short lived, and things do seem much calmer.
🏠 Balancing the needs of both kids during the holidays
Oof. Being mostly home over the holidays means my husband and I are playing the “divide and conquer” game as much as possible. He takes one. I take the other. But Monday to Friday? It’s just me… muddling through, trying to meet two very different sets of needs. Sometimes we nail it. Sometimes we all just cry a bit.
🎁 The environmental changes I wish I’d known sooner (+ giveaway!)
On Friday, I shared the actual environmental shifts that helped my daughter - no fluff, no endless Googling, no £200 rabbit holes that lead nowhere.
They’re now in one place: my new document “The Environment.” (Click the link to have a look 👀.) It’s full of the swaps, filters, purifiers, detox tricks, and tweaks we’ve made that genuinely moved the needle for us.
To celebrate, I’m doing a giveaway. You could win a copy (there are two up for grabs).
Here’s how to enter:
Share the yellow post on my grid (the one that starts with “The environmental changes that actually helped my daughter”) to your stories
Tag me (@parenting_pandas)
Write the word WIN in your story
✨ If your account is private, make sure you tag me so I can see it!
Winners will be announced on Monday 11th August.
🫠 And to end…
Remember: no one else is carrying this exact mental load. So if you cried because someone left the fridge open again, or you just ate dinner standing up while researching mattress protectors… you’re not alone. Also: the dishwasher can be run twice in one day. There are no rules now.
With love,
Lucy x