Nature's healing: 85% completed

subtitles are for people with more time on their hands

I do not have a deeply reported/informative issue this week but I do have a list of kid/house activities I am handling solo my husband is out of town seven days for work and to see his parents:

• School Mass

• Dog daycare pickup/dropoff

• Kid guitar class

• School board meeting

• Swim class (2)

• Homework/spelling test prep

• Dog groomer

• Baseball practice (2)

• Baseball game (2)

Not including of course feeding and school dropoff pickup and bedtime and a modicum of hygiene. And me working on freelance and volunteer assignments while they’re at school. Laundry, dishes etc etc. Duolingo has been pretty disappointed in me.

I know this isn’t more stuff than many single parents typically handle but I haven’t had this amount of kid obligations without a co-parent in awhile. I’m actually not (really) complaining, and that’s what is still a leftover from the pandemic. I am not yet salty about this week possibly heralding a return to Default Parent mode setting, not very angry at myself for opting into this super-scheduled bullshit. I’m marveling at my magnanimity—so far—when it comes to saying no to extra plans this week and staying off social media due to time constraints and being realistic about the cost/benefits of cooking a whole meal vs. making a scrambled egg in a mug.

<six hours pass since I write this previous paragraph>…

…And I’m not even that mad, yet, that one of the kids threw up on the way home from school and will be home sick at least one day. I’m so good at not being mad yet that I’m vibing off the way he threw up outside, in an alley, and didn’t get any on his shoes or his shirt. That’s truly something to be grateful for.

Post-pandemic (-ish), I’m still grateful to have things to take the kids to and and glad they are getting a lot of exercise and somewhat relieved to just have ~25% less human in the house. Maybe I’m waking up from a two and a half plus spell where the childcare was as close to 50/50 as you could ever ask or maybe I just feel nervous like this flavor of normal will go away again (and still doesn’t exist for some other parents.)

I might not be so magnanimous and grateful if there are a lot more weeks like this in a row though. I’ll be more likely to listen more closely and have something to say when he says “I’m taking a weeklong job in St. Croix and it pays $50.” I’ll yell at the boys for clowning more and I’ll sigh a lot more when I clean up puke out of hardwood floor (kid was not as successful at barfing overnight.)

So I don’t know about you, but the week I decide I am mad at both my spouse and my kids for being busy and outside the house too much will be the week the pandemic is fully over in our house.

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End credits

Thanks for reading Evil Witches, a newsletter for people who happen to be mothers. Feel free forward this issue to someone who might feel this. If you haven’t yet, I hope you consider becoming a paid subscriber which gets you bonus content and threads! This week’s thread on never-used baby names really took off.

The archives live here if you want to find more practically useful issues on things like raising kids with ADHD, communicating with a teacher who possibly doesn’t get your kid, finding the right menstrual cup (or not), being a working mom who publishes books, or raising little kids while also taking care of aging parents. Or if you want to read something dumb here’s a thing about Delia*s.

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One witchy thing