•   Greetings • 

Two weeks ago I sent out a newsletter that very few of you got? I am told that sending this at a later hour and adding subject lines to the newsletters may help. If you missed it, enjoy this belated Valentine’s issue, delicious like a two-week-old chocolate you find in the back of your cabinet on a desperate night.

I always say that having kids is like having your brain pass through a tennis racket and coagulating—eventually—on the other side. It comes back stronger, but also some parts are lost. In many ways I am more strategic, patient, cognizant, open-minded post-kids than before. In others, I’m just very stupid.

Here are three examples of problems with simple solutions that I didn’t see because of parental brain damage:  

When James was a baby he’d always have his witching hour right at dinnertime. It was really stressful until those days passed. He was 3 when I realized we could have just had dinner earlier.

The same kid sleeps with a lock on his door. Earlier this year we were in a sleep-deprived rage because we couldn’t figure out how to get him to stop having to pee in the middle of the night (yelling for us to come free him.) It was a month and a half until I realized that we could just leave a potty chair in his room. He actually uses it and lets us sleep in past 4 AM again.

We made spelling flashcards for our first grader for weeks until I realized, as a person learning spelling, he could just make them himself.
 

I asked some witches if this ever happened to them. I’m glad to know I’m not alone:

Every single day my daughter wants to wear a dress, and her dresses are on the top rack of her closet so I have to get out of bed and get it for her or go upstairs and get it for her and she is just generally not the best at dressing herself, probably in part because she needs an adult to fetch her favorite clothes. It literally took me until YESTERDAY to realize that if I put her dresses on the bottom rack and moved her t-shirts to the top, the problem would be solved.

My 5-y.o. had FOUR pee accidents in the cafeteria at school before I finally thought to ask her, "hey, do you know where the bathroom is by the cafeteria?" Turns out she thought the closest one was up 3 flights of stairs (she hates stairs, apparently more than she hates public urination). There is one literally attached to the cafeteria.

When my son was sleepwalking/waking up super-early and eating sugar by the handful from the pantry, I cannot tell you how long it took me to put the sugar somewhere else, but it was a LONG TIME.

May you get a common sense eureka moment of your own soon! If you had one of late, please share it, and we will boast your genius.

~Claire

Y R Spouses • Stay strong

Vent to your friends • My kids are assholes about my work

What's with the kids who still haven't gotten the memo that in this century, dads aren't the only ones who work? The excerpts from this bitch session go out to the witchy working moms, taking care of business at home and at work.

• I am getting shit from my sons for how much I work. I work from home on a website and they don't really have a concept of what I do, and that was my choice and I own it. My husband was out of town for three months on work projects. It's great that he's getting the jobs, and I can handle the kids just fine, and have help—but my husband gets NO shit for that absence AT ALL. Meanwhile, the other day, and this is not the first time, my kid came up to me and said  "Remember that time, a loooong time ago, when you played with us?” What kills me is that I play with them a LOT, just not on their schedule so I don’t get credit for it. GET OF MY JOCK, BOYS.
   

• My daughter has somehow not yet figured out that I'm "supposed" to work less than her dad, so she gives us equal grief, but the other day we got "How come EVERY SINGLE OTHER KID AT MY SCHOOL (obviously not true) gets picked up by their parents after school and I have to go to an afterschool program?" After I told her that a lot of the "parents" she sees picking kids up from school are babysitters, she said "Well, at least they get to go home." And I'm like, “Girl, would you rather go home and be by yourself with a babysitter, or go to where your sister is in preschool and where your best friends of the past three years are also going after school?” And she's like ‘Yeah I guess that.’"

• “My kids do not give me shit about this. It might be because I am the breadwinner and work out of the house. It might be because I have almost no guilt and they can sense it. It might be because I straight up tell them that I don't like to play. It might be because I'm a giant bitch. I suggest ridding yourself of any guilt you might have and telling them to find someone else to play with. Kids are just trying to find your weak spot. They are the worst.”

• “You always want what you can't have. I would always be pissed at my mom for picking me up at from the sitter because the sitter had cable and thus Nickelodeon and I wanted to watch some show during nap time and Mom ruined it all. Now, every so often we have to have a ‘family meeting’ where I tell my kids how lucky they are about everything we have, including my flexible job. Their appreciation lasts all of 5 minutes.”

• “I throw other kids’ parents under the bus. ‘You’re mad that I am going out to dinner ONE TIME? Alice’s mom goes on work trips for a week at a time and Alice doesn’t whine about it.’”

• “I remember being furious with my mom as a kid for working and/or going out with my dad without us. And her mantra, God bless her witchy self, was always ‘I have a life outside of you, and it’s good for you and good for me that I do.’ And I hated it as a kid but I respected it, and now I say the same thing to my daughter when she tries to pull that shit.”

Kids • True privilege

A word from • When bed death is marriage death • J in Ontario

Have you ever found yourself chatting with friends, and everyone is sharing stories, and responding, “Oh yes, exactly the same at my house!” and you just sort of smile and nod wanly but really you’re thinking, “Never happened to me, maybe I’m a freak because I do not relate to this at all”?

For me, the big issue that made me feel like an outsider was sex. “Every” husband pesters his wife at the end of a long day when she’s too tired to get into it and too frustrated to want to. So many women go through this experience.

But not me.

My husband wouldn’t touch me. And I felt like a pariah because of it.

“All” men are supposed to want it constantly, right? I mean, that’s what we’re always told, by friends, by the media, by every source available.

So if my husband wasn’t interested in sex, what did that say about me? Am I hideous? Is my body repulsive? Am I just such a mean person that he can’t stand the sight of me?

And I tried, oh I tried. I made sure to stay fit. I wore things he had previously found attractive. I asked him to buy me lingerie that he’d like to see me in (he refused). I organized date nights. I worried about his health, his sexual orientation, whether he was cheating.

When our child was old enough to go away to camp - a whole week child-free! - I thought it was our chance to rekindle the magic, to rediscover one another as romantic partners.

The first night we went to a movie, and when we got home, he fell asleep right away. Well, we also spent 6 hours in the car that day. The second night, we had a candle-lit dinner at a restaurant we used to go to when we were dating. We walked home holding hands. We were heading upstairs together when he said, “Let me check my email.” When he finally came to bed in the wee hours, I was already asleep.

I didn’t get my hopes up after that.

It does a number on your self-esteem, being the only woman in the world so unattractive that even her own husband won’t have sex with her. Until one night I was having dinner with a girlfriend, and we had enough wine that we finally felt comfortable opening up: we were in the same boat. I was shocked (she is gorgeous, they’re “the perfect couple”)! Later I had the same conversation with another girlfriend.

And then I realized - this happens all the time. But no one talks about it. Men don’t want to admit they have no sex drive, whatever the cause. Women feel so beaten down and ugly, it’s too shameful to say out loud. And because no one talks about it, the problem continues. Thanks, toxic masculinity.

I never found out why my husband lost interest in sex, but in the end it doesn’t matter - there was a big problem affecting our marriage, and he was unwilling to acknowledge it, let alone address it.

My two friends are still trying to make their sexless marriages work. I ended mine (people were shocked, we were “the perfect couple”), and I could not be happier.

Kids • Deciding whether to enroll your kid in travel sports

Food • Your angry dinners

Last September, the day of the Kavanaugh hearings, I spent a lot of time online with friends, revisiting old bad memories of men from before. At the end of the day we were mad at everybody, but mostly men. I asked them what rage-dinner they were making for our unsuspecting husbands:

Cauliflower and potato tacos, bitches.

Cold cucumber soup COMING ATCHA booiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Vegetable soup with egg noodles ☠️

Leftovers, baby.

Instant noodles and not just any broccoli but leftover broccoli 🥦

My husband hates celery. I made a huge pot of homemade cream of celery soup. I mean, I had all that celery. What was I supposed to do? (It was great.)

Broccoli, chicken & quinoa bake for dinner. Now I’m eating an ice cream sandwich in the basement. 🖕🏻

Lentil soup is my fuck you dinner. Specifically, I make a recipe from a United Healthcare calendar for heart healthy recipes. #youandiaregoingtoliveforever. No bread on the side.

What (if anything) do you cook for your family when you are mad at them/the world?

• End Credits •

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This issue is brought to you by drinking coffee at 4 PM because you're going out at 6 and may have to stay out til 9 or later.  

 • One Witchy Thing •