For most of the time, I forget that our normal is actually insane. That most people don’t need three calendars for one small child and a meal rota published on the dining room wall, colour-coded so she can choose from it. Most children have two options for dinner: take it or leave it.
So last night, when my husband and I had crawled onto the nearest bed after battling an exhausted, out-of-spoons fae child to sleep—despite her protests of “I’m not tired”—having fed her, bathed her, and generally done all the basic things that most parents do every day without batting an eye, we evaluated how this summer holiday had gone… and how many weeks it would take me to recover from it.
(Spoiler: more than one.)
I should be on the gym floor right now, but it’s the last day my fae has been at home, and we’ve been preparing for the new school year. She now has a new lunchbox, a school bag—with working zips—a uniform that fits, and we even waxed her shoes, so at least on the first day they’ll be waterproof. We made sure she has everything she needs.
Yes, I know—I probably should’ve done this before today. But honestly? I don’t care that much. I was 90% sure the uniform would fit (it does), the shoes I’d bought at least a week or so ago, and everything else is “optional.” In other words: her school will be over the moon she’s there, wearing clothes.
But I digress.
Today, as she helped me place the icons indicating school is back on her weekly calendar, and we marked off the winter term holidays on the annual calendar, and I changed the month on the monthly calendar (so we could mark birthdays and upcoming events), I started to wonder:
Do we actually need three calendars—all within a two-metre radius of each other?
Yes.
Yes, we do.
Because she has been religiously moving the marker on the annual calendar to count down the days of the holiday, so she could see that school was coming back. This is a child who cried at the end of term last July because it was ending. This child is stimming with joy that we just put the school icon back on the weekly schedule. We also added the evenings when Grandma and Pa will pick her up.
She also made me draw a flower so she knows which days to water her sunflower. So… we need that one.
I need the monthly one because, frankly, the annual planner has so many birthdays marked on it, I don’t know which ones are for real people, which are for imaginary people, and which are for toy pets at this point. I’m not entirely sure she does either—but by the looks of it, every day has a reason to eat cake.
Is it mad? Probably.
Does it stop meltdowns? Almost certainly.
Do we eat a lot of cake? Most definitely.
Now excuse me—I need to go buy another one. It’s someone’s birthday
Raising the Modern Fae 