Week of Money: Where ESSEC Business school from France has a racist student named Louise Pizon-Hebert

DAY ONE

The night before, just as I am about to sleep —

I tell Little Bun: Please if we can remember, Mommy has to shower tomorrow and vacuum okay? I have been putting both off for 2 days and I am starting to feel gross.

Little Bun: Maybe you should make a note in your To Do list.

Me: I am in bed right now, let’s just try to remember it *sleepy*

Little Bun: *sits up*… but what if I forget to tell you? What if you don’t remember and I don’t remember, and we miss it again for a third day in a row?

Me: Okay…..

Little Bun: I want to write it down just in case, so I don’t forget to tell you.

Me: Fine *sleepy*…

Little Bun: *gets up, goes to the living room and writes out what we have to get done.

(I feel like I am winning at this parenting thing, at least on this front, and teaching him the importance of notes. LOL)

??:?? — I wake up tired. I woke up earlier actually, then forced myself back to sleep and had a VERY STRANGE dream where I met someone who had a $500 Canadian bill which apparently is worth $3000 now as they are out of circulation. I think I still have some crisp $2 bills when they went out of circulation years ago but they’re stuffed in ‘secret’ places I have forgotten about. Maybe it’ll be a treasure trove when I pass and a secret fortune to be had. HAH!

7:59 a.m. — Little Bun woke up on the WRONG SIDE OF THE BED TODAY because he is just so incredibly grumpy. First he deliberately bodychecks me (gets a scolding), and then he starts whining about my using hand gestures to tell him things. I try to keep my cool, but when he starts to whine about how his desk isn’t clean and steady to write or work on (another delaying tactic of Activity Book work), I lose it.

I snap at him and tell him: So figure it out. FIGURE OUT A SOLUTION. Why does everyone have to come and tell you what to do? Can’t you see that the papers are underneath and making your other paper all bumpy? SO FIX IT. FIGURE IT OUT before you start whining about it.

I also tell him: We are NOT starting the morning like this. Mommy has been patient with you, and now you want to treat her like garbage? Why? 

He bursts into tears (they’re half fake, I can tell he KNOWS he was acting like a monster and he wants sympathy) and sobs: But now I want you to come and kiss and hug me!!!

(It is his way of knowing that I still love him, by physically holding him because if I am very angry, I find it hard to hug him because I need to physically calm down.)

Me: *picks him up and holds him* and we snuggle in the chair, with his head against my shoulder, after I kiss his cheeks and pat his bum a bit, just like when he was a baby in diapers.

8:27 a.m. — He seems to have calmed down now, and he has his breakfast while I go and make a call and complain about being shortchanged on my refund. I paid $646, and I got back $590 because they manually removed the QST I paid. WHAT THE HECK. I am so flipping annoyed. They tell me I have to go to the store, and I tell them I am not going anywhere because of COVID.

8:45 a.m. — I finally have a dispute open and I don’t have to go in. It might take 3 months, she warns me. $56 is not going to crush my finances so I tell her I don’t care as long as I don’t have to go argue with them and lose it.

8:51 a.m. — He tells me: Mommy don’t forget your To Do list I wrote for you on the table. *hug, kiss*

9:01 a.m. — Someone sent me this and I find it very telling in 1923, they felt the need to police women to this extent:

9:17 a.m. — I am frantically trying to finish these mini blog projects and posts (I never run out of content, it’s just the time and energy to sit down and bang it out), and I manage to schedule a juicy one: Exposé – I was a sex worker for a few months, based off direct messages I got from someone replying to a story I posted on Instagram about how being a Sugar Baby sounds like a terrible deal, and a lot of work – more than it’s worth.

9:45 a.m. — Little Bun is doing activity book and asking lots of questions (VERY NICELY now). We work through deductions of what seasons it could be for different animals in various stages of hibernation: Trees would start taking off their clothes in autumn, Mommy, so that’s why the trees are green and it cannot be autumn. Also, unless they’re a pinecone tree or a Christmas tree, then they stay green! So this cannot be autumn! Maybe it’s summer, because it cannot be spring, as the leaves are just starting to come out and there are buds.

10:30 a.m. — I really want this necklace but refuse to pay $500 CAD for it. I am examining how I can recreate it myself.

10:51 a.m. — I by the way, still want all of these items, and put in an order. Why the heck not. YOLO. $1115.54

This wasn’t the entire list, but these are really stunning, recycled brass pieces from one of my favourite artisans (Alkemie). I am having it shipped to a friend to reship up to me because of this:

11:35 a.m. — I finish my long, luxurious shower, only interrupted at the end with Little Bun coming in, letting out ALL OF THE WARM STEAM in the bathroom, saying: “Mommy..? Mommy?… Are you doing okay in here?” …. I tell him “Yes! CLOSE THE DOOR!”

11:49 a.m. — His turn for a shower with Daddy now. I yell through the door: Don’t forget the lotion on his body!! .. He doesn’t use body lotion so he doesn’t understand how dry skin can get in winter especially for Little Bun and myself, as we have eczema.

12:06 p.m. — I make a quick lunch of reheating quinoa, duck and carrots, and end up eating two massive bowls. I eat very little meat with a lot of grains / vegetables, just from a childhood quirk – I am not used to eating large mouthfuls of meat and find it very heavy, and can make a steak or something like a duck leg last a whole week with enough sides.

Example: This is my first bowl with a tablespoon at the right for comparison. You can see I have two small chunks of duck confit which in hindsight was too much meat for this bowl for me.

I ate through one chunk of meat with everything there, so I ate the second chunk with more quinoa and carrots:

12:52 p.m. — I make a cup of tea after cleaning all the dishes and starting laundry.

1:20 p.m. — Time for some reading, and chocolate. FYI, this is my second spare emergency stash. Each bar is 300 grams, for a total of 3300 grams or 3.3 kg of chocolate.

3:12 p.m. — After he wakes up, I go in to play with him, and I see this behind the door and burst out laughing. He doesn’t “nap” all the time, but sometimes just has quiet time where he makes up games in the dark with his Stuffies, and reads a little.

4:45 p.m. — Out of the blue, he hugs me and says “MOMMY! I love you Mommy“… and then he goes on the floor and curls up in a fetal position and squeals happily: “This made me feel like a baby! I’m a baby!“… and I laugh, I kneel down and snuggle him, my arms around him.

5:17 p.m. — I have a dinner, and I overeat and feel too full. I have to stop thinking I need to eat when I don’t.

6:59 p.m. — I take him into the closet and we start playing, upcycling pieces. I am horrified, I noticed he dropped something heavy and dented the floor just a tiny bit, and I am also frustrated at piece I am working on that I cannot get to stay upright. I am missing the structure of the clay or something. Maybe once I bake it, it will be tough and hard enough to stay as-is.

He looks at up at me, and says: Mommy, you’re getting grumpy. I see you’re feeling upset, and if you’re not having fun doing this, let’s clean up and put everything away and take a break.

I SAY THE EXACT SAME THING TO HIM, so I laugh, and I tell him: Good idea. Mommy isn’t angry at you, just disappointed it happened. That’s all.

7:20 p.m. — I feed him dinner late (I COMPLETELY FORGOT) while he watches Sesame Street.

7:49 p.m. — My partner brings out our Christmas tree (it’s cardboard, we didn’t want plastic and we don’t want to kill a real tree every year, nor deal with the mess), and Little Bun helps assemble it and puts decorations on.

8:19 p.m. — Time for his schooling.

9:42 p.m. — Time for bed after we read a few more pages about these inspiring women in history (SO GOOD!)… and I get inspiration for names for future upcycling pieces.

Spent: $1115.54

DAY TWO

??:?? — I wake up in the middle of the night. I can’t go back to sleep. Having a strange dream about not wearing sunscreen outside and I am freaking out.

??:?? — Little Bun rolls on top of me and into my Mommy Nook, and I snuggle him.

6:30 a.m. — I wake up and go through my list. I have a lot of content to create, but I keep procrastinating on Instagram. Time to buckle down and do a few posts today and then I can reward myself with a nice book and chocolate.

7:17 a.m. — Isn’t this the truth?

7:22 p.m. — He’s working on his Activity Pages.

Little Bun: These brain teasers in this book are too easy for me. They’re Grade One brainteasers.

Little Bun: A pyramid can only slide, not roll! .. And a sphere is like a circle so it can roll while it’s sliding.

9:15 a.m. — We go and draw photos on the iPad together, he likes using all the subtle colours and mixing them. Then he gets bored, and we head into the closet and start making more jewellery together. I’ve used up a lot of polymer clay, and am running out of stones but I am excited to keep going.

11:45 a.m. — I spend the morning fixing his favourite shirt:

12:10 p.m. — I walk into a door – Little Bun closed it and I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t think it was possible but I am really out of it.

12:26 p.m. — Little Bun asks: Can you check to see if I am a Stuffie?... It’s a game I made up inadvertently where he wore his socks and I exclaimed jokingly: You’re a STUFFIE! Look at your feet!.. and he giggled, pulled off his socks and showed me his toes, crowing that Stuffies did not have toes, or fingers.. and I have to check his knees, elbows, shoulders, bellybutton, cheeks, nose, mouth… it’s really cute.

1:02 p.m. — Down for his nap, I make a tea and watch The Happiest Season 2020 because I love Dan Levy so much (especially from Schitt’s Creek), and his humour/wit makes me so happy. So he’s NOT a main character in this movie, he’s a sub supporting character but it’s still a wonderful one to watch. It’s wonderful. My favourite sister is Jane. I love her so much! She is just so … <3.

1:16 p.m. — This is what it’s like to live in Canada by the way:

 

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6:14 p.m. — My partner plays Barbies with Little Bun. I am not sure what she is doing holding Babiest Stuffie, while Ken is half naked with his arms out but…. Something is going on.

6:57 p.m. — I am reading my book. I feel the need to finish the book to see if it gets better, but so far, I am turned off, but not enough to just write it off as a lost cause.

7:40 p.m. — I also find this really funny, because people are trying to get Ryan Reynolds as a street name in Vancouver, and he responded:

8:05 p.m. — Little Bun schooling time!

9:14 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY THREE

??:?? — I wake up with Little Bun snuggling on top of me and kissing me. Then as I get up, he goes to the bathroom, and then I go to get his milk as he runs and snuggle-bombs Daddy as well.

7:30 a.m. — I make tea, sit under my light therapy lamp/screen to try and bring some light back to my body on this very very dull, day. My friend suggested it as she says the light therapy helps her. I am going to give it a try, and I like the bright light anyway.

8:45 a.m. — I make a snowflake ‘ball’ with Little Bun after he has breakfast, and then we talk about things he learned, like how a tricycle handlebars move, and all these other Little Boy questions he has.

9:04 a.m. — We spend time in the closet after he says this:

Little Bun: *long eyelashes up at me, in a very conciliatory tone* You don’t look very happy with your working right now. I’m very sad for you.

Me: Do you want me to take a break? Is that what you’re asking me to do, so I will come do something fun and play with you?

Little Bun: YES! *sweet smile*

(Sly little fox…. my partner burst out laughing and said he’s ready to be a politician.)

10:22 a.m. — In the closet, he tells me: Mommy please help me put this necklace on. I oblige. Then he smiles and says: I feel so BEAUTIFUL!! The beads are so pretty!

He’s really sweet. And I made that necklace, not him. I will break it apart to do something new.

11:42 a.m. — Time for lunch. I try the pasta with hot smoked paprika this time, my partner bought it not thinking that I had asked for cayenne pepper, which is much hotter than this paprika, so I am trying it out but will likely ask for cayenne as well.

12:15 p.m. — I log in and fill out all these forms for work.

1:02 p.m. — Time for his nap. Or at least his quiet time.

1:25 p.m. — This page triggered me. The book itself is good, but it just makes me so angry that this happens for real and not in fiction only.

2:16 p.m. — And here is another excerpt someone posted that I feel disgusted by. These men have mothers at the very least, plus sisters, daughters (you can see children in their profile photos). Do they realize what they are even saying? This is someone’s daughter/sister/cousin/friend ….

2:55 p.m. — I go on a call and before I get on it, I tell Little Bun I need a half hour, and he pauses, considers this, and asks: Is this an important or a chat-able call?… Meaning “Are you needing to have quiet, or will I be able to eavesdrop like with your friends?“. I tell him Important Call, not Chattable. He nods, and promises to be quiet (AND ISN’T because he giggles so loudly and talks to himself while watching his shows, that it ended up being a call where he wasn’t quiet enough. My partner is taking an exam so I can’t foist him off.

3:28 p.m. — I don’t mind answering short DMs, I really don’t. I even get into long conversations sometimes, but I have to now be very careful and strategic with my time, so I greatly appreciate this:

4:15 p.m. — I find old budget notes back from 2008-ish, mostly pictures of my budget, and I decide to try and recreate those lost years. I am so mad I lost my data from 2008 to about 2011, and now I back everything up about 6 times, give or take. I was also quite terrible at keeping track of things to post on my then-blog, which frustrates me NOW because I am so diligent to post every month my detailed spending, etc.

5:43 p.m. — I am hungry but not hungry. I don’t make a meal to eat.

6:30 p.m. — I finally finish entering all the data. It’s pretty much what I had before, but ACCURATE, which was what was bothering me before.

6:48 p.m. — I go to brush my teeth while Little Bun wipes down the cutlery. He tells me after he wipes down cutlery, he will be close to Brushing Time. I take it to mean that I can brush my teeth, wait for him to brush his, AND THEN we will play. So I brush my teeth, and while I wait for him to go brush his, I lie down and read my book. I keep hearing his father say: Time to brush teeth!.. and he keeps saying forcefully (at least two or three times):  NO I DON’T WANT TO GO RIGHT NOW., which I find odd, but I figure he’s playing with his father and having too much fun…

7:01 p.m. — Then he runs into the bedroom, sobbing his heart out: “But you said.. you said we would play. Why is it taking so long? Now it’s Brushing Time, and I don’t want Brushing Time. I said after cutlery wiping, I was waiting for you.” He’s hiccupping, truly hurt, red faced, sobbing and I am alarmed. I had completely misunderstood the entire exchange, and felt terrible, so I run out, I take his hand.  I do take the time to apologize and tell him I thought he meant AFTER we both brushed our teeth, we would play. I didn’t realize he was waiting for me.

I said that Mommy misunderstood, she didn’t realize what you meant. I kiss his red, tear-stained cheeks, and then we play. I think it’s important (at least to me), that he understands that I made a mistake and misunderstood, not that I ignored him, which is a different thing altogether. I didn’t mean to hurt him, and I apologize profusely, and treat him like an adult, the way I expect to be treated as well.

7:15 p.m. — I go and play with Little Bun. He also makes a joke: Mommy, tomorrow is FRY DAY, get it!? (Because he gets French fries tomorrow), even though it isn’t Friday.

7:39 p.m. — After playing enough, he goes and tells his father: Time to brush teeth.

8:34 p.m. — Time for bed. I’m so tired now that I promise to lie in bed and chat with Little Bun (after we read a few pages). He asks me questions, tells me things, and I listen and try to answer back thoughtfully.

Spent: $0

DAY FOUR

??:?? — Little Bun snuggles into my nook and squeals: MOMMYYYYY!!!!!

7:38 a.m. — My morning start. I had Little Bun help me whisk some of it this morning, maybe he can start making them for me as he gets older. 😉

7:50 a.m. — My morning starts with a rude jerk instant messaging me. What they don’t realize is that all of this is just fodder for posts, and more content, so perhaps it’s best not to help me out, in this regard?

 

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8:08 a.m. — Oh wow. This made me cry happy tears:

 

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10:58 a.m. — I am playing with Little Bun in the closet, we are “upcycling” again, but really, I am organizing my beads and trying to think of what else to do. I am slowly running out of items to upcycle and I have done so many pieces in the past week, it’s like my brain is out of ideas at the moment. I just let him play in there.

11:20 a.m. — LUNCH! Nothing makes this child happier than French Fries.  If you want to be his bestie, feed him French Fries.

12:52 p.m. — This is me complaining about how my partner never gets the gossip. He will be on a Skype family call, and the last time this happened I slid over a note that said: GOSSIP in big bold letters. After his call, I ask him: SO!?!? WHAT’S GOING ON….!!! *insert popcorn emoji* … and he tells me: Oh this person got a new girlfriend. I immediately ask for photos, details, and he tells me: I didn’t get anything! You wrote GOSSIP, not PICTURES. I asked him to seriously tell me how long we have been together, is he new around here?!? I need DETAILS.

So I wrote: FAILED – This man, so infuriating. Horrible spy. Gets an F from me.

At least I am not alone because I get this message:

12:52 p.m. — I get absorbed back into my book – this author Kate Quinn, writes in the most beguiling way. If only all historical fiction writers were like her. She makes me feel like I am there. I will read ANYTHING by her. Any book.

1:07 p.m. — I make a cup of tea for the afternoon. Feels like a chocolate afternoon to me.

2:58 p.m. — I stuff my face with a bar of chocolate and power through my book. Little Bun is up from his quiet time, and I go and snuggle him. I love it when he just comes out from a nap or quiet time, he is so energized and relaxed from it.

3:35 p.m. — I feed him his dinner while he watches Sesame Street (he loves Elmo!)

4:45 p.m. — I do the dishes, laundry, and he helps me vacuum after he has his dinner. He genuinely seems (these days anyway) to enjoy cleaning and doing his tasks.

7:13 p.m. — I left a whole pile of wet cutlery on the counter with a clean cloth, and I go to read my book while he is playing with Daddy. I hear him come in and tell me: It’s time to put the cutlery away! I wiped it all! … I didn’t even ask him to do it (again), and he did it on his own knowing it was his task. ALL THIS WORK IS FINALLY PAYING OFF.

8:09 p.m. — School with Daddy.

9:33 p.m. — Time for bed. I tell him stories about Stuffie Town (it’s a town full of just Stuffies of all sizes).

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

??:?? — I wake up tired, I do have to see a neurologist today.

7:02 a.m. — I snuggle him in bed and then get his milk, and make myself a tea. I try to each him how to whisk it but it doesn’t have it down yet, and I just let him practice, though I suspect it might take a bit more time to get the feel for not smushing down the whisk so hard and using it to lightly whisk.

7:55 a.m. — I am doing Activity Book with Little Bun by helping explain things, and he’s distracted by the Canadian geese outside in flocks flying around. He tells me: They’re migrating now! ... and I ask him to explain migration, I explain that they migrate because there’s food down south when everything is frozen up here, and when it starts to snow he jumps up and down says: THEY’RE GOING NOW!!!.. I tell him it’s likely we won’t see them leave, but they’ll know inside when it gets too cold and it’s time to go. I point out that they never fly alone, always in pairs at least to help each other, and they try to stay together in a big flock.

8:25 a.m. — I get ready for my appointment and I leave, giving him a hug and kiss. At the hospital, I pay for parking so I don’t have to wander around trying to find parking, reading the signs and deciphering them. $2

8:57 a.m. — This is funny but also not funny..

9:30 a.m. — I come out of the appointment a half hour earlier than I anticipated, and I give my paid parking ticket over to a man behind me in a car, in a spot he cannot park in. I paid for the time, he might as well benefit from it. He thanks me and I drive off. If he wasn’t there, I would have slid the ticket underneath the parking meter pole, for someone to spot and perhaps park in the spot and check to see how long I paid for it. Here in Montreal, they don’t go by the ticket paid, but by the person paid, so I could have paid for that half hour, and if I didn’t give him the ticket, he could have easily parked in my spot and paid again for the same half an hour. This is why we leave  the pre-paid tickets for each other.

9:44 a.m. — I come back and tell my partner what happened. They finally diagnosed me as having AURA MIGRAINES after bloodwork, a CT scan and pills. I google it and it fits perfectly what has been happening to me, down to the left eye losing vision. There’s no cure. She tells me to drink coffee but I can’t as it makes me vomit (the amount of caffeine is too much), so I just drink two cups of tea and will keep doing that. She also tells me to avoid alcohol (easy), and chocolate (not so easy) as it could trigger it. It seems however, that my main trigger is stress and that’s why in 2020, it started to really escalate and I got a lot more migraines and more severe ones.

10:50 a.m. — I have lunch after playing with Little Bun who has missed me for the hour or so I was gone. He’s so attached to me… I am so hungry however.

11:44 a.m. — LUNCH! OUR FAVOURITE. Fries and a kind of overcooked omelette (something went wrong…)

1:04 p.m. — Down for his nap, I read a book.

2:34 p.m. — What a good man, this Keanu Reeves. What a GREAT role model.

I need to read more about him. I would invite him to my Celebrity Dinner Party, post-COVID, catered of course because I cannot cook, and would be honoured to have him! Haha… I am sure everyone has a Celebrity Dinner List party of 12 (dead or alive), if they could pick anyone in the world to meet. 🙂 My list is roughly this, in no preferential order:

• Keanu Reeves
• Michelle Obama
• Chrissy Teigen
• Barack Obama
• Ali Wong
• Diana Vreeland
• Trever Noah
• Ryan Reynolds
• Oprah Winfrey
• Eric Ripert
• Anthony Bourdain
• Cleopatra – assuming she would have a translator 😉

I want people who seem to have scintillating stories, conversation and are overall nice, PLUS will get along with each other and have lively, interesting, and funny conversation.

3:28 p.m. — I either woke him up from his nap by flushing the toilet, or he woke up because he needed to go to the bathroom, but I hear him wail in the bedroom and my partner accuses me of making too much noise and waking him. I don’t think so,  I think his bladder woke him. At any rate, I go and I take care of him, snuggling him.

3:50 p.m. — I do the dishes, laundry, and then he helps me wipe the cutlery.

4:12 p.m. — Time for dinner! He watches Sesame Street happily.

5:30 p.m. — I go to lie down after playing and ask him to give me some Quiet Time. He comes up, inspects my face, and tells me: OK Mommy, I can give you quiet time!.. and he closes the door and goes to his father while I read.

6:09 p.m. — This triggered me, so I wrote in pink below:

6:22 p.m. — He comes back in and then I get up and make dinner, then do dishes again (he wipes the cutlery down again).

7:30 p.m. — We clean up the apartment again, he writes a ‘story’ for the Stuffies on a piece of paper, and then plays quietly with them and blocks in his dollhouse while I go through my banking things.

8:09 p.m. — He has school with Daddy, and I go to lie down and read.

8:15 p.m. — This is kind of cute:

8:45 p.m. — Time for bed. I am very tired, and I tell him Mommy has to rest and sleep more, as per the doctor’s orders.

Spent: $2

DAY SIX

??:?? — I wake up to the sounds of Little Bun tramping around. I ask him if he’s awake and he comes close, and whispers to me: I wanted to give you more time to sleep in Mommy, because the doctor said you need to rest more. I snuggle him, and tell him: Thank you very much baby, but I have to tell you, if you’re awake, I’m awake, because I cannot sleep with you moving around like this. He immediately hops back to his side and tries to settle into the blankets to ‘sleep’ and be quiet again for me, but I laugh and tell him I’m already awake. I take him to the bathroom and then he snuggles his father while I get his milk.

7:30 a.m. — I make some tea, and try to leave enough in the milk bottle to ration out until my partner goes out to get milk again. I hate being left without a tea of some sort in the morning, and if I cannot have a full matcha latte because I’ve run out of milk, I will have a regular tea with a much smaller splash of milk  instead AS LONG as I get a cup of tea, but this only happens if I am able to ration this out properly and plan my milk intake. Some weeks I have been extra grumpy without even a cup of tea and a splash of milk, and I have learned my lesson now.

7:54 a.m. — Little Bun starts on Activity book but is distracted by the Canadian geese outside again. He wants to ask them when they’re leaving so he can say goodbye. I tell him they’re animals, we cannot control them, and they’ll leave when they feel it is time. Maybe we will catch the migration if we’re lucky.

8:15 a.m. — I had written this post:

 

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Then I get this comment: Bless her heart. Sarcasm is a lost art, I am afraid.

10:23 a.m. —  France is so incredibly racist as a country (don’t even deny it, they are .. they are as racist as the U.S., with half of them not, and the other half very), and then you read this about a student named Louise Pizon-Hebert of ESSEC Paris France business school living in Singapore, making racist remarks and gestures all of which have been memorialized here as she tried to delete it. This is the equivalent of blackface, and equally as disreputable. She proceeds to defend what she did:

Just look at the comments her idiot friends have made back to her, pretending to speak “Asian” with their “ching chong” a$$hattery:

“So chong, so coronavirus“, Pauline Lem writes… this is the kind of racism that goes unchecked because “they aren’t hurting anyone”, people say. Does someone need to be beaten up and killed before it is considered racism? I hope she has to answer to some hard questions about why she did this.

11:22 a.m. — When Little Bun is very happy about something, he’s started a new thing where he curls up into a ball, and squeals like a baby “squee squee” and tells me “MOMMY I GOT CUTIE-FIED!“… and when he gets ‘cutie-fied’, it means I have to snuggle and kiss his cheeks to absorb his cuteness because he is extra cute and extra excited about something. Children are so imaginative. The other day, he says to me: “Oooopsies! You made me cutie-fied“.. in response to something I did for him or said to him (I can’t remember what).

11:51 a.m. — Lunchtime. My partner made pizza and I throw a bunch of smoked paprika on it…. I LOVE this. I just wish it was hotter, I may need to mix it with cayenne pepper.

1:02 p.m. — Down for his nap.

2:11 p.m. — HAH! The expectation of parents “why don’t you save him as a PDF and see if that helps“..?

3:05 p.m. — Up from his nap, he runs to me, and I cuddle/kiss him.

5:16 p.m. — I decide to cut my hair before I shower and accidentally snip through my hairband. Oops.

6:56 p.m. — As I am in the bathroom applying lotion, Little Bun knocks, then I say: “Yes baby?“.. and he opens the door, letting out ALL OF THE STEAM and asks me: Mommy? How are you? Are you doing okay in here?… I side eye him and tell him “Yes, but you’re letting out all of the hot steam!!!! CLOSE THE DOOR“… he harrumphs and closes the door. He truly can’t ever let me be alone which is both endearing and also annoying.

6:56 p.m. — Accurate *LAUGH*

6:56 p.m. — We both eat dinner, and then I do dishes, and we snuggle while I try to finish my book. I am taking the time to read as much as possible and my “break” times are just dedicated to reading. I can’t seem to handle more than one book a day nowadays.

8:03 p.m. — Little Bun has schooling with his father and I read.

9:15 p.m. — Time for bed. I am seriously tired. We read a storybook about a chipmunk preparing for winter with beautifully illustrated pages, and then he asks me eagerly: Can you give me a Stuffie Weather Report on Stuffie Town?… and I make up a story about Cottonic and Stuffium (the two elements he created for Stuffies) falling down in droplets shaped like hearts and rainbows, which helps fluff up the Stuffies inside when they eat them, and makes beds for them to snuggle down in.

Spent: $0

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — I wake up with Little Bun screaming.

??:?? — More screaming.

7:15 a.m. — I am dragging today. I check my emails, and get the ball rolling on my contract – more papers to sign? ARE YOU SERIOUS?

7:59 a.m. — I am finished my tea, and wondering what to do with my day.

8:08 a.m. — Little Bun plays quietly after doing his Activity Pages. He got his iPad back, so he is quiet and happy with his Doomsday Vault app that helps him save plants for Earth.

1:08 p.m. — Time for his nap, I devour my book.

4:37 p.m. — He’s up from his nap but I am still reading my book. I can’t stop, it’s not that it is amazing, it’s that I want to finish it and find out what happened.

6:16 p.m. — I order a secret batch of See’s candies for my mother, my friend will reship it up to my mother and she’ll be surprised with fudge, butterscotch lollypops, and chocolate. She doesn’t know it’s coming, it’s a big holiday surprise because she expressed a desire for the lollypops but found them too expensive (they’re not, but she is always trying to be frugal on any luxuries for herself), so I decided to buy them for her as a treat. $167.60

6:16 p.m. — After dinner, we settle in to watch videos my mother sent us on various subjects she thinks Little Bun would love.

7:25 p.m. — In the closet, he ‘makes’ a pretty necklace (his newest invention), and a cute happy face:

For my part, I have been creating like crazy, these beautiful pieces that I will then have to finish with painting:

9:40 p.m. — It’s getting late, I always get caught up in upcycling and so does Little Bun, so it’s late before we head to bed, and I tell him a quick Stuffie story.

Spent: $167.60

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Want more? Read all of my previous Week of Money Diaries.