Week of Money: Where Little Bun breaks my heart

DAY ONE

??:?? — I wake up early, unable to sleep in any longer.

5:05 a.m. — I log in and start blogging. I have to be a bit better on keeping up on this otherwise I spend my weekends catching up which is something I do not want to do as a habit.

6:28 a.m. — Little Bun is awake. I hear the door open and I rush to snuggle him.

Little Bun asks: Why did you leave me and come to the living room?

I tell him I was unable to sleep, and I woke up much earlier than he did.

Little Bun: Oh.

7:39 a.m. — I log in to work, my meetings all got shifted up an hour earlier because there is simply no time left in my calendar for more meetings.

8:08 a.m. — “Mommy, imagine if there was cereal SOUP. EWWWWW”

I tell him that if the “soup” was milk, and the cereal was in there, that would be delicious.

He pauses and clarifies that the soup could not be the vegetable soup/stew he has nightly for dinner.

10:24 a.m. — Little Bun comes out and shows me his pages to check. I am laughing so hard at this one, it just struck me as being funny.

“No because who knows, someone may catch the cheese”.

I might be losing it from being brain dead, but this was so funny I burst out laughing.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time. Little Bun complains that his gums are hurting. I take a look at the back of his mouth and immediately see a molar making its way up. I tell him the tooth is cutting through the gums so it will likely hurt for a while. I hug him and tell him it will be all right, just have to eat a bit more carefully.

1:07 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap. I hear a lot of giggling and shushing because he doesn’t want to nap but his father does, so one gets grumpy while the other wants to play. But sometimes Little Bun does need the nap and it helps his mood.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom, and into my arms. I snuggle him for his AFTER NAP SNUGGLE. I am trying my best to soak up all the snuggles I can, because one day he will be too big and old to be in my arms or sit on my lap. I do miss the little cloth diapered bum on my lap when he was a tiny, soft little baby / toddler.

3:40 p.m. — Little Bun giggles hysterically, and I ask him what is going on:

“They mixed up H2O with H4O WHICH IS SULFURIC ACID.. LOL!!!”

Nerd. I am raising a Little Nerd.

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, and then we watch an episode of Top Chef Family Style. One of the contestants on the show says: “Science isn’t my favourite subject!”

Little Bun pipes up: MINE NEITHER!

Me: *confused* I thought you liked Science?

Little Bun: I do, but MATH is my favourite. Science is my SECOND favourite.

My partner questions what this all means. I explain that typically in English when you say “It isn’t my favourite”, it means my least favourite, not that it is your second favourite or a favourite at all. Apparently in French it is literally “not my favourite” as in not the #1, in the way Little Bun meant.

6:25 p.m. — We read a few books, clean up and vacuum the home.

6:58 p.m. — He gives me a personality quiz he made up by telling me to look at this photo and tell him what I saw first – landscape or skull?

I tell him: Skull (I mean, it was kind of hard not to..)

Little Bun, announces in an officious manner to me:

If you saw the skull first, then you love detective mysteries and are always interested in finding out who did it! You cannot imagine a world without detective stories and videos, and love it all.

If you saw the landscape first, you are artistic and cannot see a world without beauty! You love colours, painting and being creative.

…goodness. How cute he is. He gets this idea from his magazine quizzes where they talked about what you choose being what you see first / want. Like in a jumble of words, the first 5 words you see, are your subconscious manifesting what you want out of life.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed.

Spent: $0

DAY TWO

??:?? — I wake up and move out to the living room.

7:33 a.m. — Little Bun comes out and has a grumpy look on his face. He likes the morning routine of coming over and snuggling me awake, not having me wake up early and then hugging in the hallway.

Little Bun: Why are you out here?

Me: I have to start working, the change means Mommy’s status meetings are at 8:00 now, so I have to log in early, answer emails and prep.

Little Bun: Oh.

Me: How do you feel about that?

Little Bun: Well.. I like cuddling in the morning to wake up together.

I snuggle him, kiss him, then lead him to the kitchen for a glass of milk.

7:30 a.m. — I dial into my call while he drinks.

8:08 a.m. — Little Bun wanders into the living room, checks me on a call, and waits until I am done before asking me: Mommy, imagine if you had a 3×3 Rubik’s cube…. Imagine if you had a PENTAGON Rubik’s cube!

He has been obsessed with them lately, so I add that to my To Buy List along with a chess set for him. My partner would like the Rubik’s cube as well, as it is both math-related and they are both Math NERDS.

11:08 a.m. — Wow. Reprieve from calls. This is truly kind of overwhelming to move into another area I have to learn completely from scratch. This is taking a lot of brain power. I check my packages I got and I am SUPER SAD this much-touted sweater from Sézane called the Léontine sweater that looks amazing, is unfortunately a miss for me because the 100% cotton feels thick, scratchy and squeaks. It is not the 100% cotton softness I was expecting (soft, dewy, pillowy), and it is going back.

I greatly dislike textures or feelings that are not like being enveloped in a cloud these days, and as a result, a lot of styles or looks I might like, aren’t staying in my closet.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time. I also take a break and eat these bars I am obsessed with – Kind Nut Bars – that are just as delicious as a chocolate bar to me, and probably marginally healthier. They’re still sweet but not a sugar bomb.

1:00 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap. I take a break to have a tea before my call.

1:30 p.m. — Calls. More meetings.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom, sees I am on a call, and grabs his seat to sit beside his father to do more learning.

5:40 p.m. — I log off for the day. The overtime will be insane this year.

6:12 p.m. — Dinner is just yoghurt for me tonight. I do not feel hungry. The bars do really fill me up, being nut bars as well….

6:25 p.m. — I snuggle Little Bun for a bit, then he goes to help his father with his English.

“Papa this is wrong! You forgot an “S” No, here, let me fix it..” *takes control of the keyboard and mouse*

… and this one: “This is a FRENCH word not English!“, and tells his father to fix the spelling.

7:30 p.m. — I suggest:

Me: Should I add this to his Learning Plan for school that he’s helping you with your English? 🤣

Partner: No! This is going to look bad for me. Let’s not reveal everything …

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed.

Spent: $0

DAY THREE

??:?? — I wake up, unable to sleep in and quietly head out to the living room to work.

7:30 a.m. — I log into work and start working. I do not have as much time in the mornings with new morning status meetings, but also because of the time change. I wake up normally at 6:30 but now it is considered 7:30…

7:46 a.m. — Little Bun pitter patters out, sort of grumpy I had to get up earlier than him again. I swear he has a sixth sense if I am no longer in the room, even though there’s another adult in there sleeping.

8:00 a.m. — Status meetings. I have 3 in a row.

8:08 a.m. — Little Bun tells me in between meetings – Mommy? I wish I had more time in the mornings to spend with you.

My heart breaks. I tell him that I have no more meetings after 11:30 (or so it seems), and I can spend time with him before his nap.

10:20 a.m. — We take a Stuffie Break, and they play a game of Tic-Tac-Toe that they created out of blocks:

Looks like it’s a draw! NO ONE wins! (Biggest Stuffie was Green, Babiest was Yellow).

At the end of the Tic-Tac-Toe tournament between Stuffies, Biggest Stuffie ended up winning and gets a huge trophy:

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time. He is running back and forth, I am in the bedroom after lunch, hanging with him as he finishes his pages. I have to head back to another call.

1:01 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap, but I am on another call, all afternoon, back to back. Being on two teams is not easy.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom. I snuggle him while on a call and he hugs and kisses me. He knows I am not in love with back to back calls all day.

6:25 p.m. — I finally stop for the day. These days are getting longer. I have to stop working so much, and I will take most of the last day off, because of these hours.

6:46 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery, and I am leaving the rest of the big pots for tomorrow. I am too tired.

7:05 p.m. — Little Bun does schooling with his father.

7:25 p.m. — I wash my hair in the sink because I am simply too mentally and physically drained to consider even the possibility of a full on shower. With the wetting, the drying, the lotioning, the creams.. I cannot right now. I just want to FEEL clean, and the best way to do this, is to wash my hair and face, so that’s what I do in the sink. I remember doing something similar when he was in his newborn phase, and for the first year of his life, I would sometimes just wash my hair in the sink because I couldn’t muster up the energy for a shower.

8:05 p.m. — I am lying in bed, finishing a book. I can’t even concentrate on the paragraphs, my eyes are re-reading them.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed.

Spent: $0

DAY FOUR

??:?? — Little Bun snuggles into me in the dead of night. His father turns, sees him, and says: Go back to your bed!!… I tell him I will carry him back afterwards.

He clearly came over because of something – need to feel me, to snuggle, scared – and I pat his back until he falls asleep against me. Then, I carry him back just before he goes into a limp sleep, and tuck him back into his side of the bed, and lie there with my arm around him, snuggling until he falls asleep. I move back to my side.

??:?? — Little Bun snuggles back onto me in the morning to wake me up.

5:00 a.m. — OUCH. 5 a.m.? After all these 7:30 a.m. wakeups? This is 4 a.m., pre-time change!!! I am bleary-eyed, but I suspect it is because I have been on and off, getting up early. He wants to make sure (subconsciously) he gets his morning snuggle in, AND we wake up together to be together. Instead of spending time in the living room but he has to be quiet because my calls are starting.

6:25 a.m. — I make a tea to enjoy my morning. I do actually enjoy very early mornings, the quiet in the world is very nice.

7:30 a.m. — I start working.

9:45 a.m. — Little Bun pads out of the bedroom while I am on a call. I can sense he’s in tears or about to cry, and I pull him onto my lap, then I quickly end the call as soon as I can. He whispers that he was reading about time machines, and wished he had a time machine so he could go back in time to see his one friend (from a daycare), and hang out with her.

He tells me he wishes he had spent more time with her or was able to (she was pulled out of daycare as she was 1 year older and started school).

Then he bursts into tears and says he misses having a friend and playing with them.

My heart is tearing apart right now. I comfort him, and tell him I am also having a hard time not seeing my own family and friends right now (we normally go back every year for a few months to hang), and I tell him I understand completely how he feels.

I tell him about the idea of Forever Friend, and how I did not find mine until I was 23 or so, and I bring him to his father who tells him he did not find his until he was 34 at least.

I snuggle him and tell him friends will come and go, and one day you will meet one or two friends that are very close, you do not need a million!.. and you will click and have a forever friend. Right now, you are very young, so please do not think this is forever.

I also tell him I am secretly hoping this year, with the variants of omicron, they spread, spike, and drop down again, like the new one cropping up in Europe, and by September, maybe we can put him in school as they are dropping all mask mandates and all restrictions, so we will see how it goes.

I tell him I am hoping so hard that things will be better for this year, and I wish the best for him and for what is to come. I think by this year, then next, we should be okay to send him to school. It just breaks my heart as a parent because I want to protect him and his brain (apparently any case of Covid shrinks your brain, not sure about long-term implications), but I also want to protect his heart.

God. What a thing to take on in the morning. I make sure he is calm and still sad, but at least not upset, and I have to go to my next call, for which I am 15 minutes late for.

10:15 a.m. — I log in to the call.

10:59 a.m. — I check in on Little Bun in the bedroom and he is fine for now.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time, while on a headset. I am prepping it, to eat in between my next calls.

12:57 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap, and I am organizing papers, and trying to clean up my inbox of emails. It is like it all exploded yesterday from both sides.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom, I snuggle him quickly while on a call.

3:40 p.m. — FINALLY. CALLS DONE. This one went into overtime. I am starting to get frustrated because decisions are not getting made by the people who should be making them. Just pick an option and move on. We cannot choose through 50 different versions of what you are proposing. Make an exec decision.

5:00 p.m. — I log off early today for sure. Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery.

6:25 p.m. — I put away laundry, and Little Bun folds everything.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed. This time, we made up stories about “If you give a Stuffie a Cookie”, based off these lovely books by Laura Numeroff, and I make up a story featuring them. In between the story, we are “making” cookies for the Stuffies, and a whole adventure ensues. His imagination is really not bad at all, and I think it’s one of those things you need to cultivate in children because creativity helps you with all aspects of your life, to find solutions. I encourage him by telling him he’s great at finding good, creative solutions (even if they aren’t 100%), because it helps him refine and keep going.

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

??:?? — I wake up to Little Bun crawling over to my side and snuggling me again. He has been having night terrors and he woke up last night wailing, walked over to me, and immediately fell asleep beside me in bed with my arm around him, nestled in the duvet covers.

6:30 a.m. — We wake up together. Guess we are back on the 6:30 time change, which is ideal for me, frankly. Gives me a solid hour before I have to work. 6:30 is the best wakeup time unless I am stressed then I wake at 5, and we head into the living room.

6:47 a.m. — Mug of tea. I need to start my day with a hot mug of matcha latte, or else I just don’t feel settled. Even a hot cup of milk will work, but I enjoy the grassy notes of matcha green tea.

7:50 a.m. — I log off and start working. Today is a SUPER short day. I will not be working until 7 p.m. like last week.

8:08 a.m. — Meetings all morning. Endless.

10:15 a.m. — We have a short “event” online with other children (all via chat only, no videos), and it is a huge hit with Little Bun. He clapped along, and enjoyed the show thoroughly. I am trying my best to find snippets of these “live” things for him to enjoy and participate along with.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

12:55 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom.

3:40 p.m. — I take a break with Little Bun, and Babiest Stuffie apparently built a throne and a huge table to eat cookies on for himself:

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery. We made fettucine pasta tonight with rosemary, smoked paprika, and some small pieces of duck (we use meat more as a condiment than the main course), with half the bowl full of butternut squash. He tells me he loved the dish.

6:25 p.m. — I put away laundry and review my To Do List. I feel my shoulders crunch up (no wonder, constant calls and meetings), and I run the neck and shoulder massager twice while I watch Yo Soy Georgina, a documentary of a couple episodes on the life and history of Georgina Rodriguez, the long-time fiancée of Cristiano Ronaldo. I end up loving her. She seems very genuine.

This neck and shoulder massager by the way, is not super fancy or high end like some out there, but it does the job to relieve tension and stress in my neck and shoulders in a pinch. I have felt my muscles finally break apart after years of being “glued” together, so this works great.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed after we talk to the Stuffies about their day and what they want to do. We tell stories about them, they go on adventures, then we all cuddle up (I am the Mommy Couch) on me, with Little Bun in the middle of my lap, reading books and stories which they then act out together.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

??:?? — I wake up early and hang with Little Bun in the living room. He is much happier now that we are back in sync with wakeups.

6:33 a.m. — I log in and just sit there, watching videos and chill. IT IS THE WEEKEND. I try not to do any blogging work because i consider it.. well, work. I only do it if I spent the entire week unable to do a bit every day, then I catch up on the weekends.

7:50 a.m. — I get invited to a Women’s summit for speakers in Canada, and I turn it down because I do not really have a viable business doing personal finance or money – it is really just a hobby – and I’d rather leave the space for people who actually do this for a living. I already have a career, I just really think talking about money is cool.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

12:55 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap.

3:30 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom because we are heading out to go sledding!

3:40 p.m. — At the hills, we are the only ones for now, but as it gets on in the day, more kids show up. If it gets too busy, we all go home as we don’t want kids crashing into each other.

5:12 p.m. — Dinner. Little Bun tells me the day was so great, he saw so many kids sledding down the hill and excited recounts to me things he saw. He also talks about his delicate snow pieces (he found thin slivers of flat pieces of snow that sit on top, and have solidified a very tiny bit due to the humidity, to where they clump together and create a sheet), which he called “snow tablets”, and marveled at how large they were in his hands, and then how they crumbled so easily.

6:25 p.m. — After dinner, I should have done this last week but I was so tired / busy that I left it until the weekend and now I am being punished to check his pages. That said, him learning how to do division on his own (I did not teach him, and I do not think my partner did either), is kind of great. He learned from a short bit above how to multiply out to the nearest number, then write the remainder:

7:05 p.m. — This one made me laugh too. I definitely shoo away my meetings.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed.

Spent: $0

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — I feel Little Bun crawl over to my side of the bed and snuggle into my nook. He takes a deep breath and falls asleep in my arms. I snuggle around him, curling my arm around him, and he falls into a deep sleep while I enjoy the moment and doze off beside him.

??:?? — We wake up a bit later together, and head into the living room.

6:48 a.m. — I watch videos and try to clean up my desktop.

7:50 a.m. — I make a cup of tea, Little Bun is playing with blocks and singing on the floor.

8:08 a.m. — We are cleaning up the iPad (iCloud storage is insane and I do not know how to clear it, so I am figuring it out), and I come across his super cute list of photo albums. The one that makes me <3 is the one that says: Pictures of Mommy!!!

He asks me why I whited out that picture (“Why did you do that? IT WAS SO CUTE!“) and I told him it was because I don’t want to post these photos of us publicly.

9:30 a.m. — I call my friend and we chat for a while, catching up until Little Bun gives me THE LOOK which is “When are you stopping……“. I get off the phone and we play together.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

1:05 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap. I take a break, eat KIND bars (I am obsessed with these caramel sea salt almond ones), and watch more Yo Soy Georgina.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom, and I kiss and hug him. We end up reading books and making Stuffie adventures in the bedroom.

3:30 p.m. — He breaks and watches videos with his father and hangs out on the floor playing with the Stuffies with him.

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, a fancy one this time, and Little Bun then watches Mr. Bean videos with his father while I lie down in the bedroom. I have recently been turned on to something called “Brown Noise“, where it supposedly calms/massages your brain (there other colour noises too, like pink), but I like Brown a lot because it’s low pitched and it is rather calming. This, with my neck and shoulder massager, and I do feel calmer after a while.

The sound is also great for working, if you play it in your headphones to drown out ambient noise, it helps me focus, though I also don’t mind silence as long as TV or people aren’t talking. My brain can’t help but focus on people’s voices when they talk in English, UNLESS it is a show I already know and rewatch endlessly like “Castle” so my brain doesn’t bother listening to it. In other languages in the house like French, if I hear it, my brain doesn’t bother listening or registering it, but it sounds like TV annoyance to me, or distraction because I have to concentrate to understand what they’re saying.

6:25 p.m. — I am tired. It was a good weekend but too short. I would prefer a 4-day work week and 3 weekend days, as one is always for working for prepping for the week, another is to relax, but I need a third one to really unwind.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed.

Spent: $0

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