Week of Money: Where Little Bun gets his Tooth Party

DAY TWO

??:?? — I wake up with Little Bun kissing me like crazy on my shoulder and face. I go and grab his milk.

7:58 a.m. — Tea time. Then I start him on his workbooks.

8:17 a.m. — Oooooo I love comments like this, THANK YOU. It’s about this book: Investing Money Like a Boss with this Investing 101 Course, and then this is a Start a Blog Like a Boss book……

10:15 a.m. — We dissolve into a fight about the workbooks. He’s REFUSING to do them. He just sits there and pages through them, decides what he thinks looks like fun… #%#%*#%*(@*%!#@!!!!!! I put him in time out.

11:08 a.m. — He screams in the bedroom for 30 minutes because he asked for an hour (he screamed: YOU DON’T GET TO BE IN THE BEDROOM FOR AN HOUR”… then proceeded to wail and whimper the whole time.)

11:33 a.m. — We settle down in bed and just snuggle. I explain that I felt like he was being disrespectful, I did not understand what the big deal was, and if he could explain it to me, I would listen. I sit and wait for an explanation. None comes. He just didn’t want to do it.

12:10 p.m. — I hold out my hand to his to go finish the workbooks, and we go and do them. Literally takes us 15 minutes. And he threw tantrums all morning. I don’t even know why.

12:20 p.m. — Feeling harangued, I take a break while he eats his lunch, and I watch a show to numb my brain.

12:50 p.m. — He goes down for a nap, and I take another break on the balcony, finishing my book, which had won an award (so I had very low expectations for it), but it has been such a gripping story. The writing is beautiful, and the author really brought me into the story.

3:01 p.m. — Little Bun up. I grab his milk as my partner is in a Zoom call.

3:27 p.m. — My friend calls me as she’s walking home from work, and I explain to her my morning (with Little Bun listening of course), and end with a lecture to him about not giving me trouble any more.

4:16 p.m. — Example of him butting into our one-sided conversation:

Me: Oh poor Dog!!! (Friend recounting troubles with her dog)

Little Bun: Mommy, why is Dog poor? Why doesn’t Dog have money?

Me: *explaining that poor doesn’t mean rich / poor, it also means a term of “oh no, how horrible”, or empathy for someone.

5:05 p.m. — OH FINALLY.

5:29 p.m. — We have a light dinner, I eat half the pasta this time and feel much better.

7:56 p.m. — Little Bun is brushing and we hear a ‘plink’. He looks up with this look of pure joy on his face, and realizes HIS TOOTH CAME OUT. HIS FIRST TOOTH!!… He’s bleeding a bit, and the tooth is small but cute like a jewel, and he looks at it and says: “Oh it looks like a baby tooth.. wee wee wee!!!“… and he pets it.

8:30 p.m. — We play a picnic game where he feeds the Stuffie concoctions of blocks he made up. This one is a soup of raspberries, squash and water:

9:11 p.m. — We start talking at night, about the kind of Tooth Party he wants tomorrow. I promise to draw him a Trophy on a card, and we will have something to eat (likely pizza as it is already planned), and we can read books about teeth too, and tell the Stuffies about the story of how his First Tooth came out.

Spent: $0

DAY TWO

??:?? — I wake up tired, but Little Bun rolls on top of me and covers me in kisses, “squee-ing” like a baby. I grab his milk.

7:30 a.m. — I make tea and try to relax.

7:42 a.m. —  I set the workbook in front of him…..and it descends into a screaming match an hour later. I do not know what it is with this child, but he is refusing to do simple exercises HE KNOWS PERFECTLY WELL HOW TO DO because he thinks they’re too easy and doesn’t want to breeze through them and ‘waste his time’ (maybe), or he’s just CONTRARY. He’s pigheaded, stubborn and exactly the way that I am, but in miniature, little boy form.

8:02 a.m. — My partner wakes up from all the screaming and basically lectures me to leave him alone. And to force him to do his workbook pages or else he doesn’t get his iPad ALL DAY. Until he does them, no iPad. He tells me this works. I am just frustrated at how he won’t just sit down and DO THE WORK because he doesn’t seem to have any sort of “hey let’s get this done, and then play” sort of attitude. Instead, he whines about it, complains, and I will be damned if I raise a son that does that in my house, especially since the whining seems to takes more time than the actual exercises.

8:45 a.m. — I get working on some documents for my mother.

11:45 a.m. — I take a break to have pizza. His tooth fell out last night, so I promised him a Tooth Party, and part of that is pizza..

12:08 p.m. — I finally finish my documents, and he asks for the Tooth Party to begin. So I draw him a huge Tooth Party “YOU ARE NUMBER ONE” trophy card which he stores lovingly in his bookcase beside his 2 other books that he has authored (lol they’re joke books of carefully written out jokes he liked from the internet and co-opted as his own).

He tells me: “Mommy look, my Tooth Party Collectible is still on the shelf!“… it’s pretty cute. I am happy he is pleased with it, and I will make him a second card for his second tooth.

12:15 p.m. — I tell him he has to do 3 pages of workbook as part of the party, and he willingly does them when I enlist the help of the smallest Stuffie and make silly comments / jokes about the pages. The Stuffie is saying to Little Bun “LOOK! I am bigger than a lion!!!!”

12:45 p.m. — He begs to recount his First Tooth story to the Stuffie, and he starts, eyes shining: “Stuffie, do you want to hear a story?”…. and it basically goes like this (imagine a massive long run-on soliloquy):

“So last night as I was brushing, my TOOTH CAME OUT! My first tooth! And Mommy says there is no Tooth Fairy because she doesn’t exist, but I cannot tell the other future friends at school because they might have their own Tooth Fairies who are really their parents, and I am not getting a quarter, I will get a Tooth Party instead today. Also, Santa Claus doesn’t exist either.

It was bleeding a lot when my tooth came out, but not so much, I think it will bleed more when my second one comes out, see? *wiggles his second tooth*, and guess what else, Stuffie?

My BIG ADULT TOOTH is at the back of my little tooth gap now, and I can put my WHOLE PINKY in the middle of the tooth gap where the tooth fell out, and it is coming in as a permanent tooth, not a baby tooth any more.

You don’t have any teeth because you’re a Stuffie, you have teeth made out of Cottonium and Stuffium, and they’re soft but they are permanent.”

I make the Stuffie nod, ooh and aaah at his story.

1:11 p.m. — Time for his nap.

1:30 p.m. — I cut my nails, file them, and paint them with Zoya – Paloma (deep fuchsia), which turns out to be a very glossy jelly finish that is a sheer berry. I don’t hate it but it is high maintenance and I felt like I did 5 coats just to get the colour in the bottle. I wish it was slightly more pigmented, honestly.

2:44 p.m. — I am watching Emily in Paris, which CLEARLY highlights all the worst traits that are supposedly stereotypical (but true) about a lot of French people particularly Parisians. They’re spot on. 100% nailed it. My (Parisian) partner watched a few scenes I picked out for him and he laughed at how true it was from the constant corrections in French (which is a product of their childhood, as they were humiliated as a teaching method in schools), which is why they think English-speakers will do the same thing and mock them mercilessly (so they refuse to speak English and most of my time in France was miserable as a result until I learned French….) when in fact, we are super cool about it, encouraging, and grateful they speak any English at all. That’s just one example of how true this show is.

4:19 p.m. — Little Bun reads his book and tells me the book is WRONG.

Little Bun says: “But MOMMY, they’re writing “when she puts on her pink bow tie”… BUT HOW CAN IT BE!? SHE ALREADY HAS IT ON in the previous page!”

Previous page of the book, showing the incriminating paparazzi shot of the kitten already wearing a pink bow tie:

7:16 p.m. — I take a break from playing with him, then finish all of the dishes. I manage to get it all done, and then I take a break.

8:02 p.m. — Also, I came up with these 10 goals for what I want for Little Bun. It sums up what I think is important for every child to know before they leave the nest.

8:23 p.m. — I start on my last bar of shampoo, so I place an order for more. I am trying out the different versions of this brand, because I like their trial conditioner and shampoo bars so far. I want to try them all and then write a comprehensive review, but this could take a year or so. $61.50

8:35 p.m. — I grab some books to read with Little Bun.

9:00 p.m. — Time for bed. We are both super tired.

Spent: $61.50

DAY THREE

??:?? — I could have used another hour. Feels like 5 a.m..

6:28 a.m. — Early but not so bad. I grab his milk, pop a cold / sinus pill.

6:45 a.m. — We snuggle and kiss on the floor while he “gets used to the light” (it’s so dark outside, that the inside lights are too bright, so he snuggles on my lap and closes his eyes, like when he was a baby and fit on my lap, and I just hold him).

7:19 a.m. — I make tea, and Little Bun does his workbook without complaint, 3 pages!!! FINALLY!!!!

7:26 a.m. — “Mommy, bald means you can’t remember anything.” …. and I correct him that bald means no hair, but has nothing to do with memory.

8:33 a.m. — I log in and check my bank balances, reply to emails, clean up things online, and Little Bun sits in the corner and whines.

9:05 a.m. — He grabs the mini iPad and runs off, unable to wait for me any longer.

9:35 a.m. — I finally finish my banking, and go to play with him. We sit on the floor and play with blocks, he comes up with a hamburger game, and I don’t know the rules. He gets angry at me and I explain that he has to communicate what the game is!!!!

10:28 a.m. — In the bedroom we read books on teeth on an app, then play a pattern game.

12:24 p.m. — Time for lunch. I make warm noodles for myself, and he gets his meal, then he plays on the floor singing to himself.

1:01 p.m. — Time for his nap. I take a break and continue reading my book, popping an aspirin because the weather is killing my head.

1:03 p.m. — I smudge my nail polish but it still looks fine from afar, so I don’t bother trying to fix it. It took so many coats, that it still isn’t dry by now!!!

1:51 p.m. — I finish a book about failure (an excellent read by the way), and then I take a break. I can’t go outside, it’s raining on the balcony, and I already finished my tea. What I really want is to lie down and watch some mindless TV show, so I do exactly that.

3:44 p.m. — Little Bun up, I play with him but then am hit with a wave of nausea, so I go and lie down.

5:20 p.m. — We have another fight in the bedroom with him getting mad at me that I made a mistake and tapped out of a picture we were doing together. NOTHING WAS ERASED. We just tapped back in, but he started getting angry at me that I made a mistake. Feeling nauseous, already grumpy, I snap at him and he starts to cry. I tell him he’s got to get over making mistakes because this is how you learn, and I made a mistake and it is OKAY. I learned from it, what not to do the next time, and now I know!!!! *frustrated* He wants everything to constantly be perfect on the first try.

7:15 p.m. — I make a light dinner, half the amount I’d eat and feel better.

8:49 p.m. — I go with Little Bun and read books the rest of the night. I make it a point to highlight the situations where they make mistakes, and how they overcame that, and how they learned something good from the experience. They tried their best, and nothing was perfect the first time but they tried!!!

9:29 p.m. — Time for bed. I chat with him about failure, and making mistakes, and how we have to try and keep working hard to get anywhere, which is far more important than anything else.

Spent: $0

DAY FOUR

??:?? — I wake up, with Little Bun snuggled up at my back, like a little koala bear. I slowly shift, and turn, so I am cuddling him, and able to look at his sleepy, angelic little boy face as he sleeps.

8:00 a.m. — Wow he really slept in! I snuggle him as he wakes up and then cover him in kisses.

8:24 a.m. — After my cup of tea, we head into the bedroom while my partner attends class on Zoom, and in there, I help him with a game to win a Dots race in our favourite app.

9:40 a.m. — He finishes his pages of his activity book; we decided last night in our chats we would rename it so it wouldn’t SOUND like work and he agreed “activity book” sounded better in terms of wanting him to be more excited about doing the exercises.

12:08 p.m. — Time for lunch. He eats, I eat.

1:04 p.m. — I make a cup of tea for the afternoon while he goes down for his nap.

2:56 p.m. — I finish working on a few more documents for my mother, and take a break.

3:45 p.m. — Little Bun is up, and gets his milk, then he helps me with more documents to organize and give helpful suggestions.

4:18 p.m. — I feed Little Bun. He wrinkles his nose because it isn’t tomato stew any more but celery and red pepper, and he tells me he doesn’t like the texture. I side eye him and tell him he has to eat it anyway. He finishes it all, grimacing, but he eats it.

4:20 p.m. — OH I LOVE this look into Tan France’s home (he’s one of my favourites on Queer Eye. Okay who am I kidding, I love them all!)

4:59 p.m. — I make cheesy pasta, and eat it. It’s so satisfying, warm and cheesy.

5:34 p.m. — I take a hot shower after doing all the dishes and feel a tiny bit better.

6:51 p.m. — I finally put away clothes in my closet and set out new outfits to try taking photos of — I like thinking of new ideas, photographing them and then seeing what they actually look like in a picture because a photo NEVER lies.

8:27 p.m. — Little Bun is in ‘school’ online with my partner, and he’s talking to a screen with a teacher gesturing.

Spent: $

DAY FIVE

??:?? — Feels early. Little Bun is snuffle snorting beside me like a baby hippo, so I just roll over and try to sleep again to take advantage of this.

8:03 a.m. — Little Bun wakes up and I am surprised we ‘slept in’. I woke up an hour before I think, and forced myself back to sleep and now I feel groggy.

8:25 a.m. — I call my friend and we talk the morning away. Little Bun works on his activity book and chooses 3 pages.

9:45 a.m. — Her phone dies, which ends the conversation!

9:55 a.m. — I go through my list of things to do and sort out my life, and bank online on my phone while Little Bun watches a few videos.

12:25 p.m. — Lunch time.

1:03 p.m. — Little Bun goes down for his nap after we talk about recycling (he wants to tell me he hates plastic and I told him we don’t like ONE-USE plastic and we try to avoid it in certain circumstances, BUT…. buckets for instance, are best in plastic for now until we have an alternative.)

1:50 p.m. — I spend the afternoon working on documents for my mother.

3:28 p.m. — I finish after Little Bun is up, and then I go through my list of other things to get done.

5:30 p.m. — I watch a few episodes of The Home Edit and get inspired.

7:13 p.m. — I organize my closet and put things away. Little Bun comes to me and squeals: “I AM BORRRREEEED”… and I side eye him, and hand him a wet towel and told him to get cleaning because BORED CHILDREN, LOVE TO CLEAN. He eagerly runs into the bathroom and starts scrubbing down the sink. I tell him what has to be done, and watch, and try not to interfere. I do point out some spots and say: “Does this look like it’s clean to you?“….(HE MISSED THE WHOLE HALF OF THE SINK!)… and when he’s done, it’s time for studying with Daddy.

8:19 p.m. — Little Bun starts studying with Daddy.

8:56 p.m. — “MOMMY! Tomorrow is Pizza Day. I ASKED! I asked Daddy!”

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

??:?? — I wake up an hour before Little Bun and instead of going back to sleep and waking up feeling groggy, I wake up and grab my phone to answer emails.

7:04 a.m. — Little Bun is up! I cuddle and kiss him. He squeals and tells me that today is PIZZA DAY.

7:19 a.m. — I make tea, I relax, he plays his games.

8:08 a.m. — EARRRGGGH I told myself I shouldn’t and wouldn’t buy anything this month but I have been waiting for this gorgeous dress for a while now, and they finally come out with a beautiful deep forest green shade that I will wear. I was meh on the beige for my skintone, but THIS ONE? Sold. $356

This is me in a dress. Perfect assymmetrical top (and I can scrunch up the bottom to use it like a sweater, or wear a skirt over it)… I can already imagine multiple outfits out of this.

10:21 a.m. — I play with Little Bun in the bedroom as he watches videos, and I try to help him win a race on an app.

1:10 p.m. — I take a break and go through trying to schedule more posts, now that I am doing two posts daily, I am trying to build up a buffer so I don’t fall behind.

2:23 p.m. — I make a cup of tea and finish a book, and start another one.

3:21 p.m. — I play with Little Bun in the bedroom. We go through my necklaces, and I upcycle a few more into a new style, and am surprised.

4:40 p.m. — I eat a light dinner after feeding Little Bun.

6:45 p.m. — I hear Little Bun squealing in the bedroom for attention and I just say to my partner: I think Little Bun needs cuddling. And he goes to see (I spend ALL MORNING and afternoon with this child, I need a break and he knows it.)

7:18 p.m. — I finish the dishes, and try to watch a show to mentally calm down.

8:48 p.m. — We get ready for bed with books, arranging pillows, etc. I am also preparing for nighttime chats, where he asks me where things are made, and I have to give him a brief history (if I know about it).

Spent: $356

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — I am tired. I could use another hour.

7:08 a.m. — I make tea, and start getting prepped to stay in the bedroom out of the way while my partner cooks.

8:30 a.m. — My partner is up and starts cooking.

12:45 p.m. — Lunch! We eat, and Little Bun, belly full of fries and omelette, heads off to bed after calling his father to come with him.

1:15 p.m. — I make another tea, and head out onto the balcony. It is truly getting too cold to sit outside without mittens, I need to find some, or something but then I cannot use my phone, so I need my other mittens that let me use the phone. I am FREEZING, and covered in 5 layers of cashmere, in a goose down jacket.

3:16 p.m. — After his nap, I am inside and we go to the bedroom to play. Then I am horrified, I see the curtain pole about to come down off the wall on one side, and I call out for my partner to fix it. It’s because we have been talking ourselves blue in the face for a year, about how Little Bun should NOT PULL or sit on the curtains and he DOES IT ANYWAY, so now it has finally come to pass. His father is furious. I’m pretty angry.

3:25 p.m. — I get him out of the way while his father takes down the pole and fixes the wall, and I am really tired. I have a headache, all I wanted to do was lie down and this nonsense is happening. I am TIRED.

4:05 p.m. — I take out the jewellery box and he plays “upcycling” to create new inventions, and tells me: I am a creative inventor! I look at the necklaces, play around with them, and come up with a new one I call The Mata Hari. This is the process:

I started with this necklace I liked but found very boring:

I wondered what this Stella and Dot Kimberley ladder necklace would look like hanging off it.. like a ladder-style.

So I attached the two together, and hooked it on:

I also wanted to keep it reversible because I still liked the colours a lot:

Then on a whim, I took this necklace and wondered what it would look like in the middle:

I really like the flower slice drusy look of it but this necklace is SO SIMPLE and it’s boring and I never reach for it any more.

So I put it on top and look at it from afar, and I find taking a photo helps:

I rather like the look:

 

So I take the plunge, remove a few links from the necklace and hook it on there, otherwise I’d have to hot glue/superglue the stone on there and possibly ruin it forever (I DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS), and the main thing is I wanted the stone to be seen from either side, as this should be kept a reversible necklace:

And now I have two looks! I’m actually super happy with this piece. i DID contemplate painting ONE side of the hanging ladder necklace but decided it had enough colour on this side, that I didn’t need to. And I want to keep the other side all gold.

 

4:49 p.m. —His father is still pretty steamed, and tells him he has no more dessert for the whole week to teach him a lesson to stop touching the curtains and to listen to us. He doesn’t seem to react, but later, when he sees me eating my rice pudding, he burst into silent tears but didn’t complain because he knew he had to accept his punishment.

4:50 p.m. — I feed him dinner while we chat. He can feed himself just fine and does it for every meal but this one…. but for some reason when it is soup he wants me to feed him. I think it is something where it’s a bonding time for him in a way, and he feels like a baby (but not a baby).

5:48 p.m. — The fixing over, he reads in the bedroom beside me, on some sort of strange comic called BitMoji which is harmless, not at all PG-13 or anything, just some odd comic.

6:50 p.m. — I do the dishes, and not even 15 minutes later while I am washing, he runs out to sit and play with blocks to be beside me. He literally won’t leave me alone. Even in the bathroom, he follows me in there when I shower, and sits in front of the shower, talking (yelling?) to me over the shower.

6:52 p.m. — Little Bun is crying while I am doing dishes. I ask my partner to go see what’s wrong. He’s sobbing on the bed. I still hear sobbing. I go and my partner is studying the curtain pole that came down because he is still angry at what Little Bun did and can’t console him. I sit on the bed, hug him, and rub his back, and kiss him until he stops crying. I know he just feels bad about all of it, he’s being punished without rice pudding, and everyone is angry.

7:09 p.m. — I go back to my dishes.

7:30 p.m. — I eat my rice pudding, and Little Bun runs out, sees me, and bursts into silent tears. He checks the rack for his rice pudding and there is none. He’s crying and I know why, and we are silent. I finish my dessert quickly. I wasn’t trying to rub it into his face, I just thought he was preoccupied and wouldn’t see me, but he unfortunately saw me and it triggered his punishment pain again. He was able to forget about it until he saw me.

8:07 p.m. — We clean up and get ready for bed, fixing the blankets, pillows, grabbing books to read and then we go to sleep as he asks me questions like:

• How was paper invented?
• Why do we have bedbugs?
• Where do plants come from?

I try not to get too detailed but I give him a rough overview, like a mini history lesson and he asks for more. I think he’d love a book on historical anecdotes and facts.

Spent: $0

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