Save. Spend. Splurge.

Week of Money: Where Little Bun has the cutest week

DAY ONE

7:30 a.m. — I log in and start working.

10:25 a.m. — Little Bun is grumpy I am on calls. He is coming to ask me things and I cannot reply as I have to concentrate on what they are saying to me in my non-native language (French), and then also figure out what he wants at the same time. UGH. I tell him to type / write it down, and he does.

Afterwards, he is a bit more than grumpy. I call out to him – Don’t be grumpy at your Mommy!!!

He stomps back and says to me: I CAN BE GRUMPY IF I WANT TO BE IF THAT IS HOW I FEEL.

Me: … Okay. Yes. Fair point. You have every right to feel bad and be grumpy if that is how you feel, but please do not take it out on me.

He stomps back to the bedroom and calms down.

11:13 a.m. — After a little break of reading magazines and doing goodness knows what, he comes back out feeling a bit better. He tells me that sometimes he just needs a little break.

12:34 p.m. — Lunch time.

1:07 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap and I am on calls.

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery.

7:25 p.m. — I log into a call in another timezone, frantically waving the family off from the kitchen as they are making NOISE and I cannot hear a thing.

8:54 p.m. — I am done for the night, I log off, do the bedtime routine and sleep.

Spent: $0

DAY TWO

??:?? — I can’t sleep. A lot is happening right now and my anxiety is flaring up.

??:?? — I wake up again and force myself back to bed.

6:00 a.m. — I log in and start working. Little Bun is still sleeping.

6:36 a.m. — I hear crying in the bedroom. Well, not crying with tears, but you know how children let out a long distressful cry / whine? … That. I leave my partner to handle it. He’s in there.

6:40 a.m. — I can hear Little Bun slump against the door on the inside, waking up blearily because I am awake before him, and he wants to be awake at the same time, together. Always. I go quickly, and extract him from the bedroom, and let him snuggle in the hallway in my arms. His head is on the crook of my arm and is VERY HEAVY (he’s no longer a baby!!), and we still snuggle together sitting on the hallway floor like we did when he was a toddler, so he gets used to the light and ‘wakes up’ in my arms.

6:49 a.m. — Back to work. He is cutting out this new game “Relax” he invented. It is basically cards with things to do to help combat anxiety, and one of them is “read a book” for instance.

10:00 a.m. — I go grab packages from the mailroom.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

3:40 p.m. — I head out for a walk. A short one, to just refresh myself.

5:12 p.m. — Back home. As we are eating dinner, Little Bun turns and says to me thoughtfully: Mommy, I think Daddy’s lemonade is wine. We have regular lemonade, but then Daddy has his special lemonade.

Well, he isn’t wrong! 🙂 I don’t drink, so that makes sense that he sees his father’s special drink on the equivalent wavelength of our lemonades as special drinks.

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

Spent: $0

DAY THREE

6:30 a.m. — I log in and start working.

8:08 a.m. — I am replying to messages, catching up on emails from various time zones, etc. Then meetings all day.

9:34 a.m. — Little Bun heads out with his father to go shopping for a cutting board. When they come back, my partner says he tried to ask for a discount but it didn’t work.

Little Bun: “Is there a discount on this cutting board?

Woman replies in the negative.

Then he continued: “Well my daddy wanted to buy your cutting board but not at these prices!!!!

LOL. Can you even. He is really my child.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

1:01 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap.

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

3:05 p.m. — Little Bun is having a meltdown. He started on math questions, and then he just… got angry that he got them wrong (ALL HE HAS TO DO IS CHECK HIS WORK AND HE NEVER DOES IT). After he finally calms down with my help, he does math and turns to me saying: Mommy, look, I am doing all my pages, look at how much time we are going to have together!!!

Me: Umm.. yes. *thinking she would like time alone without any of this drama so she can also unwind*

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery.

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

Spent: $0

DAY FOUR

7:30 a.m. — I log in and start working.

10:25 a.m. — We are talking about situations of things that could happen and I burst out passionately: Little Bun, if something happened to you, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I WOULD DO!!!

Little Bun: UNLESS IT WAS SOMETHING GOOD! Then you’d be super happy.

Me: .. Well. Yes. I never thought about that. But in English “something happened to you”, usually refers to something negative, not positive.

Little Bun: Oh.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

12:57 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap. I am on calls.

6:10 p.m. — Dinner, then I go to take a break and read in the bedroom.

7:14 p.m. — Watching a film with his father, he kept periodically running into the bedroom and playing beside me as I was reading my book and mindlessly scrolling on Instagram because I cannot decide what to do. Finally, he turns to me and says: Do you know why I am always coming in here?

I reply back: No, why?

Little Bun: Because the screen keeps giving a message – Your eyes need a well-timed break! – so I am listening to it, and coming in to give my eyes a break.

After a few minutes, he ran back out saying: I think that was long enough as a break!!

He is such a little rule follower, just as I was as a child. It is both good and bad. Great as a parent, bad when you want them to be independent and stick up for themselves and not follow crowds. I think he can be both, as we were when we grew up… but only time will tell. I will definitely encourage him to be a bit more of a rebel in thoughts and other things that matter as he gets older.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed. More Wordle. He got the word again this time. We are still doing this even though the craze has died down. I STILL WANT TO GET THE WORD.

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

7:30 a.m. — I log in and start working. Uneventful. Lots of meetings.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

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

5:12 p.m. — My partner is rolling out burritos and the squeaking rolling pin is driving me insane. It’s grating on my nerves actually. I go to the bedroom and close the door.

Little Bun apologizes for the sound (he can see me in distress), then he lights up, grabs a blanket and pulls it to put over my ears to block out the sound, holding the blanket there to muffle the squeaking.

I snuggle him close and thank him.

6:25 p.m. — Dinner done, dishes washed and drying.

8:54 p.m. — In bed, as we are whispering and talking before falling asleep, Little Bun whispers: Mommy? I am scared I will get stuck in my dream and not wake up forever. I will be stuck in a dream.

I struggle to try and explain how this would likely never happen, and to reassure him. It is why he is scared of falling asleep, and being in the dark. He thinks he will be asleep forever. I told him I would be there to wake him up, and it would not ever happen. I also asked him to imagine a dream escape route of some sort, where he would be able to just simply push a button and be dream-free.

As he drifts off to sleep, he wraps his arm around my middle, snuggles close and sleepily mumbles: I love you Mommy…..

My heart bursts with joy and love.

I whisper back that I love him and kiss his little sleepy head. These are the moments you live for, as a parent. Unsolicited “I love you”s. I tell him I love him more than anything, ALL THE TIME, and I make sure he knows I mean it, but it’s so nice to hear that he feels the same and is willing to express it so freely in the moment. Children are such innocents.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

6:48 a.m. — I log in and just sit there, watching videos and blog. IT IS THE WEEKEND.

7:50 a.m. — Little Bun must have seen something for Christmas because he tells me that he would be fine if he got a piece of coal or a stick for Christmas. He told me he would give the coal to Daddy to use for the BBQ, and the stick could be a lot of fun to play with to come up with games, or use to draw things in the sand. I very much appreciate how creative and flexible / easygoing he is to see the good side of things, rather than getting upset he doesn’t get a toy for Christmas.

I wonder if this has anything to do with him basically being homeschooled, and not being influenced (yet) by peers of his age. I will be sending him to school FOR SURE next year, this is my plan. He will be masked, and he will finally have friends his age. I hope. I am so anxious for this.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

2:58 p.m. — Little Bun sidles up next to me. He tells me he has decided that he has three jobs he is potentially interested in – YouTuber, Realtor or Singer. I quiz him on all three. He tells me he’d YouTube how to do Rubik’s cubes, and he would be a realtor because it would be fun to be in a new home for work, to run around and see things or check on items, and a Singer.. well it is because he thinks my voice is so beautiful when I sing, he could sing with me, and Daddy could play an instrument or clap while we both sing together.

HAVE YOU EVER.

I thank him. But I tell him I would never want to be a singer because the fame turns me off. Being recognized, having to feel like people want a part of you all the time, none of this appeals to me. There is no more privacy, and you are always in the spotlight. I told him I’d take the money but not the fame.

5:12 p.m. — At dinner he asks his father after finishing a full glass of lemonade: May I have a double lemonade?

His father gives in, but I see it coming – he is going to ask every dinner now if he can have two cups of lemonade, and doesn’t realize this is just a one off time, a whim, really, as we try not to give too much sugar as an overload on him (the way I grew up, I had sugar coming out my ears, and that was a very hard habit to break, to try and cut back on sugar).

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

Spent: $0

DAY SEVEN

7:50 a.m. — I wake up “late”. This is sleeping in for me.

9:08 a.m. — On a call with my mother, Little Bun gives his math questions, and says: “Grandma, I am giving you an opportunity to improve your math skills and to learn more about it!

AN OPPORTUNITY. What a salesperson.

Me to my mother: I do not think you knew that when we were on a call today, that Little Bun would put you in school.

My mother: Well he sold it to me. An opportunity to improve my math skills? Why not!?

He will either be a salesperson and/or a teacher. Who knows. He seems to be quite interested in teaching in general, writing instructions and being helpful in that sense.

3:12 p.m. — My partner: “What’s a dad bod?“….

These are the questions I get from non-Anglos and learning Anglos in my family right now. I explain that a dad bod is an accepted body type or shape for people because it is a little belly, a little overweight and squishy, which is more attractive to some, than a ripped 6-pack. In contrast, a ‘mom bod’ is shamed endlessly in the media for not being stick thin and continually, perpetually ‘hot’.

6:05 p.m. — Sure enough, my prediction is right. Little Bun finished his glass of lemonade and asked for another. His father, tells him that there isn’t one, and now he’s disappointed that it only worked yesterday but not today. He won’t ask again (he’s a pretty good child), but I knew it would happen.

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.

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