Week of Money: Where Little Bun Lures In a “Mysterious Animal”

DAY ONE

??:?? — It is so early. I didn’t sleep well last night, I kept waking up and then my anxiety over world issues kept me up. You know, microplastics in our blood, ocean and foods, climate change, global warming, racial issues…. Little Bun rolls into my arms and snuggles me, then crawls on top of my chest like when he was a baby. He’s just much much heavier now….!

6:00 a.m. — Little Bun creates a microscope for Babiest Stuffie:

And underneath he is examining a purple piece of bacteria:

7:50 a.m. — My partner is up and we have breakfast.

8:08 a.m. — I end up bidding and buying a pair of shoes that are in excellent condition, in my size, and I have been hunting them for years but couldn’t stomach paying $680 for them. They better be all I hoped they would be. $214.21

9:25 a.m. — I also end up winning by accident (?) a bee necklace that I had bid on but did not think I would win. $30.22

9:41 a.m. — I am now nervously checking my spending. Already at 9% for the month and it is barely week ONE in this month. I have to calm TF down, but it is hard because once the spending floodgates open, I sort of let myself buy what I want.

10:09 a.m. — OK last purchase I promise. I have been using Ethique shampoo/conditioner bars for a while now and really like them, but there is a minor inconvenience of having to rub the bar onto my scalp, or lather it up and then massage my scalp. I miss the traditional lotion/liquid quality of the shampoo and conditioner experience, so I decide to try out their concentrates.

What you do is you buy the concentrates, you chop them up into a big bowl, and add boiling hot water to reconstitute it. Then you simply pour it into the bottles to refill. It still ships to me in a cardboard box, just like my shampoo/conditioner bars, but now I can use it in liquid form in the shower which I think is a better idea. $58.50

12:08 p.m. — Tired, I go down for a short nap while Little Bun plays something beside me. No idea what it is. He just wants to be close to me. Anywhere I am, he is near me. If he cannot find me, he goes looking until he does.

1:05 p.m. — I leave him to his nap and go to read a book instead.

7:56 p.m. — Bedtime routine. Nothing special really happened. It’s just been soccer + tennis in the household lately.

Spent: $302.93

DAY TWO

7:59 a.m. — Little Bun makes a treasure map and little signs along the way:

“We vote for love”

“We vote for heart wipes” (they are baby wipes for baby Stuffie bums that have red hearts on them)

“I love you”

8:08 a.m. — He has been on a roll lately with making little signs, cards…

8:25 a.m. — I realize I don’t actually have any more shampoo or conditioner bottles left – I had gotten rid of all of them when I had switched to shampoo bars/conditioner bars because… who keeps empty bottles!? … and I realize it is my chance to buy some cute refillable dispensers for them that look stylish. I buy three empty bottles and ask for the labels to be SHAMPOO, CONDITIONER and BODY LOTION. I am not sold on the black plastic pumps for now but that’s something that is simple to switch out later if I care to find nicer handles. $52.16

12:08 p.m. — After hanging out in the bedroom, reading, playing Two Dots, playing in the closet organizing my items and having Little Bun help me, it’s time for lunch.

1:05 p.m. — I close my eyes for two seconds and end up sleeping for two hours. I wake up startled when Little Bun runs in and kisses me.

3:06 p.m. — He watches the final game with his father while I wake up from my nap. I really needed the two hours, it seems. My friend texts me that she’s thinking of quitting her job and just taking a few months off to regroup, kind of like a work sabbatical.

3:25 p.m. — I do all the dishes, and make a small cup of tea to bring my brain back.

7:19 p.m. — I go through all of my Account Activity for my trading sessions and make sure I didn’t miss anything. I have to buy some shares this week, so I research on emerging market ETFs to see what else is out there other than the range I have been buying. I plan on adding a small holding to my portfolio.

8:40 p.m. — Bedtime routine.

Spent: $52.16

DAY THREE

5:00 a.m. — We are up early again. We slept late last night as we both napped so… it ends up being an early morning.

5:28 a.m. — I am just feeling mentally drained. Fatigued. I am certain it is because of the pandemic, as it also puts a lot of pressure on everyone being together all the time, and having no break or outside life, essentially.

8:08 a.m. — Little Bun gets into the Heart and Brain comics, and on a whim I buy him the whole set (SEE? SPENDING FLOODGATES). $101.86

12:08 p.m. — He does all of his pages – this is what it looks like. 2 blocks for Math, 2 for English and then Social Studies and Science, with bonus pages. He can also do pages on the weekend if he wants, but he has to do the blocks during the day. Then he gets a great trophy at the end.

Little Bun REALLY works for trophies. He enjoys checking off lists, putting stickers on maps to show his progress.. this is something all children love.

3:15 p.m. — The day passes by with just.. Little Bun stuff after his quiet time. We play, we argue, we upcycle a little, clean up, and so on.

9:20 p.m. — Bedtime. The fire alarm goes off and annoys all of us. It’s just so jarring. And apparently it was another false alarm. A lot of these Cry Wolf Fire Alarms are one day going to kill everyone because out of the 5 we get a year, one will be real some day and no one will believe it.

Spent: $101.86

DAY FOUR

??:?? — We wake up “late” around 7-ish. I can tell because I feel well rested and woke up before he jumped on me.

7:20 a.m. — I make a tea and log in to work. Lots of powerpoint stuff to update today. It’s mind numbing but also fun, because I enjoy creating graphics and design layouts.

7:59 a.m. — Little Bun tells me the basil plant is at 6 inches, and so it is time to trim it back to grow bushier (he has been measuring it every day), and it’s just in time for Pizza Day today, to add some basil on top. I tell him we will share, and he says: “Promise?” .. AS IF I WOULDN’T SHARE WITH MY BABY. I am horrified and tell him: Of course I will share with you, I will always do it.

8:08 a.m. — Calls. All morning. One was personal. I am helping a friend who wants to take a sabbatical, and I am helping her figure out her plan. None of this stuff has anything to do with money itself, it’s all .. goals. Your personal goals of what you want – to be secure, to be work optional, to work part time, to raise goats… whatever it is, you need to know what it is you want, and then you can create a plan.

9:50 a.m. — Little Bun is up, and he creates a Code Breaker for my mother to solve. I email it to her. It clearly says: I LOVE YOU 🙂

12:08 p.m. — Time for Pizza. And basil. We snipped off some leaves to trim it back to make it super bushy.

1:00 p.m. — Down for his nap, I head out for a walk. I need a break. I need to just be outside and relax and breathe fresh air alone. Even being in a car alone is relaxing for me, as long as I play my own music.

1:30 p.m. — Back from my walk, I log in and work.

5:24 p.m. — I log off for the day. I am drained.

7:25 p.m. — We read books to Babiest Stuffie and he participates in the stories:

7:55 p.m. — We move on to Aesop Fables (he really loves that book), and there’s always a moral at the end of each fable, which I have taken to asking him to explain to me or tell me what he thinks it means. I am seeing a huge gap in his reading comprehension in the sense that I hear him understand the words and the story, but he isn’t analyzing or absorbing what the story is saying.

I need to get him to read critically and to be able to answer such simple questions and give them real, authentic thought. This will help a lot in his schoolwork instead of him always saying: I don’t understand what they mean! … I want him to struggle, be curious and figure it out on his own without my help. I feel like lately, he has gotten lazy and I am just overcompensating by feeding him the answers rather than making him struggle to learn it.

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

6:00 a.m. — We wake up in decent moods – but I tell him: If you feel grumpy, back to bed with you. I cannot handle this in the morning. Just lie here. He lies there for a bit and then gets up.

7:09 a.m. — I am logged in and working, lots of things to get done today. It’s a neverending to do list.

11:50 a.m. — Meetings over just before lunch. I log off (the headphones are heavy and make my ears sweat), and grab a lunch.

12:58 p.m. — Wow. I didn’t know it was possible to TRIPLE BOOK meetings. I am not sure whose meeting to attend. I guess I will do half half?

1:10 p.m. — Down for his nap. Sometimes it’s a bit late because he waits for Daddy, and without Daddy he cannot or doesn’t want to nap.

3:28 p.m. — The Stuffies also wake up from their nap:

6:25 p.m. — I log off for the day and nothing special happens. Just laundry, cleaning up.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

6:00 a.m. — We wake up, I log in and work. Lots of things to get done, triple booked meetings happening today.

12:08 p.m. — I realize we need a dictionary and a thesaurus because Little Bun is working in books and sometimes needs explanations but we are in meetings or calls and can’t help, so he sits there waiting. I also pick up some other math and science books I have had in a while in my shopping cart. He has wanted these books for a while (the math and science ones), and I discovered that they had fun comic books about the body and space, more of his favourite subjects. $144.65

3:17 p.m. — I am low key wondering if I can just recreate these sandals. They’re about 300 – 400 EUR each or $450 – $600 CAD each, not to mention taxes, import duties, shipping… The pearls are real pearls, they look well made but they are just FUN sandals. I can’t see myself paying more for them just because I think the pom poms are cute.

These are real pearls. I like the rope look… I wonder if I could do something like this with a pair I already down and replace the leather ties with rope instead. And faux pearls. I don’t love the idea of pearls any more because we are just forcing oysters to handle an irritation to turn it into a pearl with nacre. Seems unusually cruel to me to force an animal to create a pearl of ‘beauty’ by farming them and so on. Just because oysters can’t cry out in pain or distress doesn’t mean we should treat them as such to satisfy our own vanity.

8:45 p.m. — Bedtime. Little Bun and I always have our little chats at night. I always wonder if he absorbs too much like me. If he thinks too much like me, emotionally stressing and being anxious about the world, or if he just lets it slide off him. I wonder which approach is better.

Spent: $144.65

DAY SEVEN

6:00 a.m. — He wakes me up early even when we don’t have to get up early. I drag myself out of bed.

7:19 a.m. — I spend time reading my book in the bedroom as he exercises with Daddy.

8:08 a.m. — In an attempt to find even more peace to read my books, I pretend that a dusty footprint of Little Bun’s was left by a mysterious animal.

(Yes I need to vacuum.. but BEFORE that, let’s play)

So he comes up with plans for a trap (part one of quiet time):

The first plan is to have the animal be tricked by a snack:

The second plan is to put the snack near some GLUE to catch the animal and a basket will fall.

He tests out the first plan with just a snack, but it didn’t work because the mysterious animal came and TOOK ALL THE FOOD AWAY! (ice cream, French Fries, watermelon, yoghurt, croissant and bread – mysteriously, all of the things Little Bun greatly enjoys eating).

(Also, when the food “disappeared”, he made me hide in the bathroom while he removed the food to show me later that the animal came and ate it all.)

 

So we set out plan B to do the same food trap but with a basket to trap it:

 

He enlisted Daddy’s help to do the mysterious animal page, and lo and behold, we caught it! The green blocks are standing in for the “glue”…

This was actually a lot of impromptu fun. It kept him busy drawing, creating plans, cutting out food to lure the animal and so on.

1:08 p.m. — After lunch, he goes down for his nap.

1:15 p.m. — Me, I’m eating marshmallows and reading.

3:10 p.m. — I wake up with a start, I actually closed my eyes for two seconds and ended up falling asleep for 2 hours. I guess my brain / body was really exhausted. I needed that nap.

6:56 p.m. — The day and afternoon passes by normally. Laundry, cleaning, Little Bun logs in to do some Scratch coding but he doesn’t quite get the concept of Action + Action = Reaction, and I let him play a little but he needs a crash course in this. I also spent most of the afternoon reading my book. I highly recommend this one – Heartless it is one of the best fiction books I have read, twisting the back story of Alice in Wonderland with The Queen of Hearts .. done in such a fabulous way. I am in awe of her writing skills.

Spent: $0

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