Save. Spend. Splurge.

Week of Money: Where Little Bun makes me work for a game

DAY ONE

??:?? — I wake up really early. I do not know how and why Little Bun seems to need less sleep but he is sleeping like a rock around 9:30 p.m. and then up at 6 a.m. sharp. I need 9:30 p.m. until 8 a.m.!!!!

6:00 a.m. — I log in and work with a mug of tea. It’s quiet, I can think, I am replying to emails. I also want to stop working earlier today or take breaks.

6:12 a.m. — “Mommy! Mr. Monster Cloud is back!“…. so Little Bun has named this massive cloud ( he thinks it’s the same one each time ) that is very very large and covers a good chunk of the sky in one seemingly single cloud shape. He calls it “Mr. Monster Cloud”, and sometime reports on what it’s doing, what colour it is (light pink today).

6:34 a.m. — He’s now reading out to me all the Snapchat videos about organic foods and things, and they’re spot on. Salmon that is farmed, tends to have dye to make it look pinker, so when you cook you can see the colour leach out in the pan. I didn’t know this when I ate farmed salmon and thought it was normal until I read about it. Even butter is adulterated with colouring to make it look more yellow, or additives to make it spread better or feel/look buttery.

7:09 a.m. — Meeting starts. Working with people in different time zones makes it very tricky.

9:11 a.m. — The whole morning is meetings, meetings meetings.

12:04 p.m. — I finally take a break, have lunch and play with Little Bun. I help him work on a Panda Pendant in a game (an award for completing a level).

He tells me very seriously: Mommy, you work hard on this. Please get me this pendant and help me. It’s so cute I can’t stand it. I love pandas so much.

Okay now I really have to hustle.

1:01 p.m. — Down for his nap, I am on more meetings until late in the afternoon. I play the game in between dull moments.

1:01 p.m. — Up from his nap, he asks me: DID YOU WIN THE PENDANT FOR ME!?!?!... and I show him. He ran right out of the bedroom without even drinking his milk so he could see if I got it for him or not.

4:10 p.m. — FINALLY DONE! I shut down.

5:23 p.m. — He has dinner, I have my own and then I do all the dishes, then take a break.

6:17 p.m. — In the bedroom, he tells me that he feels fat. This child is anything BUT fat. You can see his ribs. He eats so much but like me at his age, he burns it so quickly that it doesn’t stick. I was equally as skinny when I was younger, he has my body type.

I tell him that it isn’t ‘fat’ that he is feeling but perhaps bloated after dinner. Bloated is not the same as ‘fat’. Fat is another story, and I show him my stomach, and say there is a layer of belly fat there. But bloated is temporary and you just feel very full or full of water or something.

8:09 p.m. — Schooling with Daddy, and then bedtime routine, and actual bedtime.

Spent: $0

DAY TWO

??:?? — Squealing, and he needs the bathroom. This breaks my sleep.

??:?? — FINALLY. I feel somewhat refreshed even with the squealing last night (night terror I think).

7:00 a.m. — Made a tea as Little Bun chirped about the world outside, looking at ladybugs and the dark clouds of the rainy weather moving across the sky.

7:19 a.m. — Logged in and working.

8:30 a.m. — My first call of the day. I would agree with this image:

12:28 p.m. — I lie down after lunch but then wake up groggy and wish I had never lain down at all.

12:56 p.m. — Back to work, I fire up a cup of tea.

5:00 p.m. — I log off for the day. It was just messages and notes and more messages and my day derailed.

6:25 p.m. — I do all the dishes, laundry, and then I cuddle with Little Bun as he watches Bluey (he loves them).

8:09 p.m. — Time for schooling!

8:50 p.m. — After brushing our teeth, the Stuffies make a potion.

They start with a base:

After mixing it up and adding potions and elements they change colour!

And turn into rubidium, carbon and oxygen to mix (Little Bun chose the elements):

They put the “potion” mix into a bottle (it’s a ketchup bottle with the label peeled off:

And they put it away in the kitchen near the fridge:

9:17 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY THREE

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

6:00 a.m. — Little Bun is playing an app and starts to get frustrated because people are blocking him. I stop the game, and make him take a break. I tell him that people are different from him. Not all of them are going to be nice. Some are nicer. Everyone is different. And if something makes you this angry, walk away from it, or stop it because it is not important.

I tick off things that are important – himself, Mommy, Daddy, Schooling … and I tell him that sometimes you are going to encounter people who are like this, but if this is a game, this is NOT IMPORTANT. You can just stop it to stop feeling angry.

I tell him about how I was in group projects where I was the only one who wanted an A+, and I worked for it while everyone else did not. We got the A+. He told me he would have yelled at them that HE would get the A+ and they would all fail, but I explained that this is not how group projects work – everyone gets the same grade. The real justice comes afterwards when someone does individual work, and they then fail that, but you get your A+, and it all evens out or balances out.

Life is about learning to deal with these different people and you WILL have to deal with them, no matter what. Just have to learn how to do it.

He tells me that these people must have really loved group projects then. I said “Yeah, they liked coasting”. It is good to learn how to deal with different people because they will not be all like you and you have to be diplomatic and get alone.

8:12 a.m. — Meeting.

5:06 p.m. — I finish for the day.

7:27 p.m. — More dishes done (it never ends), and I eat my dinner with Little Bun.

7:50 p.m. — I buy some sheepskin liners for my shoes because they’re all matted down and I have to replace the insides because it feels flat and weird. I find some recycled sheepskin (leftover scraps) which I like as an option because it’s using what is left. Plus I can rewash them to clean them up and wear them again, comb them back out… $40.14

8:45 p.m. — We read our book – What’s the point of math and it touches upon compounding interest which I love:

9:24 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $40.14

DAY FOUR

??:?? — I wake up wishing I had another hour or so. Little Bun is such an early bird.

6:10 a.m. — We snuggle in the hallway as he gets used to the light and then he runs and asks me to make more levels for him in coding. I cannot make a level to stump him, he KNOWS ALL THE TRICKS NOW.

7:00 a.m. — OK enough. I log in to work.

1:30 p.m. — I log off for the day.

1:47 p.m. — I have a cup of tea, read my book, and then I organize my desk.

3:11 p.m. — Little Bun wakes up and he plays his coding games, and then I work on my own notes and things for the day.

3:15 p.m. — I whisper: Would you like to upcycle with me?.. His face lights up like a beam of sunshine and he squeals happily all the way to the bedroom. We work on a few new pieces, take photos of the old one, and he just loves being in the closet. The time flies by.

5:32 p.m. — I call it a evening and we have dinner.

6:41 p.m. — We are upcycling in the closet, and Little Bun comes up with interesting pictures for me to take, and then he adds in his own text to make it fun.

8:11 p.m. — Schooling time.

9:30 p.m. — Timed for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

??:?? — I wake up tired. Six again.

8:14 a.m. — We make focaccia bread as part of the science experiment.

8:34 a.m. — We head into the bedroom and upcycle after we do a little Mousie obstacle course in the closet. Mousie is his little black obsidian stone – I got it for free from a seller and I don’t like black, so I haven’t used it for anything.

11:12 a.m. — Done upcycling for the morning, he has a little snack.

11:22 a.m. — Bread done, Little Bun hovers around the kitchen for the good part of 30 minutes waiting for it to cool down, and tells me: YOU CAN TAKE PICTURES OF ME EATING IT!! .. He loves it. He eats the crispy bits, the soft bits, and he yums through all of it. I dip mine in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

12:01 p.m. — Little Bun goes down for a nap while I have a cup of tea.

4:37 p.m. — I finish all the money posts for the month including the visuals.

5:20 p.m. — We have dinner, I start laundry, and start on the dishes.

6:37 p.m. — All done, I take a break. I almost have no energy for a shower but I should take one.

7:19 p.m. — I take a shower. Finally.

9:15 p.m. — Time for bed after reading a book.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

??:?? — I wake up tired, I could spend another hour sleeping but I am also NOT sleeping. I just want to rest if that makes sense.

7:00 a.m. — I make tea and then I start on my day. I have an early start to work today, and meetings until 3 p.m., with a lot to do.

9:13 a.m. — I take breaks to chat with my friend (texting), and then back to work.

11:59 a.m. — Break for lunch. Pizza. Back to work.

3:08 p.m. —I stop working for the day and log off. I am mentally drained. I didn’t know it was possible to do meetings back to back.

3:29 p.m. — Up from his nap, he plays his games and makes more sticker pictures (he loves the glow in the dark ones).

4:05 p.m. — Little Bun shows me that the + / – is showing negative or positive space with the shape of the cards. Positive curve to the left, and negative to the right.

4:20 p.m. — Little Bun folds the towels from the kitchen and makes a ‘towel cake’. This is what it looks like when he removes the laundry basket, and he was very proud of his cake.

5:56 p.m. — I start on dishes and laundry.

6:56 p.m. — We play in the bedroom and then he goes for schooling.

8:30 p.m. — Schooling over, he brushes his teeth and then I make up a story about Prince Little Bun.

9:12 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — I wake up with a start. Did I miss my 7:30 meeting?

6:48 a.m. — No, it’s good. It’s only 6:48. I fall back into bed and then after a few minutes, Little Bun stirs. He is upside down so his feet is at my face and his head at my feet. I pretend his feet is his face and kiss his “cheeks” which makes him giggle. He always wraps himself up at night like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

7:08 a.m. — I log in and just try to work. I have meetings today, and I am tired. Yesterday was a complete @%@&%( show… because this project assumes that I know what is going on and how a project is run but NO ONE tells me anything.

Not all projects are the same (sometimes they are), but this one is all backwards and I never find out what to do except after the fact and when I am just not prepared for what I thought the meeting was about and I look foolish when I am not. It’s getting to be truly frustrating.

Then I mention this and they all say: Oh! But you should have just asked! .. Is it really my job as a new person to constantly ask and question every single meeting and document? Should you not book it, put a small agenda and/or explain to me what it’s for because I AM NEW ON THIS PROJECT? Even their meeting names are ambiguous and no one knows who is supposed to be doing what because they all know by what.. osmosis!?!?! …. FML

7:19 a.m. — I make a tea and try to relax before my first meeting of the day.

8:34 a.m. — Meeting over, it went well, but wow it’s a lot of stuff at once. My brain is spinning.

9:51 a.m. — Like a never ending all-day meeting. I won’t be able to take a break until 11 at least.

11:10 a.m. — A BREAK. FINALLY. I eat my lunch.

1:05 p.m. — Down for his nap. Or really he just reads books.

2:56 p.m. — My meetings finally end. I am out. I am questioning something a guy said at the end but I don’t want to do anything until I see what happens from what he said, because I could just be overly cautious.

4:33 p.m. — Little Bun folds laundry after emerging from his Paw Patrol cocoon (the laptop dies pretty quickly so we don’t need to set timers on any watching screen time even if we cared to).

5:25 p.m. — I play with him in the closet.

6:17 p.m. — I go through the list of things I need to get done because I keep putting things off…

7:56 p.m. — He has schooling and he then does his teeth with his father

8:20 p.m. — Time for an early bedtime. I am truly knackered. We lie in bed and I make up a story about Little Bun Space adventures and he loves being featured.

Spent: $0

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

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