Week of Money: Where the last stretch of Christmas looms

DAY ONE

??:?? — I wake up after trying to pretend that Little Bun is not in fact, awake and trying valiantly to pretend he isn’t, lying there, making noises and singing….

7:04 a.m. — I log in and try to get my personal stuff done before the day starts.

8:12 a.m. — First call of the day.

10:43 a.m. — Little Bun is working on his Activity Book beside me, and cleverly puts the numbers to order the sentences rather than rewriting them out to be efficient. Lazy? LOL.. I have no idea where he got this Work Smart, Not Hard attitude from. NO. IDEA. AT. ALL., says The Rather Lazy Mommy.

11:55 a.m. — Lunch break. And I chat with my partner who is sure I am not going to last long on this project based on what’s happening, and Little Bun eavesdrops into our conversation and chimes in with his own opinion of which he has no basis whatsoever. At least there is pizza.

12:25 p.m. — Today is going to be LONG. SO LONG.

1:00 p.m. — I accidentally mass dial 20 people and now I am getting messages/voice mails asking me what’s up and if I can help. *facepalm*

2:04 p.m. — Next meeting. This one is another 3 hours. FML. I search for a picture of myself to put so that people can “see” me, as I am going to pretend my webcam is broken.

5:01 p.m. — FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!! I cannot take these long, pointless calls. I literally learn nothing from them at this point, but it’s part of showing I am trying to get up to speed on something that’s moving super fast. Optics.

6:22 p.m. — I do the dishes, laundry, Little Bun plays with his father but has a penchant for wanting to smash the spinning tops together which angers my partner because he isn’t playing for the fun of it, but to break it. Or so he says. I am a little more lax because he’s a CHILD. All children are destructive, but he’s right in that Little Bun has to learn how to treat his items with more respect.

7:55 p.m. — We cuddle together in the bedroom as he watches Sesame Street and I read my book.

8:17 p.m. — I go through my pictures and see a picture of what Little Bun insisted I take a picture of, this yellow bug. He wanted me to take pictures of ALL THE BUGS I saw, and then to show him later if he was napping. Maybe he’ll study bugs in the future.

8:51 p.m. — Time for bed. I make up a story about a racoon getting bullied by a bear, and end the lesson with “some bullies are mean because other people haven’t been nice to them”.

Spent: $0

DAY TWO

??:?? — Little Bun is up and I am pretending to sleep.

6:20 a.m. — I cuddle with him in the hallway, wrapping my sweater around him like a cocoon as he plays on my chest with his fingers, and snuggles me. I am soaking up all of this little boy time and it might help him be less grumpy in the day if Mommy gives him full attention at the start.

6:56 a.m. — Tea time.

7:31 a.m. — Logged in and working, as I am through a virtual machine, things are much slower than what I am used to, which is fine, as my brain is slowing down.

8:08 a.m. — I finish sending some money back to my family.

8:08 a.m. — Little Bun runs and watches the new episodes of If you Give a Mouse a Cookie (his favourite show)..

10:13 a.m. — Little Bun takes pictures with my phone of his Stuffies and draws red hearts over them:

10:35 a.m. — There’s no water. The building just cut off the water with zero warning. WTF. I send an angry email. Had we known this would have happened, we would have filled buckets before just for washing hands and so on. Now we have no water at all.

12:15 p.m. — Lunch break. Water is finally back on. I boil it noodles in it even though the water looks a bit yellow – I figure it’s just sediment settling, nothing to harm me but my paranoia makes me think that I am drinking rust water. I am so hungry I don’t care.

1:11 p.m. — Little Bun down for his “nap”

2:33 p.m. — He knocks on the door squealing: YAYYYYY!!!!! and I look at my phone – it’s only 2:30, it isn’t 3? My partner goes to him anyway. When Little Bun finds me, he snuggles into me and I tease him: Did you trick Daddy and say “YAYYYYY”? to make him think it was 3 p.m.? Confused, he looks at me.. runs back out to the living room, then goes to the bedroom.

2:45 p.m. — When I get up and go to see what’s happening, I see him snuggled up in the covers, head on the pillow, with a serious face on. I lean in close to him, and ask: What’s going on, baby? Why are you in bed? ... He tells me he didn’t know it wasn’t 3 p.m. and he just thought it was, but didn’t check the clock when he squealed “YAYYYY”!.… and I guess, out of his own volition, he’s lying down until 3 p.m. because he enjoys following rules. Nobody asked him to go back to bed until 3, he did it on his own.

3:08 p.m. — He tells me he is finding it hard to wake up (he’s playing with me now), and I tell him how I used to wake him as a baby, and I would rub his back, call his name, kiss him, rub his arms and his belly… and he loves every moment of being a ‘baby’ who is woken up by his Mommy.

3:19 p.m. — Back to work.

5:30 p.m. — Work over, I do the dishes (finally, water is back remember?), and then my partner says they’re cutting the water off again because the guys didn’t show up to do anything, so…. take two. I roll my eyes.

6:04 p.m. — I really like this gold ceiling. I may do something like this in my future closet..

6:17 p.m. — I take a hot shower, if that’s the case there won’t be water tomorrow, and start a load of laundry.

7:40 p.m. — I need to clean my desk up tomorrow, and I will, but I have to prep for my crazy meetings next week.

8:50 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY THREE

??:?? — Little Bun wakes up and tries to stay quiet, but then starts windmilling his legs up and down in bed, which obviously makes noise.

7:18 a.m. — I lean over and whisper to him: Are you awake? If so Mommy will get up.

7:19 a.m. — He goes and checks the clock and asks worriedly: But Mommy, did you get enough sleep? I tell him honestly, I slept, but not enough. It’s okay but I am not fully rested. He looks unhappy, but I tuck him in and kiss him, then get his milk.

7:30 a.m. — He’s helping me whisk my matcha tea in the mornings now but he doesn’t quite have the knack of moving really fast with the whisk to create that foam, in a soft manner.. he seems to want to jam the whisk into the tea…

8:15 a.m. — I am already logged in and working.

12:08 p.m. — I love getting these kinds of messages:

1:03 p.m. — Water shut off again. This time I filled a bucket so we can scoop water out and do basic hand washing at least. Little Bun is down for his nap.

2:12 p.m. — I make a cup of tea. I am working through my tea tins, and so far I am guarding only a few flavours. It’s hard not to be able to try a sample beforehand, as it smells amazing but can taste like nothing, or it just isn’t my style of tea. I wish I could have sampled one of each of what they had to offer and then decide what I wanted to buy more of.

4:03 p.m. — The day is over and I am sure people are not even pretending to work right now, it’s “vin-dredi”, or “wine Friday”, a play on the word “vendredi” which means Friday in French. LOL…

4:16 p.m. — I try to engage Little Bun into watching about Mennonites, but he tells me it is too long and runs off to play on his own.

6:20 p.m. — Little Bun is just.. GRUMPY. I cannot say what it is and why, but he is just whiny, grumpy, complaining… I am losing it. I spend the next 3-4 hours being patient, then screaming. Then patient again, then screaming. My partner finally takes the hint after the second scream and runs to comfort Little Bun for the second and third screamings. Little Bun is just so DISRESPECTFUL and rude to me. I don’t even know why he is acting like this, when he was fine all week. Today is just a terrible, TERRIBLE day. It started at 7 a.m. and didn’t stop until about 6 p.m.

8:22 p.m. — Time for bed. Now Little Bun is sweet as pie. I hope tomorrow is better.

Spent: $0

DAY FOUR

??:?? — I wake up to Little Bun squealing and then trying to force himself back to sleep for my sake. I stroke his hair, and give him a kiss. He pops his eyes open and says: What time is it Mommy?… I tell him I don’t know, and he checks and tells me it’s 7:14.

7:14 a.m. — I go and get his milk, and start my tea for the morning. I feel weary.

7:55 a.m. — Little Bun chatters like a chipmunk beside me, asking me if I think a joke about some pepper being hot was funny, and I give him a joke of his own because his wasn’t very funny – I do not know why he is obsessed with coming up with original jokes right now.

Q – Why was the pepper always wearing a sweater?

A – Because he was chili!

He loves it, and is proud to have his joke (lol).. of his own, and immediately makes me email my mother to tell her his new joke.

8:08 a.m. — My partner is being disturbed by him, as I hear him bounce into bed and ask: Daddy? Are you waking up at 8? His father sleepily asks if it’s 8 already, and he says “Yes”

9:17 a.m. — My partner makes a banana ‘cake’ (it’s a bread, there’s no butter or eggs in it), and plays with him for a good part of the morning so I can read my book and relax a little. I think my screaming at Little Bun yesterday got the message through that he needs to spend more time actively taking him off my hands. Why do I have to scream for it to happen? It’s like he’s complacent when things seem fine between me and Little Bun but then I reach my mental boiling point and he doesn’t take the hint until I scream all day long?

10:25 a.m. — I am engrossed in my book as Little Bun is playing with blocks.

10:50 p.m. — And this closet is dreamy.

Plus I plan on having chairs like this in my reading nook/library which I haven’t decided if it’ll be in my closet yet or not:

11:40 a.m. — Lunch – I want a warm hot pasta with oil and salt. That’s it.

1:01 p.m. — Little Bun down for his nap, but not before informing me that he is growing out of his nap. I gently tell him that he can use that time for Quiet Time instead, and to read because everyone needs Quiet Time. His eyes brighten and he says: Oh that would be fun!

2:15 p.m. — I am reading and working through my stash:

3:40 p.m. — After his little stance on “outgrowing his nap”, he ends ups sleeping quite a while. He comes to find me after playing with some blocks and I giggle and hold him, telling him: See? Sometimes you still need a little nap!

4:15 p.m. — He eats his dinner and I read my book / answer IG direct messages. I know a lot of time is sucked up with Instagram, so I am now purposefully NOT checking Instagram while I read my books so that I don’t get sucked down a rabbit hole.

5:30 p.m. — I eat a light dinner, and then he helps me find things for work – like a wireless phone charging stand for when I may need to use my phone but it’s about to die and I cannot charge it because the charging port is being used as a converter for my wired headphones (I know.. it’s a lot). These calls are interminably long, and as a result my wireless headphones keep dying out, and I need wired ones.

6:22 p.m. — I am in the closet with Little Bun but I start to feel dizzy. Small spaces, not a lot of light.. not a great atmosphere for my migraines. I whisper to Little Bun that I feel a bit sick, and he jumps up, alarmed and says: Maybe we should get out of here. … once we leave the closet and pack up, he asks me: Is this better? .. and I tell him it is in the open bedroom space with more light.

7:02 p.m. — I decide we will clean out my work bags, and I get rid of half a pound of papers sitting there from years ago.

7:50 p.m. — After all that – we read together, then play a Stuffie game (?) of some sort, do laundry, put away laundry, and then fold some sheets and get ready for bed. I’m spent. I finally practice my fitted sheet folding skills and I am pretty pleased I learned something like this. It didn’t click in my head how to fold it properly until I saw this picture:

The inside corners go inside each other!

It isn’t Martha Stewart beautiful but it’ll be better than a rumpled bundle of tears and frustration:

I am definitely there!

8:47 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

??:?? — Little Bun is screaming. He screams like clockwork at 5 or 6 every day. It jars me out of my sleep and then I fall back asleep but I wake up exhausted.

6:50 a.m. — He whispers to me that it’s 6:50 a.m., and I get up.

7:48 a.m. — After tea, I give him leftover banana cake from the day before as a treat because I know how much he loves it (and I love him). Then I go through my list of things to do every morning for the blog, etc. It’s long, and takes about 2 hours a day. Every day. So that’s 14 hours a week just in basic tasks.

8:08 a.m. — I get this message and honestly, there is no secret….. I just stopped eating as much.

12:47 p.m. — My partner is cooking paella. YUM. It’s one of the holiday festive meals for the week.

1:27 p.m. — Little Bun goes down for quiet time after a very late lunch, and ends up napping.

2:04 p.m. — I of course love these various looks, like this oversized duster:

 

The oversized white shirt/dress/tunic (?) and jeans with boots:

I love the pleated skirt and boots look with a leather jacket and a big belt..

Cosy.

 

6:28 p.m. — More great messages!

7:05 p.m. — My partner removes a carpet (not sure what he has planned for the big space), and Little Bun starts crying because Daddy broke Stuffie Town!!!!… and my partner spends some time helping him rebuild it back up.

8:04 p.m. — I am reading my book while Little Bun plays on the iPad now. I feel mentally drained.

8:51 p.m. — Time for bed. I’m exhausted. Physically and mentally very tired.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

??:?? — Little Bun is screaming. I am not sure why he screams every 5 a.m. – 6 a.m. or so. This is starting to wear on me, after 2 weeks of this waking up from deep sleep.

??:?? — He asks me: ” Did you sleep enough? ” .. I reply back grumpily: ” No. ” I am starting to hit a sleep wall.

7:09 a.m. — I make tea, he plays nicely on the floor with his new Stuffie Town.

7:59 a.m. — I fill in notes from my Week of Money. My brain is mush right now. I want to sleep.

8:30 a.m. — First call of the day.

8:56 a.m. — I am wildly gesturing during the call to my partner to handle Little Bun and keep him quiet as I have to talk and pay attention.

9:18 a.m. — This is what I get as a work product of work efficient and smart, not hard from Little Bun:

He just draws arrows now from sentences to where he wants them to be, instead of rewriting them. I couldn’t care less right now HAHA

11:00 a.m. — Break for lunch.

11:25 a.m. — I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Then I get this comment – some people are truly humourless. He wasn’t even being rude about it. It’s satire. Sometimes I wonder if people know the difference between mean-spirited joking and light-hearted humour.

1:05 p.m. — He goes down for his nap and I unhappily join another call. I hope this all calms down by the time I ramp up.

2:48 p.m. — Little Bun is up but I am unable to think. My brain is suffering from fatigue from learning all of this stuff, AND doing it all in French. I haven’t spoken French full-time for the past 2-3 years (worked mostly with Americans), so I am ramping up my French brain and it is rough.

4:50 p.m. — I go quietly into the bedroom and sit there until my light therapy lamp and read. Little Bun miraculously does not even bother me at all for the entire hour and a half. He plays with Daddy, then by himself (I can hear it all while quiet as a mouse in the bedroom).

6:35 p.m. — He quietly enters the room and says: Mommy? How are you doing? … And I told him: I thought you forgot I was in this room completely! You didn’t come in at all and I finished my book… He pauses and says: Well I didn’t forget at all that I love you more than anything. .. Oh this child. <3 I hug and kiss him.

7:12 p.m. — I mention that I am not excited to eat something, and he tells me: “You know what you should try Mommy? HUNGER. Hunger is the best sauce.” (Something oft repeated in our home.) I am laughing because he’s right.

7:25 p.m. — This project has made me less tolerant in general because my time is now actually precious, and I am not wasting it on zero-value added idiots. I posted a note about how when I walk on a sidewalk, I’ve started doing a thing where I don’t move out of the way or give way to men coming towards me just to see what happens.

So far, I’ve had plenty of encounters of men walking into me, surprised I haven’t moved out of the way when they collide with me, and to no one’s surprise, they’re all white men so far. I once had a guy bodycheck me HARD on purpose, the one time I moved slightly to the side, and I saw him just before we collided, he steeled his shoulder up and RAMMED it into me.

They have zero understanding of how to move out of the way because no one has ever told them to or taught them. They’ve just walked, and the sidewalks part for them.

What do they have to prove by doing this by not sharing a sidewalk? To prove that they’re men? That they can walk on a sidewalk and walk through anyone – young or old without turning at least to the side or trying to accommodate others? That by doing this, they’re kings and macho men? What kind of BS is this?

Then I get this gem of a message:

8:44 p.m. — Time for bed. I decide on a Christmas theme of books, and feeling relaxed from my hour and a half sabbatical away from work and family, I am less stressed.

Spent: $0

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — Little Bun is screaming. Again.

??:?? — He pats me awake and gently asks me: ” Mommy did you sleep enough? ” .. I reply back tiredly: ” It’s okay baby. ”  (I did not sleep enough).

7:30 a.m. — First call of the day. Man these people wake up EARLY. Like me. HAHA! But I have a child, what’s their excuse.

8:50 a.m. — Call ends early, lots of “Happy holidays”….but in French.

9:31 a.m. — I take a break. I need to map this stuff out on paper, I am overwhelmed with info right now.

9:50 a.m. — As I am on the call and working, Little Bun is encroaching on my space:

12:08 p.m. — Lunchtime. I take a break and manage to eat most of my pizza but I am stuffed after a good chunk so I save the rest for my dinner. I have found or felt my stomach shrinking during quarantine, it’s like I am feeling fuller a lot sooner.

1:13 p.m. — He goes down for his nap, I unhappily join a call.

4:59 p.m. — Done for the day.

5:26 p.m. — I feed Little Bun.

5:42 p.m. — I eat my leftover pizza, enjoy some yoghurt, and then do all the dishes while Little Bun requests Daddy play with him.

6:47 p.m. — Laundry time. We sort and put things away.

7:10 p.m. — I play with Little Bun in the closet and finish off a few more pieces, and get an idea for a new one. He’s so sweet, playing around with me, and trying on my necklaces, and telling me how much he loves them.

8:40 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

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