Week of Money: Where we all get boosters except Little Bun

DAY ONE

??:?? — I wake up when my body no longer can sleep, I have to start sticking to a real schedule or else I won’t feel rested.

6:32 a.m. — I log in and start blogging. Lots of emails and messages to clear out, and things “TO DO”.

7:50 a.m. — I log off and start working. Again, lots of meetings today until at least the afternoon. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised when they are cancelled.

8:08 a.m. — Meeting.

9:45 a.m. — I take a break to make scallion pancakes for the first time with Little Bun. Turned out surprisingly easy, and they were fresh and chewy afterwards. I had no scallions so I took the insides of the garlic cloves I chopped up, and used basil.

12:01 p.m. — Lunch time, we eat all the pancakes after they are fried.

12:22 p.m. — We check on the second crystal we were trying to grow, and give up, pouring it down the drain. We must have made a mistake somewhere, namely, I think we should have thoroughly scrubbed the container before reusing it again:

1:00 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap.

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

3:40 p.m. — My partner gets vaccinated, and comes back with a sore arm. A little while later he tells me he has a headache. I suppose it would be the same for me.

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery and then runs back to watch his shows.

6:25 p.m. — I settle in and watch Amy Tan’s Memoir – Unintended Memoir – and it was extremely powerful. I then spend the next half an hour searching for the Sonata she was playing near the end of the movie for her mother on the piano, as I want to learn it. I know it’s semi-famous (as in, I have heard it before), but I cannot put my finger on it.

7:01 p.m. — I go and lie down to read my book, and Little Bun joins me later, grabbing his new book – Philosophy for Kids – actually, it’s a book for everyone because I found the beginning pages and questions extremely interesting. Just on ONE question you could spend hours talking about it, examining all the facets.

Little Bun of course, being the cutie he is, thinks a lot of stuff is black and white, as children do. I try to show him the grey areas with examples like – If a little girl steals food for her family, is she really a thief? Now what if we find out she really is not starving to feed her family, but actually a thief? Does that change the way you see her actions?

I can see him furrowing his brow, trying to tackle the questions. I tell him it is not stuff to be figured out, but to discuss, and NOT EVEN ADULTS have it figured out. I haven’t gotten to the other pages but I want to see what they say about Western and Eastern philosophy and how they will tie it together.

8:50 p.m. — Little Bun brushes his teeth and his father brushes his hair (he likes doing it). I remember the day we were taking photos of him as a baby, and my partner was using a softer hair brush. It was really cute seeing Little Bun get his soft downy duck-down like hair brushed for a picture. I try to record the moment and Little Bun squirms out of sight.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed. We are lying in bed talking about the day – today was not so great for Little Bun, he did not want to really do an activity with his father that he always does, but I can also see that my partner was not giving him attention and focused on him, which is what Little Bun picked up on and did not want to participate in as a result. It’s both of them. I am also guilty of not paying attention to Little Bun many times, but it’s just frustrating.

Spent: $

DAY TWO

??:?? — I wake up before Little Bun and sneak out to be in peace by myself. I like being alone by myself at night (not possible, we sleep together), or early in the morning (more likely).

6:23 a.m. — I log in and start blogging, checking accounts, replying to messages.

7:50 a.m. — I log off and start working. I always like to drink my tea before I work but that sometimes doesn’t happen and I have to reheat it, like today.

8:08 a.m. — Meetings until 10, thankfully.

10:30 a.m. — Meetings over, I take a short break to hang with Little Bun and chat. My partner is also in school full-time so we have to be quiet when he or I are in meetings/classes.

12:00 p.m. — Lunch time. We have pizza today, and Little Bun hovers around to eat pieces of mozzarella, a bit like when I was a child I would hang in the kitchen and wait for tasting samples.

1:07 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap, and I head out to get vaccinated. I drop off letters, buy stamps at the post office, and a bunch of other essentials to make the most of this trip such as eye drops and allergy pills to stock up. $56.78

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom, and I am already home, logged in and working.

5:40 p.m. — I really believe in this:

And out of that, it reminds me of this time which is also a funny insight into how roles are divided in our house, where my partner is the one who cooks and does all household inventory and errands:

It is why I started to bake and cook a little to show him I could indeed, prepare meals…!! I AM AN INDEPENDENT ADULT who is fully capable of taking care of herself in all aspects, which really shows that children need representation and role modelling from parents to see what is possible / not.

If you have a family where one parent does absolutely nothing at all, it can seem normal.

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

6:25 p.m. — Little Bun made a cute little telescope of a constellation out of a toilet paper roll. He chose Cassiopeia:

And you look through here, up towards light so you can see the constellation:

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed. We are reading and discussing questions from the philosophy book which I am very excited by! So far, the questions are good, even for adults.

Spent: $56.78

DAY THREE

??:?? — I wake up early – around my usual 6:15 – 6:30 wakeup time and head out to sit alone and blog.

5:48 a.m. — I log in blog, trying to catch up.

7:50 a.m. — I log off and start working.

8:08 a.m. — I stare out the window, cars are exactly like this after our recent snowstorm. If you leave them there and don’t dig them out, all that snow becomes hard crystallized ice, and you have to hack at the sides to remove it, which is not fun, to dig your car out of the snow prison:

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

1:57 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he is up from the bedroom and I ask him if he has done his pages. He tells me he did ALL OF THEM, and he counted one of the English pages on there, as an activity he did with his father, where he was practicing contractions, and pronunciations like “needn’t”, and so on. I let it slide even though I think that was far too easy to count as a Grade 3 page. Little Bun would watch videos all day to count as his pages, if he could. I am trying to get him to practice his writing in English as I see his letters are uneven, and it is sometimes quite taxing to read what he wrote.

I make a note to have him practice writing out letters on a line. He still has the habit of refusing to put the longer half of the letter like “g” past the line, and puts the whole “g” sitting on top of the line…. I don’t care about cursive (I hear it is going out of style in teaching) but his writing has to be legible!!!

3:40 p.m. — In impromptu meetings. People call me randomly when they should just bloody send an email.

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery. I do laundry and so does he, then I go around and quickly vacuum.

6:25 p.m. — He is playing some made up game with his Stuffies and I take a break to continue beading. I must have over 30 pieces now, which I think would look great on a wall, personally.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed. He REALLY loves his Philosophy book, so he has been asking for it nonstop.

Spent: $0

DAY FOUR

??:?? — I wake up to hearing Little Bun awake and I whisper: “Baby?”… He sits up, smiles in the dark and runs over his father’s body to snuggle on top of me. I hug him close, rub his back and kiss him, whispering “Good morning! I love you!”

6:40 a.m. — I log in to blog while Little Bun works on his pages for school. He is determined to finish them all before lunch.

7:50 a.m. — I log off and start working. Calls all morning.

9:45 a.m. — I am stuck. Some IT system went down and I can’t access the file sharing database.

10:15 a.m. — Back up, I continue doing what I was doing.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

1:57 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap.

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

3:40 p.m. — I take a break to steam some clothes and try out my new Kexi steamer. It, as promised, DOES NOT SPIT HOT WATER AT ME OR ON MY CLOTHES. It also is an iron when you leave it on dry heat with no steam.

This is it, getting warmed up (30 seconds), sitting on its base:

The water reservoir pulls out here to refill:

 

 

And that half moon flap at the top is where you refill the water:

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

6:25 p.m. — I go through my To Do List, and Little Bun asks — DID WE DO WORDLE YET?

He loves seeing if we can get the 5-letter words and he is VERY good at seeing some of the words left and suggesting what to write in there. Today, we had put the word: AUDIO, none of it came up as being in the word. That stumped us immediately, so we tried TELLS and we got a hit, so then we tried PETTY and nailed it. Very exciting.

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

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

??:?? — I wake up early and sneak out to be alone in the living room. I like these quiet moments but I am also trying to keep my sleep schedule on track.

6:15 a.m. — I log in and start blogging.

7:50 a.m. — I log off and start working.

8:08 a.m. — We make scallion pancakes again.

This was Little Bun’s pancake that he made and I fried just for him.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time:

While they rise, I made a sauce. It was too salty, so I am going to fix it for next time with less soy sauce:

Frying! They are whole wheat scallion pancakes!

Now the dipping and eating.

1:57 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom. I am still on calls so I tap on my headphones to show him I am listening and cannot hear him. He writes a note on his paper that says – “CAN I HELP?”.. And I nod, and write back “Later, not right now. Is your work done?”.. He runs off to the bedroom to finish his pages.

3:40 p.m. — Off my call, he comes back out and I put him to work helping me sort papers in order by number.

5:15 p.m. — Work done!

5:30 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery. We had sushi tonight – I made it out of the rice we had leftover. It tastes nothing like real sushi to me, but he and I both miss sushi a lot, and the seaweed helps bring some of that flavour back.

6:25 p.m. — I really love this depiction of equality versus equity. It’s visual, simple and clear:

7:46 p.m. — Little Bun is just having a moment. I mean… between my partner and I, he is refusing to do his schooling with his father properly, he is refusing to sit nicely, he just isn’t his usual self, likely from being tired. Knowing that helps, but it also frustrates the heck out of me because I am also losing my patience and I am not inhuman.

Finally, it ends up with a screaming, crying Little Bun who cannot handle being told yet again to stop something. I quickly whisk him to the bedroom where we sit and he paces around the room, crying, and speaking. I just sit there and listen, and he basically tells me – I wanted today to be THE BEST day.

I tell him – not every day can be THE BEST day. If we had BEST days all the time, we would need even more BEST days which would make no sense. I would rather we aim for a Good or Normal Average Day, and when BEST days come along, we are excited about them. When TERRIBLE days come along, we let them go, maybe like today?

Little Bun is still sobbing.

I hold his little hands and just say – Listen, I wouldn’t want to have BEST days all the time, and I wouldn’t want a perfect little boy all the time either. I think you are being too hard on yourself. Everyone has TERRIBLE days. Look at Daddy, he’s irritable because he is likely tired and a little achey from the shot, and and he probably lost his patience early with you because of it and doesn’t have the energy. Is it your fault? No. But you are reacting to how he feels and you feel like he wasn’t paying attention to you, which is why you didn’t want to do schooling. I get that.

If we were all perfect with no angry emotions and upset feelings, we would be robots. Would you want a robot perfect Mommy?

He shakes his head “No”… and I tell him – well I don’t want a perfect robot Little Bun either. I like you the way you are, just the way you are, even the way you feel and your anger and everything. It is okay to be angry, frustrated and have a bad day. It is perfectly fine. We just try to not let it stay in our hearts and tomorrow is a new day. You will see, tomorrow will be a Better Day Than Today.

He looks skeptical.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed. We do our usual “Great Thing, Not so Great Thing”, and I repeat that tomorrow will be a better day than today, most likely, so go to sleep and it will be better.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

??:?? — I wake up ahead of Little Bun and sit out here alone.

6:11 a.m. — I log in and blog.

7:50 a.m. — He wakes up, blinking in the light and I hug him in the hallway like when he was a toddler and we get used to the light together. There hasn’t been any goat milk (in glass bottles) delivery as of late, so he doesn’t get any milk, instead I spoon out some yoghurt for his morning snack.

8:43 a.m. — In the bedroom, he is helping me organize things, and then we watch some LEGO Ninjago, which is a very interesting series. Example: Ninajgo Legacy Series

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

1:57 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap.

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

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

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine starts, and we are reading the philosophy book together before sleeping. But then as I am turning off the lights, Little Bun comes up and says to me: I don’t know why I am so angry all the time.

I stop what I am doing, I sit down and invite him to sit on my lap to talk it out. I say – well I don’t think you’re an angry little boy all the time, in fact, I see you as the opposite. Do you see yourself as angry all the time?

He clarifies: NOT ALL the time, but I don’t know why I get so angry and I cannot stop it. Is it from the vaccine? I know that alcohol can make people very angry sometimes…. and the vaccine is 90% alcohol.

I shake my head – Baby, it can’t be from the vaccine because the alcohol they’re talking about that makes people angry, is like the alcohol in the wine Daddy drinks. It makes some people angry, but some people get very sleepy like us with it. It affects people differently.

I pause. I tell him – Well maybe it’s a bunch of things. Maybe it is you, but it is also that you are a bunch of things – maybe you’re hungry, thirsty, tired, irritated… sometimes Mommy wakes up as a Grumpy Grumpkins and everything makes me angry that day. Personally, I think that you were thinking about last week when you were angry the whole morning and finally, Mommy lost her patience. I didn’t even remember that, but it looks like you did. I feel like you were just tired that day and it was just adding up from the whole week.

You woke up at 4 a.m., 5 a.m…. you did not sleep well. I think after the vaccine, you had a headache maybe, your body ached a little, you are allowed to be angry and upset. It is perfectly normal. I think you were just tired from the week and didn’t get enough rest, and that is why you were so irritable and angry. Mommy was probably also tired too, so she got angry at you because she was ALSO irritable, so it was two Grumpy Grumpkins together in one room.

He nods. He still doesn’t look convinced, so I tell him – Remember how yesterday you started crying because you wanted it to be The Best Day, but it ended up being not so great? Then I told you that Tomorrow (which is Today) would be a better day, and it was? I think today was pretty darn good.

He nods again, and perks up. I tell him that every day is a new day, and not every day can be a BEST day. We just aim for Good or Normal days.

Spent: $0

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — I am still not feeling that great but I wake up at 6 a.m. on time.

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

7:00 a.m. — Little Bun is up and asking for me in the hallway. I run to him and snuggle him while he gets used to the light. I like it when he sleeps in because it makes him less grumpy for sure.

10:12 a.m. — We make conditioner from this amazing concentrate. I suspect I need a grater of some sort to really get the bar fine and made into small shavings, which would make the melting process easier. I make a mental note to buy one just for this purpose so I don’t contaminate too many items. If not, I spend at least 10 minutes stirring it, trying to get it to melt:

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time. We have his favourite – fries, and I cover them in siracha.

1:00 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap. I am beading and watching videos.

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

3:44 p.m. — I lie in bed reading. Little Bun is watching funny Mr. Bean videos with his father. They both LOVE Mr. Bean and the laughter gets so loud, I have to go into the bedroom, close the door and try to gain some peace.

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery and pots, and I am doing laundry for kitchen towels.

6:25 p.m. — I go through my emails and To Do, and throw some money into the stock market.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed. Philosophy book again, and he wants to know if we think we are brains in a jar, and we go through the fantastical idea, and think about it Matrix style – what if this is all an illusion?

Spent: $0

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