A $40 Butter Knife & Other Stories | How Much Did I Spend Last Week? May 5-11, 2025

Isn't it beautiful, though?

Monday

This morning I wake up feeling positively exhausted, which makes little to no sense as Roman’s actually sleeping better than ever at the moment, in one big chunk from around 8pm to 3am, at which point I get up to feed him before putting him back in his bed — yes, his own bed! — until 7am. Maybe it’ll take a while for my body to get the message that we’re not being tortured by sleep deprivation any more.

Anyway, I quickly dress myself, then dress Roman before going in to get Atlas up and dressed for school. It’s a weird in-between weather time, so he’s in shorts and a light jumper, although I’ve no doubt it’ll go up and down a few more times before summer kicks in.

We go downstairs and Roman sits in his jumperoo while I make breakfast for Atlas, making the fatal error (one I’ve made several times before, when will I learn?!) of letting him watch dinosaurs on YouTube on my laptop. This means he eats his breakfast really well, gazing into the screen as he chews, but once it’s time to switch it off, all hell breaks loose, and I’ve to drag him, roaring crying, on to the bus.

Onwards and upwards!

Instead of heading out for a walk this morning, I decide to do a workout from my Empowered Movement programme. I didn’t get any done last week as it was just so all over the place, but this morning Roman falls asleep after I feed him and I manage to put him down in his crib, so it seems like as good a time as any to get some movement in.

It’s a really nice reintroduction to exercise; the postpartum exercises have a lot of focus on engaging your core, breath work and just moving your body in a way that feels good, challenging but not sore, and I really enjoy it. Plus, I’m done in a little over 30 minutes, which is great.

Roman’s awake, so I bring him into the bathroom in his bouncer and have a quick shower before it’s time to go and pick Atlas up from school as he has speech therapy today.

As usual, he’s delighted to see me — kids are a great confidence-booster, I have to tell you — and I strap him in to his car seat before heading to speech therapy via the drive-thru for coffee and croissants ($16.53).

Speech therapy goes well. Every week I’m noticing him picking up more and more words and sounds, and he seems to really like his new therapist. I had been worried he’d be too tired after a morning at school, but he’s doing really well, even if, by the time we get home afterwards, he’s ready to crash.

I put him down after we get in (he loses his mind and starts kicking and screaming, forget everything I said about the confidence boosting), and then go downstairs with Roman, who was doing some kicking and screaming of his own in his crib while I dealt with Atlas.

I watch Yellowstone with him for a bit, then he falls asleep too and I put him in his crib for an hour or so while I try to tidy up the house.

Today feels very long; after work today, Brandin is heading with the older two boys to our 10-year-old’s baseball game, about a 45-minute drive away, and they won’t be back until bedtime, so it’s just me with the younger two boys.

I get Atlas up at around 4.30pm and we watch some Dinosaur Train on PBS for a bit before I order us dinner — Pita Way for me and Pizza Hut for him ($63.93 including tip, the Pizza Hut is only a tenner but Pita Way is expensive) — which we eat together at the table with the TV off for a change. (Much moaning to begin with, but he gets over it.)

At around 7.15pm, we head upstairs for bathtime, and then when it’s almost time for him to get out I feed Roman and put him down to sleep before getting Atlas out and bringing him into his room to put on his PJs and read some books before bed.

Then I head downstairs, tidy up the kitchen and sit down on the couch to stare at my phone for a while, and to make a few payments I’d almost forgotten about.

A couple of years ago, I was visiting my aunt — my Mum’s sister — in her house in London when I made the fatal error of using the butter knife wrong. A butter knife, she explained, is for moving the butter from the butter dish on to your plate; only then can you use your own knife to place the butter on to your bread or your potatoes or whatever auxiliary foodstuff you’re using as a way of getting said butter into your face.

Well, she’s going to be just thrilled the next time she visits me because I now have a fancy butter knife all of my own (two, actually, because she bought me one for Christmas after that educational conversation, but I digress) — the limited edition All Day Goods x Kerrygold butter knife, which my bestie Liam queued up for at Indigo & Cloth on Saturday gone to procure for me, and for which I have just paid him handsomely. (I transferred the exact amount — €34 — which worked out at $42.33.)

I also transfer money to my cleaner for the days she worked in April ($400).

We’ve gone back and forth a bit lately about whether we should stop paying for a cleaner, and save ourselves the money, but right now it feels like we barely have time to do anything, so I’m not sure when, exactly, we’d get around to doing the very efficient and thorough clean she manages to do in two hours a week. Plus, I remind myself, cleaning the house is the one major thing we used to argue about, and I can foresee it quickly going that way again if it’s left to us, so for now she’s staying.

Brandin and the boys get home at around 9.30pm so it’s straight to bed for them — with a lot of arguing — then the two of us head to bed at around 10pm.

Daily total: $522.79