Leave the Medical Bills Til Later, I Always Say! | How Much Did I Spend Last Week? Aug 7-13, 2023
I have become one of those people who will either respond to an email within five minutes of getting it, or not at all, because my brain has turned to mush and the only things I can remember are the songs from Ms Rachel’s YouTube channel.
Screen time has become something with which I am almost entirely preoccupied. Sometimes it’s the only thing that will distract Atlas from breastfeeding, so if I want to do anything at all other than sit still while he nurses, it’s Ms Rachel or Sesame Street or occasionally a Disney film, although he seems to be over all of his old reliable faves like Frozen and Moana.
Still, I feel guilty about it. How many hours of Ms Rachel is too many hours of Ms Rachel? Should I be this delighted that he can now make the sign for “fish” or do the actions for Wheels on the Bus when he still can’t say “mama” or seem to understand the difference between nodding yes and shaking no?! AM I DOING IT ALL WRONG?!
I’m sorry this is now a parenting newsletter. I swear to God there is more to me than parenting, it’s just hard to see the wood for the Duplo trees right now.
Monday
Another Monday, another day entirely dedicated to… Atlas.
I have resigned myself to leaving all of the work I would otherwise do during the day on Monday – my money diary, a freelance piece that’s due tomorrow, answering emails I’ve ignored over the last God knows how long – to the evening, when Brandin gets home with the boys.
So you’ll have to imagine quite a boring, but weirdly busy, day of making meals (that he doesn’t eat), tidying up toys (that he promptly pours out all over the floor with a delighted look on his face), spending time in the garden (his new favourite thing is for me to get on the trampoline with him, and who am I to argue with a toddler), changing nappies and, of course, washing and drying clothes.
I have a few kind of life admin things to get done today, and the first of those is that I sign up to compost with Dirt Wain ($19). We had previously been doing it with a different company, Ground Down, but Dirt Wain also offers composting for dog poop (I mean… I don’t even want to know the details), and I really like the idea of sending Vinny’s many poops somewhere other than landfill, in some form other than wrapped in plastic bin bags. Someone needs to remake Wall-E but depict the true horrors of how we dispose of our rubbish because that film was way too tame.
I also order a bucket of dahlias from The Meadows ($58.85), a flower farm a little north of Fort Wayne that’s offering 30 stems for $55. I love dahlias, and am growing some myself, but as I have a paltry four plants (hoping the tubers will multiply so that next year I’ll have loads, mind you), I’m very into the idea of having some gorgeous dahlia blooms in the house.
I’m going to give half of them to Bea when I pick them up; the date I chose is August 24th.
My Zencastr subscription also comes out. ($20) That’s the software Bea and I use when we record Not Without My Sister remotely, which we try not to do too often – it’s just better when we record in person, and we have more fun – and I also will use it occasionally if and when I record Meet/Cute remotely, although with that I’m trying to feature as many people as I can get to in person, too.
Again, it’s more fun, and the sound is better.
When Brandin and the boys get back we have chicken nuggets, tater tots and broccoli for dinner and I then high tail it to my desk to try to get through my work to-do list for the day.
Atlas is in Robin’s tomorrow, so I’ll have the day to get stuff done but I also have to go to the post office and God knows how long that’s going to take (I have very bad luck with Fort Wayne post offices not having the stuff I need, like international stamps or customs forms, I wish I was joking), so I know that if I get anything that’s time-sensitive done today, I’ll be saving myself a lot of stress tomorrow.
Daily total: $97.85
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