The Limit Does, Actually, Exist | How Much Did I Spend Last Week? Feb 19-25, 2024
Can someone please explain to me the lure of Paw Patrol? Because my 2-year-old is fully, totally, absolutely obsessed with it, and will not even entertain the idea of watching anything else on the television. Quite aside from the fact that I fear Paw Patrol to be very colourful copaganda, it can’t be good for him to be this single-minded about something, can it?!
I listened to this entire podcast episode about it, and I am none the wiser.
Monday
Today is Presidents Day, which means that most schools are off but, confusingly – and also, how is this supposed to work?! – most businesses are not.
In an effort to inform myself of the customs and traditions of my chosen homeland, I’ve just looked up the meaning of Presidents Day (despite assuming that it was a day to honour all past presidents) and am much aggrieved on behalf of some (not all) of the other presidents to have discovered that it is a day to honour Washington and Lincoln only?! Seems unfair.
What it means for us, though, is that the boys are off but Atlas’ babysitter is still on, so he toddles off to her house first thing while we prepare for a fun day out with two of the boys’ friends who live in our estate.
As a birthday gift for their two friends – when I asked what they’d like, their Mum expressed a very relatable sentiment, that they have too many toys – I’d planned to take the four boys to the cinema, for lunch and to Sky Zone, the trampoline place I spend far too much time at.
But because no plans ever run smoothly, when I come downstairs with Atlas, about to get his shoes on and cart him off to Robin’s, I notice that Finn, our middle child, is looking very peaky, and seems to be lying under a very warm blanket, shivering. I ask if he’s okay and he grunts yes at me, not very convincingly, so when I get back from dropping Atlas off I take his temperature: 100F (around 38C).
He then reports that he keeps feeling like he’s going to puke, which seems… definitely not the kind of feeling you’d want a child to have before going to the cinema and to a trampoline park. So I text the friends’ mom to let her know we’re going to have to postpone the day, which is not a decision that goes down well.
Instead, I tell the boys we’ll have a nice afternoon – we’ll order lunch from Panera (they love Panera, honestly, gobby with the days when all kids knew was McDonald’s) and rent Wonka (the film we were planning on seeing) and eat popcorn on the couch.
I end up ordering Taj Mahal ($29.65) for myself and Panera Bread ($48.85) for them, and we buy Wonka outright as there’s about $3 in the difference between buying or renting and, in any case, Amazon is linked to Brandin’s credit card. We pretty much share money, but I don’t have access to all of his accounts and if I can’t see it, sure, it may as well be free money.
The boys are – understandably – very grumpy, and don’t quite get why, when Finn feels a lot better after lunch, we can’t go to Sky Zone after all. I feel really bad about saying no, and also half wonder am I saying no because I don’t want to go to Sky Zone (I mean, I don’t), but when, an hour later, all color has drained from his face and his temperature climbs up to 101, I decide I made the right decision.
When Brandin gets home, I go to Kroger to do a quick grocery shop – we’re trying to use up everything we have in the freezer at the moment, so I’m attempting not to do a major shop, but we need toilet rolls (expensive), kitchen rolls (also expensive, why are these things so dear?!), laundry detergent (over $20), Kerrygold (extortionately priced, may as well be imbued with flakes of gold) and fruit, so I end up spending over $150 anyway.
I also nip across the road to Walgreens to pick up Brandin’s prescription before heading back home to have the pizzas I bought as part of Kroger’s “$5 pizza Mondays”, almost coming to blows with the young boy packing my groceries when he shoved the pizzas into a plastic bag on their sides, only to have me screech, “those are fresh pizzas!” at him, like some kind of (marginally) younger, less glamorous Hyacinth Bucket.
Daily total: $78.50
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