Vintage Shops and Terrible Gravy | How Much Did I Spend Last Week? July 8-14, 2024

Ella Purnell as Lucy in Fallout

Monday

I’ve discovered that bringing the boys for a cake pop, a croissant and a sugary frappuccino on their way to their mom’s on a Monday morning (sorry, Kasey!) is a great way to curry favour with them, so our Monday routine, on my way to bring Atlas to occupational therapy, has been firmly locked in.

Ordinarily, I limit them to one food item and one drink item, but today we’re about to go out the front door when I realise I’ve forgotten to get Atlas a pair of socks to wear and I ask his brother to go up and get them – and when he acts like I’ve asked him to give me his last tooth instead of leaving it for the tooth fairy, I tell him, “if you get the sock you can you have a cake pop and a croissant…” and I swear he’s gone before I’ve finished the sentence.

Later, Beatrice (a genius) will ask me, “why didn’t you just tell him he wouldn’t be getting the croissant if he didn’t get the socks?” Let me tell you, it’s clear she has more experience than I do with parenting. Anyway, I’m out almost $50 by the time we’ve ordered and paid, but I do have $20 on my card to begin with so I only have to add another $30. ($30)

Today’s occupational therapy is, once again, fine until the very end, when, upon being told it’s time to go, Atlas kicks up a major fuss and grabs on to a toy airplane he’d been playing with, and when I tell you he’s using his death grip… There are many, many tears when it’s taken from him and his occupational therapist and I both (gently) wrestle him into the car.

I feel very sorry for him, because he’s pretty much just calmed down when we pull into our estate and he realises we’re not going straight, towards home, but right, towards his childminder’s, and loses his ever loving mind once more… God, it seems very hard to be two!

Once I get home I take some time to decompress – I make a little latte (very much enjoying my new Nespresso machine, I must say) and read the news a bit (not very decompressive) before putting up some washing and straightening up the kitchen and our bedroom.

I’m feeling a lot better than I have been, mood-wise, which is good timing because I have a feature due on Wednesday (that I could have been working on for the last month, but no…) so I spend a good few hours today getting that done, hunting down photographs, contacting people and doing some research for the piece, which I think will be in The Sunday Times Ireland on July 21st.

When Atlas was a baby, I bought him a pair of red Vans high-tops with the zipper up the back that pretty much ended up being his first pair of shoes, and from which we got a lot of wear, probably from quite a bit before they fit him right up to when they became a bit of a slog to get on (but he was never walking very far, so I figured it was fine?! Don’t tell me if it wasn’t!) – and when I see they have 30% off sale styles, I go on to have a little browse.

I end up buying another pair of the same zipper high-tops for Atlas, in his next size, thinking they’ll be good for this coming winter and spring, and an adorable little pair for the new baby (above), in the size down from the red ones we kept from Atlas. ($57.70)

When Brandin gets home with the boys, he sets about making burgers to barbecue for dinner, along with some frozen mixed vegetables we heat in the microwave (the boys won’t touch them; Brandin eats and seems to enjoy them, while I take a cursory few nibbles to set a good example and then… set them aside) and some potatoes he slices super thinly and then cooks on the barbecue which are delicious, but have a very high mortality rate, as approximately a quarter of all slices end up falling between the grates.

After dinner, the boys go to play with the neighbours for a bit while Brandin and I chill out with Atlas; they watch The Good Dinosaur while I read my book, and then I do Atlas’ bathtime while Brandin retrieves the boys and starts to get them ready for showers and bed.

Once they’re all tucked up in bed, we watch an episode of Fallout before doing the same.

Daily total: $87.70