Johnnie Saturday

I walked out the door today at 7:30 AM to pick up Johnnie and it was like soup outside. And it was cold. Is it going to be like one of those February Saturdays where it's miserable out and Johnnie and I are indoors all day? That wouldn't be so bad really. It wasn't like we didn't have anything we could do. I went to Lisa's house and Johnnie was already dressed, but he hadn't taken a shower yet. I give Lisa a pass because it is a work day for her after all. And it was easy enough just to go back to my apartment and give him a bath there. It took less than 10 minutes and then we were headed right back out for breakfast. It's Elysee Saturday after all and Johnnie and I were happy to do our routine. For some reason the servers this morning were very loose and relaxed. So much so that when Johnnie went back up to the counter after getting done and asked for a cookie [as in ONE chocolate cookie] he ended up getting a bagful for free! That's my kid for you! Last Tuesday he got a bagful of fortune cookies. Anyway after that came the shopping run: Whole Foods, Target, Ralphs. And by the time that was done, the cold and fog that we started the morning with had pretty much disappeared and it had turned into a pretty nice morning. And we weren't done with errands. Last pit stop was the Mar Vista Recreation Center so we could get Johnnie signed up for spring soccer starting in April.  As we were walking I noticed some hesitation with Johnnie: "I'm not going to play today am I?" he asked. I wonder why he was hesitant to play? He kept like that until... we ran into a whole bunch of his classmates from TK class in basketball uniforms! There was Oliver, and Cyrus, and Julian, and Marshall, and Aviv. It made me feel good about how familiar Johnnie already is with some kids that are sure to be in the soccer league as well. In fact, I wish I had known about the basketball league earlier or I might just have signed Johnnie up too. I felt like we missed out, especially with his friends being out there and all. Johnnie wanted to watch and of course his friends called out to him and he called out to them back. Even some girls from his class were there and hung out. Hesitation gone. And so with that, we went to get some popcorn fried chicken from KFC and ate lunch at home. I still had all that pizza from last night after all. Usually I would let Johnnie take an early afternoon nap. But he's not so used to that anymore now that he doesn't take naps at school. It wasn't so long ago that I would drive up and down Sawtelle just to get him drowsy enough to sleep. But then again that was still during the Maplewood Saturdays. Today he wanted to watch Frozen. And since he was so good while we were running around all morning, of course I let him. And just because I felt a little bad that Johnnie wasn't out there with his friends playing basketball, he and I went to the courtyard and hit some balls. I made him run the bases this time and there was one thing that I did notice. I made it a race to the tree and a couple of times when I beat him, he got a little upset. It would appear that my son hates to lose.  Gee where did he get that competitive fire from hmmm LOL. I'm ok with that but not to the point where he's pouting about it either. It would appear there are lots of dad-son learning opportunities in the very near future. And I look forward to that. The good thing about playing outside is that I got my exercise in as well. And by the time it started to get dark, it was easy to just grab some teriyaki chicken from Panda Express Sawtelle. And I had some for my own dinner as well. Lisa called by 6 PM telling me she was still writing notes and mentioned she'd be done by 7:30. I thought that meant she was going to come by the apartment to pick up Johnnie by 7:30. What ended up happening was that she went on home and wrote notes remotely. A minor communication glitch. Instead I handed Johnnie off at 7:45 and I was glad we had a very full day together it seemed. We ended up getting some reading done too, Johnnie read the Pete the Cat and Hiccups book that I got in the morning at Target. I knew I wasn't going to see him tomorrow since Lisa was having her family over and that's ok. I ended up staying up really late for Saturday night. I remember de-compressing with the Lakers post-game of a really close game with the worst team in the league. Something to be concerned about? Naah… Then just tried to do some meditation. But when I looked up, after still being awake it was already past 1 AM! It was one of those nights were I knew I should have gone to sleep much earlier, but I stayed awake really doing not much of anything and I'm kicking myself for that. Now I'll be tired at golf. Oh well...