Working AND Teaching Johnnie

We made it to Thursday of Remote Work week 1. The sky hasn't fallen, the earth hasn't swallowed us all up and in fact, when Johnnie woke up, declared that it is morning time, it couldn't have felt more normal. But then again we don't really know what normal is right about now. We only have what's going on in the present moment. And today, since it IS Thursday which is usually pretty light at work anyway, I was focused on catching up Johnnie with his schoolwork. After his usual breakfast, which today I joined him with since I wasn't going anywhere and neither was he, I took the pic of what that new normal looks like on a Thursday morning. That would be Johnnie doing his schoolwork on the floor. That would be me on my laptop on the couch. I did my TEam Huddle at 10:00 AM and then once that was done, I turned on the switch to this being just another Thursday. And of course, I realize I basically don't do much of anything on Thursdays, especially the one after Tech Council Meeting Wednesday. It's usually timed such that the Executive Management Team is meeting on Thursdays anyway. And so I can chill as much as I want. As it was I dove right into Johnnie's lessons. They gave him so much stuff! And of course he had other ideas. What did he want to do? He wanted to go see dinosaurs at the Museum. Awww. I told him the museum was closed. But I did give him the next best thing: I took him on a virtual tour of the Houston Natural History Museum! It was a 360-degree tour and everything! And then we still did his reading lessons, his phonics lessons, his math lessons. And when he needed to take a break, I let him watch Peep and Chirp. And that was only the morning. I realized that he needed to stretch his legs and get moving too. As did I. And so as it was it turned out to be a nice afternoon and we went to the barbecue area and I had him kick the soccer ball around, for a good half hour yet. And had him kick it against the wall. Result? I had him sweating almost. And I got a whole bunch of steps in too! By 4 PM, he was tired. So tired he knocked off for a nap. Hey by that time dad felt like knocking off for a nap himself! Why not take a nap together!? And so I took a selfie right before I dozed off. Johnnie was already gone into sleepland by then. I woke him shortly after 5 PM, only because I had cooked him some chicken nuggets. I was thinking I'd pass these off instead of the popcorn chicken I would usually get from KFC. I mean who knows if KFC is even open. The problem was that Johnnie is so particular that he didn't like this version of chicken nuggets. And got so dramatic about it that I lost my patience. I sent him outside to calm down and let him stay there for a good 5 minutes. Apparently it was I that needed to learn a lesson in patience. I let him in and he cried immediately. I hugged him and asked what would it take to make him feel better. He simply grabbed my hand and put it around himself. Awww. And so I stayed there hugging him until he cried it out. And then I told him I simply wanted him to eat chicken. He said can't we go to McDonalds to pick up chicken nuggets? Gee. that was it? And so we picked some up from the McDonald's drive-thru, he ate that PLUS some penned pasta chicken noodle soup. Dinner is done! This being a Thursday it IS hand-off day but Lisa is doing a stealth procedure on her brother and her dad at her office. And so she didn't end up coming by to pick up Johnnie until it was 8:30 PM almost. That was ok. Johnnie was occupied with Tumble Leaf and Dinosaur Train. Lisa picked him up and when we talked for a bit, she had apparently just finished doing an analysis of how long it would take before her office started taking a financial hit. Good that she's thinking in those terms, but she's pretty liquid. She just shares this habit with me of being extra careful with money. Truth is that she and I are better off than most. And that the economy may be tanking now but we will still be ok for a while. A good long while is the hope. In the meantime I finished off my Thursday night by watching Picard S01E09. Season finale next week and it HAS gotten exciting. I tried to keep this as close to routine a Thursday as possible. And I think I might have done that after all...