Falling Off the Wagon, For A Bit

As I mentioned yesterday I had the day off today. But I still wanted to do a Team Meeting with my guys for the week. Dad still has to check on his kids after all. And so Johnnie and I are both on Zoom right from the get-go. Me with my team, Johnnie with his computer class. He had been practicing on those games and I was fully aware he needs to develop a comfort level and dexterity with the mouse. But just because I'm aware doesn't mean I didn't lose my patience either. THAT would be a FAIL on my part. And this morning let me tell you, it was a MAJOR FAIL on my part. I know this because in the middle of his See-Saw homework where Johnnie was required to do sort of a crossword puzzle and was instructed to circle the word he had to find, he had problems making the circle with his mouse. He had no problem finding the word mind you. He had problems making the circle. So much so he got frustrated, wanted to give up and I was NOT the gentle dad that I was yesterday. Quite the opposite in fact. And he cried. And worse, I doubled down and wouldn't let him cry. In retrospect I'm embarrassed to be writing that. I bullied him that's what I did. Why did I do that? Just the controlling ME back in the driver's seat. Sigh. Fortunately, his tears did jolt me back to a different reality. It did make me realize this is NOT the best version of me. This version of me lost patience easily and took it out on Johnnie. I mean he's a child for crying out loud. He is still learning to develop fine muscle movement in his hands. How do I not see that?? I could have tried to make it easier. But I didn't. We stayed there until he got done with it. With a little help from me. But he did get done. He would tell me later on that I hurt his feelings which I'm sure I did by the way I yelled. All I could do was to tell him I was sorry and give him a hug. That's all he ever wants. I got him back to his usual self with ONE joke. Finding a weird word FEU pheww in the puzzle. And then we were friends again. I not only changed his state. I changed mine.

So although this was my day off, it sure didn't feel like it considering Johnnie still had a full slate this afternoon. AND I wanted to get some swim practice in. Too bad my FOB key didn't work and so I had to drop THAT off to the management office to get reprogrammed. So much for swimming. But there was still Johnnie's computer programming class at 3. We missed last Tuesday's class because I couldn't get on. But today we did and so Johnnie learned how to program 3 objects having a race. Sound simple? Not in the least. It does take some sort of familiarity with websites and web-like tools that Johnnie had never seen before. But he sure did pick it up in a hurry. And at the end of the hour, he programmed his race just fine. And then after that he still had one more class thing to do. He had his class birthday celebration for the month of September. Western theme you know... which accounts for the cowboy hat and scarf I bought for him last week that now he could wear. I was thinking this was going to be his Halloween costume too... before Trick-or-Treating got cancelled of course. Still doesn't my little boy look cute? We had dinner, he did his class Zoom at 6:30. THEN and ONLY THEN was his day over. By this time it was 7 PM and I started to prep Johnnie for Lisa to pick him up. Fat chance she'd come on time today would she. You never know. I was vested in her coming early only because Lakers - Nuggets Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals was on. Not that I was going to watch it of course. But I could stress about it as IF I was watching LOL. After the long day I could allow myself this distraction. And after Lisa picked Johnnie up, I took a peek. Lakers up by 5 with 5 minutes to go. They aren't going to fold like the Clippers are they? Answer? NO> Lakers win. Now I could spend the next couple of hours on the post game. Whew. What.a.day.