A Johnnie Anniversary

So on this day 6 years ago, Lisa brought home this sweet but fragile looking baby boy and our lives were changed forever. No there is no understating that and I do not apologize for making it sound that dramatic and emotional. I remember that Friday meeting at the adoption office like it was yesterday. "Let's talk about you taking him home" they said at the time. I didn't actually think they meant that very weekend. I didn't know what I thought actually. Maybe because a part of me still didn't really believe it would happen that quickly. But it did. That following Monday, the 8th I went to work. But I had an announcement to make. And in the middle of the afternoon, the entire FRB was congratulating me. And a couple of hours later, I went home to my family. To my new son. And prepared myself not to get a good night's sleep again for a while. I smile now when I think about that. These days, it is when Johnnie is with me that I get the best sleep. Because I am forced to go to bed and to sleep by 10 PM when he stays over. Last night for example I got almost 7 hours of sleep, and quite a bit of deep sleep and REM sleep to boot. This morning, my muscles were sore, only because I had pushed myself pretty hard exercising yesterday. And actually today felt very much compressed. There were lots of things I was working on what with Data Analytics short-handed and I had to attend the OPS Leadership Team Meeting where I actually sounded like I knew what I was talking about. Of course I was rushing to get out of that one because we had to go to Johnnie's school this morning to pick up supplies for next week's last week of school for winter break festivities. See the pic of him picking up his bag? It was nice to also see Ms Gee, his teacher last year at TK. By the time we got home, the old memories of Johnnie as a baby were very clearly replaced by the Johnnie-of-today particularly with his current school pictures that were just delivered. He's a big little boy now my son. A long way off from that fragile little baby. And smart as a whip.

I think the entire school is in wind-down mode, particularly with the announcement that everyone has to work from home until the end of the semester in January. I mean I'm already doing that so no change for me, but I imagine it must be sending a lot of people wiggy yet again although we went through this before in March already. As far as Johnnie's schedule, I had him do a different karate class starting this week just to see if there was any difference or contrast and then I'll decide on purchasing an actual program. This particular one went right into punches and blocking and although he did learn some things, I'm not sure his foundation is solid just yet. This was more traditional Japanese too and like the other class, he got to learn how to count out in Japanese. Great. The only Asian language i can't expose him to is his own cultural roots, which is Chinese LOL. Anyway we did get through the class ok and I may have him do another one since there are 26 video modules and we're just at Module 8. Also helps that this thing is free although that isn't really something I'm worried about. And so after the class, we went on with the Tuesday night routine, which was to pick up chicken teriyaki at Panda Express and then on to some learning activity hopefully. Or maybe i'll just let him watch some more Jurassic World/Jurassic park videos. He actually chose to just watch Cat-In-The-Hat episodes tonight. Maybe he's feeling a little nostalgic himself, sensing that his old man is doing lots of reflection. While he watched videos, I did too. But the videos I watched and the pictures I perused through tonight were all from 2014. That first day was obviously very eventful and very much a learning experience which would continue for a while. And it was just the start of something that goes on up until today and for the foreseeable future, even in the time of a pandemic. For Johnnie and I tonight, that's just getting to bed at 9 like we normally do and for me, a very good night's sleep. There may be lots going on at work because of the pandemic... but it's just work and I just keep on doing my job. And as Johnnie snored softly next to me when he fell asleep, I am very much aware that him here, now, sleeping next to me safe and sound... is the biggest reason of all to be very VERY grateful.