Becoming Aware of Mental Fatigue

It is Thursday in the first week of December. Usually, there are thoughts of the upcoming holidays consuming everyone. Not this year in this wacky 2020. Covid-19 numbers have gotten worse in LA County, so much so that we're locking down tighter than we have before and we're back to the way it was in March and early April when no one was supposed to go out. Everyone was just supposed to stay home. We'll see what happens on Sunday when Greg and I try to circumvent that golf thing where you're only supposed to play with people in your immediate household. I mean really? How's that going to work? In the meantime, my thoughts are on a couple of things today: it's still a regular Thursday for Johnnie and his school schedule. And I am more than ever going to stick to routine. And so it's still McDonald's breakfast after shower and I can at least take comfort that THAT option has always been there and I've used it all this time. The only difference would have been we would be going there in person before Johnnie's school which would have started much earlier than 9:15. Still I think I'm holding on ok. Times like these I need to become aware when I need SELF-CARE which is the reason for the title of the post. The thing is, Johnnie is simply going to be his happy self as much as possible which is a really good thing. But when he starts playing he can grate on my patience, especially when I'm trying to get my own work done. Still, looking at him throwing around a "scarf" for his music class while I'm trying to do my IS Team Meeting and while I'm basically ranting and venting half the time, particularly when my team forgets stuff we had talked about before and keeps rubber-banding to the way things were being done in the past... which was half-assed. I try not to get too worked up in these meetings but this morning I was not very patient. Which is already a yellow flag at least that I need to check in for mental chilling. At least I had not gone off on Johnnie all week... and I've actually been really good for a while since that little incident when he kicked me while playing around and I snapped at him in anger in the parking lot. I need to keep reminding him about the boundaries, much as I need to keep reminding my staff about how to stick to our processes. OUR PROCESSES ARE ROCK SOLID I told them. I won't let them deviate.

And so with that the task after lunch became finding stuff to keep Johnnie occupied. And fortunately I had talked him into doing his martial arts class. I hadn't signed him up officially actually but I had him do a couple of the 20-minute classes online and it is actually pretty encouraging. JUst look at the pic of him in his fighting stance. I thought it was pretty good actually. And so that coupled with working on his presentation for his class about the holiday poem, he was pretty occupied all afternoon. He had a line to say and he was supposed to draw NINE SNOWMAN LOOKING IN THE DEN. He got done so early he posted it in SeeSaw before his class and his teacher Ms Wiley actually used it as an example of what the kids were supposed to do. And contrasted it with one that was pretty sad looking. Johnnie of course had to say "It looks hilarious", which means I have to work with him on being a little more diplomatic. Kids say what's on their minds after all. But we don't have to hurt people's feelings right? By the time night time came along and we had gotten him to eat his teriyaki chicken dinner, I could literally feel that I was losing my patience and I simply had no energy to just get myself centered and back to balance. And so the second Johnnie did something while horseplaying that came remotely close to hurting me... tonight it was swinging the play lightsaber that I myself told him to play with ... I lost it again and snapped at him and yanked the sword from his hand and threw it across the room. Of course I realized my mistake almost immediately and almost immediately I said I was sorry and got us back to "play mode" within a couple of minutes of my blow-up. Wheew. But I was texting Lisa to pick him up right at 7:30. He was ready to go. And although she did wait around until 8 PM to actually pick him up, I was glad that my shift was over at least for tonight. Or was I? How come those empty feelings inside still well up the second I walk inside my apartment? All I needed to do was to work on my patience didn't I? Something I need to continue to do anyway. Oh well I told Johnnie I would see him this weekend. We still had a pretty good day.