The Old Saturday Routine

Johnnie called me first thing this morning at 8 AM asking if I was coming to pick him up. Yep that would be the Saturday routine alright. Mom and son were still lounging around in bed and so although Lisa talked about breakfast, I decided I wasn't going to wait for Lisa to take her time making breakfast. I made a pit stop at McDonald's and downed a sausage burrito to tide me over for whatever Lisa was going to do. Turned out I was right. Lisa was definitely in lazy mode as she should be. But I need not have been swept in it. And so I let her take her time making breakfast for she and Johnnie and she made me a pancake too. At least I got to have some of her Earl Grey tea as well. And so it was that it was 9:30 AM by the time we got going. This morning we needed to go to Target. Johnnie's first day of school next week. I wanted to make sure he had some new clothes and supplies, considering Lisa's penchant for keeping clothes on Johnnie that are too small for him. I know it's simply that she hasn't given herself time to go through his clothes drawer and throw stuff out. Anyway I needed to buy a whole bunch of cleaning stuff too.  AND those shoes I got him to run around in all summer, lasted through exactly that... summer. As in it got a whole on the bottom last week. Hey it did it's purpose. He used it all though Hawaii. And now it's time to get him a new pair. By the time we got back to the apartment it was already 11 AM. And so Johnnie didn't have too much time to watch videos before it was already time to go get lunch. Today I took us to Panda Express West LA. Hadn't done that in 3 weeks. Not lost on me was that we were already phasing out breakfast at Elysee Saturday mornings. It was a good run for 6+ years. But no longer necessary to drive out there and do the Target run as well. We can still do it every once in a while though. Just not today anymore. Not when Lisa is making breakfast. I decided to take Johnnie back after lunch. Not because I didn't want to hang out with him the rest of the afternoon, but because I wanted to keep to the routine.  AND I wanted to take a nap. That's because I'm back to binging mode. I cautioned myself that THAT is one of my primary distractions and that I had already had a pretty good Friday in fact. I needed to keep up the momentum. But there are also other distractions. Though Saturday being Saturday, I'm ok with those. First a call from work first thing even before I picked up Johnnie. People having trouble getting on the system turned out to be just folks trying to log in on other machines and couldn't. I was ready to blow up on Noriel. But turned out to be a non-event thank God. Just a distraction. And then later on in the day, Johnnie pinged me again. He wanted me to send Space Jam to Lisa so they could watch it. I was in the grocery store at the time but made my way home, sent them the movie and made myself spaghetti and pizza for dinner. It wouldn't be long before I got another ping. Johnnie again. He was hungry. Of course mom was laying next to her in bed. She was still in lazy mode. I didn't have a problem with that. But now Johnnie is used to getting me to come over and make dinner for him at Lisa's house too. How can I say NO?  Lucky I had just gotten him some udon for MY apartment. I didn't care. I had already HAD dinner. And so I brought the udon over and made it for him. Lisa was on the phone doing who knows what.  And so Johnnie got his family night dinner he talked about doing last night after all. And it wasn't actually dinner. Because I brought over popcorn too AND made sure Space Jam was working on the media player and watchable on TV. And so yes the pic I took was family night movie night on a Saturday. Not something I had planned obviously. Johnnie eating from the vat of popcorn and Lisa making herself HER dinner.  She didn't make it through the movie either. She had knocked off not even halfway through.  Still I can't say that simply hanging out with Johnnie doing his shenanigans with me on the couch was now worth it. It ended up being an M&M moment. No matter what WE are still a family and we will always be. And that picture above? Those are what Johnnie will remember and I am happy to keep creating them so he does remember. When it was time to go, I reverted back to old programs and patterns and showed annoyance at having to stick around and help Lisa put together the comforter in the guest room. Just like when I still lived there. Just as if we were still married. Couldn't be that bad to just indulge her could it? The funny thing about watching Time Travel stuff like 12 Monkeys is that I am clearly focused on making sure I consider what will happen in the future because of today's actions. I want to make sure Johnnie feels safe and loved and that he knows he always has something to come home to. Even if it means 5 minutes of straight up annoyance like I used to bear when I lived here. I don't live here anymore. I could easily just clear the negative emotion.   I remind myself that while I work on transitioning to being a full-time stay at home dad, that is, in fact, the job I AM signing up for. Taking care of Johnnie. THAT is why I don't want to work for anyone or anything but myself anymore. The WHY is the most important thing.  Why do I want to be financially independent. That is why.