Just When I Thought Everything Was Calm...

So this week had been going pretty quietly so far. To my surprise my Resting Heart Rate (RHR) dipped under 70 today which to me indicates that I am totally not stressed about anything at all. I prepped to go in to work this morning only because I scheduled myself for a flu shot at our Westlake North Clinic today. And so I dropped Johnnie off at school and then I headed off to DTLA. As if by instinct, I almost got all the way to the FRB before I realized I needed to get off at Vermont instead and so I had to turn around. And then when I got to Westlake North, I held my Thursday morning meetings there... my IS Team Meeting and then my one-on-one with my boss Dennis. It was actually interesting to have a meeting with my team when they are in the next room one door over. Anyway I was done before 10:30 with all my meetings, my flu jab took all of 5 minutes and was headed home to do my last meeting of the day. Because of some heavy traffic on the 10 Freeway, I did not get home by 11 AM for my meeting with the EHR Team. And so I started the meeting while I was still driving on the freeway and then parked right in front of my complex and finished it there. And with that, by the time I took Claire out for a morning walk, I pronounced my work for the day done. That is, until I realized I actually have tons to do for next week. I not only have the NACHC talk, but then I have the Tech Council the day after I get back and then the CCALAC HIT Roundtable the day after that. Lots of presentations. But all of that can wait. Because... Ms Huang, Johnnie's teacher emailed Lisa and I this morning. The email said Johnnie did not listen to Ms Huang when told about playground rules about not touching any other student (no pushing, no grabbing, etc) and also that he called the other kid names so that violated a second rule: which is TO BE KIND. I almost couldn't believe it was my same sweet little boy that I got an email about. Really? Johnnie being mean? Not listening to his teacher? I wanted to make sure I did NOT react because if I acted the way I was raised, I might simply punish him immediately without even talking to him. I seem to remember I was not exactly a choir boy growing up. As in my parents were called in because of behavior issues on my part. It's probably karma LOL. And so I did some work this afternoon, but really it was to distract me from reacting. I promised myself I would be a kind, compassionate parent that Johnnie can model. And we will have a talk about his behavior. I picked him up from STAR and asked him if there was anything different that happened today. At first he didn't give any indication that today was anything different. But after I poked with a couple of questions, he then acknowledged that Ms Huang told us of his behavior. Because Ms Huang told him that that was exactly what she was going to do. What I did not want to do was yell at Johnnie or make him feel bad to the point of tears. I could sense he was already uncomfortable with the conversation. And that's because he knew he did something wrong. He didn't know what exactly and that was what I focused on. That he didn't listen to his teacher. And that he was not kind to another kid. I gave him all these characters he was familiar with that were not nice. Gourmand, Donita, Zack from the Wild Kratts. All bad guys. I know he did not want to act like them. Abd I asked him how he was going to fix it. We went back to old lessons on how to be a good friend. And so he settled on writing an apology note to both his teacher and the student he was unkind to. And after he did that, he gave me a hug. He was almost going to cry I thought but he didn't and at least I felt like I handled it just fine. It would have been a great victory until... Lisa called to pick him up, mentioned the letter and was downright angry at Johnnie. All without even talking to him about what happened. I know she was projecting again. That she did not have a good day and things weren't going her way.  I know this when she didn't come until 8 PM. I know this when I brought the dog and she snapped at me. Johnnie was almost reluctant to get in the car. And within 3 minutes Johnnie was crying. She just bullied her own son. Just like she got bullied by her dad. And it pissed me off. I was going to walk away, but I walked back and looked right at Johnnie. Told him he just got bullied and THAT is exactly what i wanted him not to do.  And then I walked away again. 5 minutes later they were still in the parking lot, with Lisa surely now doing damage control. smh smh. Anyway now I had to spend the rest of the evening soothing my own anger. And realized I had all these buttons that got pushed. Fortunately I had the one thing that took my mind off of things. Game 5 of the NLDS between the Dodgers and Giants. Winner take all, winner moves on to the NLCS. Oh no I didn't watch it. I get way too nervous for these things. But my next door neighbor was audibly reacting every time the Dodgers did something good. When I heard hoots and excited yelling, I know the Dodgers did something good. And they end up winning a classic 2-1 to move on. At least that felt good. And I watched post-game the rest of the evening. I'm all good now.