Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 15

2004-02-17 14:00 We walked to Villas Shanti in the morning so that Kristen could attend the drop-in Yoga class, and Jamie and I spent an hour and a half of quality time. Half an hour of happy baby play, half an hour of wanting to go to sleep but not knowing how (but protesting fairly quietly), half an hour of sleep for both of us. We're off again in the late afternoon to Cancun, to pick up photos from a "one-hour" photo finisher that weren't ready yesterday, then out for dinner with my parents and a couple of their friends at Irori, my favorite palindromic Japanese restaurant. Not much planned before that, except that I'm psyching myself up to go for a snorkel in the rain, which has fallen unceasingly since yesterday afternoon. And maybe a game of Scrabble to celebrate our engagement anniversary, if Jamie naps at the right time.

2004-02-18 23:00 Very briefly, as it's late and I'm not feeling especially well. We went to the Wednesday vegetable market in the morning, then extended the outing into a walk, stopping for coffee at "Le Cafe de l'Amancia" with Paul Gray, whom I met at Villas Shanti carrying his 15-month-old around while his wife practised yoga. Kristen and I took turns going out for snorkels in fairly turbulent and rough water, then Kristen looked after Jamie while I made a large batch of boquinete* a la veracruzana* (Veracruz-style hogfish) to take to Alison Motluk's annual Motluk Potluck birthday party, at the Casa del Mar, where we stayed catching up with potluckers much too late.

2004-02-19 22:00 Briefly again, Jamie spent his last full day in Puerto Morelos walking around in near-record cool temperatures (a forecast high of 24 C?!), sitting in the Cafe de l'Amancia watching the world go by, going for one last swim in the Caribbean (just as noisy as the first four) and sleeping for three hours in the evening so that his parents could pack their suitcases. Thank you, Jamie!

As I write this, Jamie and his grandmother are enthusiastically trilling "Rrrr!" at each other in turn. I'm not sure who's enjoying it more.

2004-02-20 24:30 One more day of telegraphic dispatches. Got up, took turns swimming on a perfect day (28C, sunny, calm waters), saw oodles of fish (a mated pair of globos*, an ocean triggerfish, a large school of blue tang), then gradually finished packing and eating in time to make it to the airport by 3:30. Jamie helped us jump the line, skip hand inspection of luggage, and check in at the first-class counter. He then spent half an hour at the Hasta La Vista cafe in the airport cooing and gurgling back and forth with his grandparents before going through security. Waved through, more or less. This is as good as being part of a flight crew, especially because we have Jamie to start fussing whenever he has to wait in line. When we boarded the plane, he started bawling right on cue, so that the third person in our bank of seats got to move to one of the crew seats and we could stretch out. Then he calmed back down in Kristen's arms. What a good boy. Tom picked us up at the airport, Gary, Ayami and Mihoko waited up to help us unload, and boy am I tired. Good night!

2004-02-21 23:30 Jamie and Kristen spent the day vegging# out at Daniel's house today, while I ran errands. I imagine Kristen did the vegging#, and Jamie entertained everyone who's missed him so much these past two weeks.

Even Daniel's grandparents Ken and Tami dropped by for a visit, and to almost everyone's amusement, Jamie pointedly refused to make eye contact with Tami, we presume because she went two weeks without entertaining him.

This evening we returned to our regular nightly performance schedule of Rubber Duckie. Jamie was initially startled, despite showing some recollection of our palm tree shower curtain and what prolonged viewing of it usually led to. He calmed down within a minute though, and displayed his usual blissed out bath face. We'll take an updated picture of it sometime this week.

2004-02-22 23:30 Jamie stayed indoors on a lovely almost springlike day, driving his mom nuts refusing to sleep (I think he's still finding it too interesting to be at home), while his dad worked out his anxieties about his dental implant surgery tomorrow morning by removing heroic quantities of ice from the pavement. When John's thumbs stopped working, he came in and held Jamie while Kristen got ready to go out, during which time Jamie naturally fell sound asleep.

We went out for a walk around the neighbourhood, stopping in at the Second Cup, then to Michelle's house again for dinner so that all three kids could play in turn with all four adults.

2004-02-23 22:28 (Kristen) Jamie slept very well and very soundly last night, in a three and then a five hour stretch. His exhausted mother was most grateful, and then most delighted to deal with a boy sunnier than even his usual sunny self. John went off to the dentist, while Jamie and I went on a two-hour walk around the neighbourhood before lunch. The Magic Stroller (our Zooper Buddy, which has no difficulty in dealing with uncleared snow and ice on the sidewalks) put him to sleep, and kept him there for the length of our walk and beyond: the perfect solution the next time our boy can't sleep because his teeth are bothering him.

He was a little fussy at times today, but was overall much happier. He even let me put him down in his playpen while I made dinner and cleaned up, and seemed content to play on his own with his fingers. He was a big help for his mother, and a sweet little boy.

* For the benefit of Scrabble players, words that are not in the Scrabble dictionary are marked with an asterisk.

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