Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 17

2004-03-02 23:41 (Kristen) Jamie was wide awake and ready to go by 8:30 this morning (8:00, really, but his mother was in denial). "Wide awake and ready to go" was the theme of today, as Jamie seemed to feel that napping was for other babies for a good portion of the day. He did sleep for an hour and fifteen minutes this morning, which was unusual, and then didn't really sleep again for longer that ten minutes until the evening. We went out for coffee with Michelle, whose family has recovered from their weekend bout with a Norwalk-style virus, and whom we all missed. We then picked Daniel up from school, and he was delighted to see Jamie. He had apparently been feeling down all day, likely the lingering aftereffect of the flu, but he declared that his depression had vanished upon seeing Jamie. They're pretty close, those two.

So close, in fact, that when Jamie was wailing about some indignity in Michelle's kitchen, Daniel broke his groove, and he had to look away from Daniel in order to stop smiling and to pick up his crying where he left off. Jamie is *very* socially aware, and delights in playing the "make eye contact, smile, then look away" game. He also knows what he wants. Today, he wailed like something had bitten him, until we realized that he wanted to be taken outside. Sure enough, if John stepped out the door with him in arms, he stopped crying. When John stepped back over the threshold, Jamie started crying again. We had better teach this kid how to speak or sign, and darn soon.

(John) I have a strong suspicion that Jamie has decided that he is entitled to one evening walk around the block in his dad's arms, and that his loud protest this evening came because he noticed that (1) it was dark out and (2) he hadn't had his walk yet.

2004-03-03 22:33 (Kristen) Jamie was awake around 9:00 AM this morning, and demanded to be taken for a walk after he patiently waited for his mother to finish breakfast. His demand was phrased as an angry scream [John: I'd call it a yell, rather than a scream. Just this week, he's developed a distinct "Get with the program!" yell, which he uses to let us know when we are not taking him outside/to bed/upstairs/downstairs quickly enough.] , at which his father (in bare feet, no less) once again tested the "Wail While In, Happy While Out" hypothesis by taking Jamie outside while I suited up for the morning stroll. Sure enough, he was happy and asleep by the time we reached the Second Cup, but was awake just as I sat down with my coffee and croissant. We headed out into the cold once again, and he fell asleep once more as we rounded the last corner before home. Once we got there, I decided to pull the stroller up onto the back porch, and there he slept in the cold while I sat on a patio chair beside him and read. I got cold after about 45 minutes, and headed inside with him. He stayed asleep this time; all in all, his nap lasted over three hours. I was pretty thrilled, and he was a very hungry but happy boy after he woke up. It had been over six hours since he had last eaten, which was a bit of a daytime record.

He stayed in his good mood for the rest of the day, and as we drove back from the Scrabble club tonight, he was laughing out loud in the back seat with me. John, listening to us, said "That's this month's reason for not selling him on eBay." Snort.

2004-03-04 11:30 (John) We've been noticing the last week or so that Jamie has been getting much grabbier. I think it started while he was nursing, but now when you carry him he likes to get a good grip on something, presumably so that you won't drop his inner primate as you swing from tree to tree. Kristen has to keep her hair tied back. Last night at the club, I tried putting him on my shoulders for the first time, carefully shielding my head with a receiving blanket. He enjoyed the perspective from his new perch, and it only took him five minutes to figure out how to shove the blanket aside so that he could grab my ear with one hand, my hair with the other, and get ready to drool.

2004-03-04 23:25 (Kristen) Jamie is happily dancing on the bed beside me to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata in C (the Allegro). I am glad that Mozart still holds a place in Jamie's list of favourite composers. At one point today, however, he wouldn't look at me, prefering to talk with Ken Sagara. I thought "31 hours of labour and a four inch scar on my abdomen, and this is how you treat me?" Aha... I am reminded of my mother saying "Eighteen hours of labour!" I had originally thought that I would hold the number of diapers I have changed (I have a rough count right now of over 1100) over his head, but this may do.

2004-03-04 24:45 (John) We spent some time playing on the bed, all three of us. Mostly Kristen tickling Jamie, but with much social interaction. We're a family. This evening in the bath, when I pulled Jamie up onto my chest after I washed him, he decided he wanted to lift himself up, and after maintaining an impressively arched back and neck for thirty seconds, surprised me by figuring out how to prop himself up on his elbows. Yay, Jamie!

2004-03-05 23:40 (Kristen) Jamie's ability to spontaneously laugh is giving us all a big kick. As I type, he is dancing to Mozart and laughing out loud every time I look up from the keyboard to look at him. It's taking a little longer to type than usual because of this. We're doing everything we can to make him laugh as much as possible--tickling, laughing ourselves, making funny faces-- but the best laughs are still the ones that he makes himself just because he is happy. It could be that I have something on my face, but I think it's the happy part.

He is growing more and more interactive, and it is getting harder and harder to treat him like "luggage." He is requiring more and more imput from us--he gets put out if the person he is talking with looks away, or leaves before he is done with them. He is requiring more and more accive participation in his monologues from his audience. Right now, I am typing blindly (please excuse any typos) as I am being told that I must keep eye contact or he'll complain. It's very easy to indulge him. He is also more physically active, and spent a good deal of tonight wiggling and kicking, waving his arms, and bouncing as much as he can on his legs while being supported. Oops...being yelled at for typing. Must go and play with my boy. Hee hee.

2004-03-06 23:40 (Kristen) Today we took Jamie to the CanAm Scrabble tournament, held up at the Travelodge near Keele and Wilson. Jamie was very good, but he and I weren't very helpful in running the tournament. However, Jamie did show me that he can now be pulled into a sitting position without his head wobbling: something he isn't supposed to be able to do for a month yet. Yay Jamie!

2004-03-07 22:10 (Kristen) When Jamie realized that he was in a sitting position by himself yesterday, he laughed out loud. He's still pretty delighted with what he can do, and is starting to decide that lying down is for babies. He likes it when I hold him up so that he can put weight on his legs and so that he can see more. After the tournament today, we went to the Swatow (a very good noodle shop on Spadina), and he was more than happy to look around and stand while John and I ate.

He's getting to the age where we're going to have to decide when we are going to introduce solid food. So far, he has had a few grains of plain rice (one stayed in, the others were sucked on and then expelled), and has licked a baby carrot. The baby carrot was just weird to him, and so I think that he isn't quite ready for solids yet. However, it's going to be soon--he's starting to eyeball our food when we eat.

2004-03-08 25:01 (Kristen) Jamie and I stayed slugabed until around 11:00 AM, when I realized that Jamie, while in a good mood, had experienced catastrophic diaper failure. A linen change for everyone was in order.

Jamie spent a good deal of today catching up on sleep, and in addition to sleeping in had a three-hour nap this afternoon, allowing his mom to go the library and to finish reading a book (hooray!). We went out for dinner tonight with John's brother Ted, who pointed out that he was the original Lord of Drool when he was a kid. Jamie is only the Crown Prince of Drool. John concurs, and we stand corrected. Jamie and Uncle Ted got along very well, and Jamie fell asleep during the second half of dinner, allowing his mother to eat using both hands freely. He is a very considerate boy. Afterwards, we wandered around Indigo (a Canadian bookstore chain) while John played Trivia. Jamie decided that it was better to be in Mom's arms than in the stroller.

John and I discovered today that Jamie loves it when John puts him on his shoulders, and then somersaults him onto the bed. [John: we have a 10 MB MPEG video of it available for download on request.] Lots of laughing. Changing Jamie is taking a lot longer now that he likes to grab his feet while being changed, and then play with them for a while before the diaper goes on. Any attempts to cut his playtime short is met with a wail of indignation and woe. Another game is when I put him on a towel in preparation for immersion into the bath, he likes to kick the towel off as soon as it is folded over him. This is very deliberate: he will wait, legs pulled up, in anticipation of my putting the towel over him. Then he kicks the towel off and laughs and grins like a maniac.This is his idea of funny.

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

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