Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 25

2004-04-27 24:45 Cool and blustery day today, but Jamie seemed happy to be bundled up for his walks. One long one with Ken in the afternoon, then out with me again in the afternoon while Trifina and Kristen reorganized the sunroom (which was half Jamie's stuff and half general storage, and is now about 90% general storage, except for the change table, which stays there because of the convenient proximity to sink and washing machine) and Jamie's room (which was being reserved in case we needed it for a tenant, but Jamie needs it more, so now most of his stuff is there), where was I? Oh yes, we walked to my parents' house, where my mom stuffed him with miso shiru and okayu (pureed in a blender). He almost fell asleep in the tub tonight, but wasn't at all crabby about it, and is sleeping peacefully now.

2004-04-28 24:45 It was another good mood (with occasional teething) day for Jamie. He woke up singing and smiling as he often does, stood on my chest for a while (his leg muscles are strong enough that he can do this for a minute or so at a time, though he needs help with his balance), lay happily on the change table (he likes having his diaper off because then he can comfortably suck his toes) and then I'm not sure what he did for a couple of hours because I had an emergency dental appointment.

When I came back, I found Jamie and Kristen at the Second Cup, where Jamie's attention was torn between the warblers begging for table scraps and the trucks driving along the Danforth. In case anyone reading this happens to find Jamie's wrist butterfly near the Second Cup, it's gone missing! Kristen says to mention, and I'm pretty sure this is unrelated, that Jamie has been amusing himself through much of the day by picking things up and putting them down. This is certainly a significant improvement on dropping things and waiting for us to pick them up, also a recent pastime.

Jamie was well-behaved at the club, intermittently watching the Leafs beat the Flyers 4-1, while touring the Scrabble room and oohing and aahing appropriately at people's plays. Between the first two rounds, he sat on Shirley Drucker's lap and laughed and laughed, I'm still not sure why.

2004-04-29 23:17 (Kristen) It was a glorious day today, and our Jamie didn't seem to want to miss any of it. He woke up late, around 10:15, with a truly startling case of bedhead* [John: I would call it a mohawk#]. He didn't have his usual morning nap, which I attributed to his late rising although that has not made a difference in the past. We went to Tom and Michelle's for lunch, and Jamie went out with Ken on his usual afternoon stroll. It turns out that he was only asleep for ten minutes or so for Ken, after which he was Wide Awake Boy. I took him out again, later in the afternoon, when the weather was spectacular. He slept for around an hour, and then Boing! up again. At this point, he's down around two hours of sleep.

(John) We're all really tired, and I'm having trouble remembering what I just wrote let along what I'm about to say. Jamie worked hard today on standing: while he's still far from being able to get up into a standing position, he can hold it without any tremor for over a minute, his balance has improved noticeably even over yesterday, and his arm and leg muscles are "ripped". He looks like a little bodybuilder. He's also been working on reaching for things at the limit of his range, which turns out to be surprisingly difficult, coordinating fine grasping muscles in his hand with the gross motor skills involved in getting his hand near the object. He's quite motivated though. He's stubborn and wants to do everything by himself, with minimal adult assistance.

2004-04-30 24:30 (John) His fingers are getting long. They've always been longer and more graceful than other babies', but his hands are starting to look like little boy hands. Soon he'll be happily typing away here, and a little while after that he'll start to make sense.

Kristen had to take Jamie to go pick up Daniel after school today, as I was stuck in line at the bank. (I was paying the mortgage, not the income tax, which didn't get paid until 11:57 tonight.) It was raining, so she tried putting him in the blue harness that has been handed down (if I recall correctly) from Ruth to Michelle to us. Jamie seemed happy with it, as it mimics one of his favorite positions to be carried in: facing forward, in front of your chest. He liked it so much, he managed to fall asleep in it (see potd), gnawing away at the receiving blanket that keeps him from drowning us all in his drool.

He apparently doesn't like carrots. Or at least, if you put a "baby carrot" in his web bag, he "kack"s at you until you take it out and put a pear or an apple. That's it for now. I look forward to getting a little sleep this weekend, and perhaps sounding a little less drooly myself.

2004-05-01 22:25 (Kristen) It was a busy day today. Jamie and I stayed home and played with neighbours Ben, Sam, and Alexandria while John went out and foraged for food at the St. Lawrence Market. Then we went for our afternoon walk. It has been an iffy proposition lately as to whether or not Jamie will sleep for very long on his walk, but he stayed asleep for close to two hours. He woke up when we arrived at John's parents' place to meet his dad, with smiles for everyone.

We had enough time (barely) to slurp some miso shiru*, have a quick nurse, and a diaper change before we headed out to see Word Wars, a Scrabble documentary, at the Hot Docs festival. Jamie was very well behaved during the movie, spending his time nursing and sleeping as I bounced him in the blue kangaroo harness. Evan Berofsky, one of the players at our Scrabble club, recognized Jamie's voice in the dark as Jamie made some comments on the movie (which was very good). As all Scrabble players do, we played some Scrabble afte the movie, and before going over to Tom and Michelle's for chicken katsu.

Jamie's appetite has been growing ferociously, and I'm being given little choice but to increase the amount of solids in his diet. He is nursing around every two hours, and for the first time, I feel like I'm not producing enough milk to keep him happy. He wants to eat like us so badly that there is no fear that we can't feed him. A kindly Spanish lady at the Second Cup suggested that I feed him mashed banana, and it may be time to try that again.

Jamie continues to play the "drop it and pick it up" game, and wants to pick it up himself, thank you very much. He is also very attatched to his rubber duck and windup fish, much more so than to any other toys. Mr. Rubber Duck in particular can be used as a bribe if Jamie is impatient while waiting in the bathroom to be bathed or clothed. In fact, Mr. Rubber Duck is so attractive that Jamie will purposefully roll from his back to his front in pursuit, which is something that I can't get him to do for anything else.

2004-05-02 22:27 (Kristen) Jamie and John went for a long walk today in the rain [John: 2.5 hours] while I took a nap; it was an unexpected surprise for me, and a pleasure for everyone. When the boys returned, we all went to watch the hockey game with Jamie in Gary and Ayami's apartment. Jamie loves to play with Gary and Ayami, and had huge smiles and squeals of delight when he saw them. Then it was dinner with Tai Tai and Ho Ho (John's parents), and ice cream with Daniel and Ross.

Jamie had lots of miso shiru with rice today, along with some pear, but tomorrow I'll be heading out to buy applesauce and bananas for him. He loves the soup, but he needs something more substantial on his stomach. John was going to put spinach in his miso shiru this morning, but I said "No," because of something I'd read somewhere about the inadvisability of spinach until he was older. A lengthy web search later revealed that a number of foods are considered not acceptable, including the raw carrot that he had rejected a few days ago. Cooked carrot yes; raw carrot, no. Smart boy. I'm going to try a more regular three meals a day routine with him, rather than the ad hoc schedule we've been having, and see if it has any impact on the frequency of his nursing. Not only does he nurse every two hours (again), he's starting to clamp down absent mindedly with his hard hard gums when he does. I'm sore, and could use a little bit of a break.

(John) Tom says that Jamie stopped himself from falling over by putting his hand down. Might have been an accident, but I think he'll figure it all out pretty soon. He was playing with his favorite rubber duck on the bathroom floor with Kristen, waiting for me to fill the tub, and Kristen pointed out that he'll roll himself over onto his tummy to go after his duck, and even try to crawl after it, but not for anything else.

He really loves his snuggly harness. Boy howdy. He stayed sound asleep throughout the abovementioned 2.5 hour walk, because he was in his Zooper Buddy stroller. In his harness, he practically bounces out of it with excitement, and when you "spar" (I mean, play patty-cake) with him, you risk being drowned in drool.

2004-05-03 24:56 (Kristen) Jamie and I headed out late this morning to the Big Carrot, our local organic food store, in search of things for him to eat. We came back with apple sauce, a jar of organic mushed carrots, some rice flakes for cooking, and a few things for Mum. Jamie was wide awake and very talkative, and only started to fuss in line as we were getting ready to go. We headed up to Tom and Michelle's for lunch, and got some tofu from Tami, in case Jamie was in the mood to try that out. We didn't get a chance, and off Jamie went with Ken for his afternoon walk.

That didn't last long, however, as Jamie managed to wake up with a rather full diaper and didn't go back to sleep for Ken. I met them on Jackman, and took him to his grandmother's for miso shiru and rice. He ate a lot of it, and settled back down for an almost three hour nap and a long walk with his dad while I took a nap. We then tried the apple sauce on him as he was in a good mood after his long sleep, and his eyes were very wide as he decided that this was yet another great taste sensation. Finally, we tried a bit of tofu with dinner, and that went down well too. A gastronomically adventuresome day for our Jamie, and a good one.

He also started to roll over for things Not Duck today. He was in hot pursuit of a runaway rattle when pop! over he went. He's fast, and starting to realize that rolling over could get him things that he wants. He's also caterpillaring to get to things out of his reach, which I imagine is the first step, so to speak, on the way to crawling.

(John) Most of the walk was with Daniel, with whom I discussed our plans for adding code to Nethack. The weather was quite cold, but I was just happy it wasn't raining. After a couple of hours, I brought him home and thought that he would wake up in the stroller when it stopped moving. I was surprised that he stayed asleep there for another hour, during which time I did some work on Kristen's laptop, sitting on our front steps watching the neighbours go by.

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

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