Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 36

2004-07-13 22:00 (John) It was a warm night last night, so Jamie slept shallowly and woke up quite early. He spent much of the day wide awake and, as he has the last couple of days, intently observing the world around him. No longer is it all Buses and Trucks and Cats and Dogs, no: there are flowers and trees and sky and fences and pavement and electrical outlets and on and on and on.

I spent much of the day working on a math paper, but we all went out for a walk in the evening to have dinner at Mocha Mocha, then play at the playground at Withrow Park, and pop in for a brief visit at my parents'.

2004-07-14 24:33 (Kristen) A few people have commented that Jamie seems larger recently, and it does appear that he's in the middle of a significant growth spurt. He continues to eat like we starve him, and I'm thinking of how to schedule the five meals a day that he would prefer to have. I didn't think that I would have to deal with this until he was thirteen or so.

He also is developing cognitively at a ferocious rate. All sorts of everyday things hold great fascination for him. Tonight, at the Scrabble club, he was rapt by the concrete block wall, with its different textures and grids. John says that it's like living with a little stoner, as Jamie says "ooh" (the baby stoner equivalent of 'wow, man") in a dreamy tone.

He also walks at a very fast clip, and crows with delight as he does. It's getting harder and harder to keep up with him, but he has to stay with me for now, as I'm the balance mechanism.

2004-07-15 23:08 (Kristen) Jamie was awake between 8 and 8:30 AM this morning, which I took relatively badly. However, since the Purolator guy and the Canada Post man both rang the bell before 9, I console myself with the knowledge that I was just not meant to get sleep this morning. Jamie ate a big bowl of cereal and bananas, and played for a bit while I ate breakfast--the drill is that he plays in the playpen while I stuff my face as quickly as possible. It works for us.

Jamie didn't have a morning nap, as we couldn't find a place or position in which he felt comfortable enough to fall asleep. We went to Tom and Michelle's for lunch, and Jamie had a good time playing with the toys there. He particularly likes the Fisher Price play table, the easel with the magnetic letters, and the plastic food (tiny pizzas, corn, lettuce, etc.). He then went for a walk with Ken, John, and Daniel, while I had a blissful hour and a half nap. He got his new passport photo taken, and slept for an hour and a half himself.

I took Jamie for a walk down to the Second Cup while John had a chance to nap, and we had a nice conversation with a woman there and her dog. Jamie was very good with the dog, and didn't pull anything that he shouldn't have, while crowing and bobbing with delight. He was at his best, "oohing" and talking with the woman, and being joyful and delighful to be with. We went back home, so that John could take Jamie to see Tai Tai, and so that I could get some work done.

We ate dinner at Browning tonight, and Jamie was a little Mom- centred, as he seemed to need to see me more than usual. He ate a great deal of green beans, tofu, and apples with bananas, and was happiest when other people were eating at the table with him. He was greatly entertained by Michelle when she gave him a necklace to drop repeatedly to the floor, and enjoyed finding ways to drop it so that she missed catching it and had to bend over to pick it up.

2004-07-16 22:30 (John) In the morning, we went to the passport office to apply for a renewal of Jamie's passport. Jamie's current passport was only valid for six months, because we didn't yet have his birth certificate when we applied for it. I gather that the former Conservative provincial government replaced a perfectly good system for handing out birth certificates in a matter of weeks with one that takes seven months for the expedited production of a certified xerox of the form on which I myself wrote down the details of Jamie's birth. The passport office staff at least were friendly and professional, and we'll have Jamie's renewed passport at the end of next week.

Jamie gave me a kiss today, for the first time. He takes roughly the same approach to kissing as he does to nursing: wide open mouth, clamped over your lips. Very sweet.

When Jamie and I went for our walk last night, he started to cry before we got halfway down the block. I turned around, and he calmed down, but started to cry when we approached our house. I put him down, and he walked us over to Ben and Sam's house two doors down, where he waited patiently for them to come out and play, two hours past their bedtime.

Jamie napped for the rest of the afternoon, and then we went to our neighbour Alexandria's house for her grandfather Malcolm's 80th birthday party. Jamie noshed on cucumber, green peppers, hummus, and baba ganoush*; and played with Alexandria, Ben and Sam, but eventually got hungry and tired and brought us home.

On our late night walk, we went back to the party and Jamie ate blueberries while listening to David and his friends serenading the gathering.

2004-07-17 24:29 (Kristen) Jamie was awake at 8:45, happy and alert, while his mom was happy to let him crawl all over her in exchange for not having to physically get up. He had a normal morning nap, for the first time in days, and then we went to the Second Cup to watch birds and dogs. Jamie seems to enjoy sitting outside with me quite a bit, and we make sure to get a seat with a (relatively) unobstructed view of traffic. He gets a fair amount of attention at the Second Cup, too, and if he's lucky, there's another baby to talk with.

He stood for the first time today by shoving himself upward with his legs rather than dragging himself upwards with his arms. John witnessed it, and says that Jamie did it twice. He was pretty pleased with himself. He also ate more food than I thought possible by a small baby. First, he ate two bowls of miso shiru (one with oatmeal, one with tofu), and then the good part of a nectarine. He also had a few other full-sized meals today, and I don't know where he's putting it all. I'm glad that I'm not exclusively breastfeeding, or I think that I would vanish down my son's gullet.

He is wonderfully responsive, and shines when he has a person's full attention. He loves being squeezed and kissed, and has a lovely, ready laugh. He loves his (2) bath books, and I think he is interested in them because he sees me and John reading so much. Or maybe he's a natural book geek. I'll go with nature or nurture on this one. He also looks at me with such beautiful, round eyes, and I think to myself that this is the only time in my life that he'll look at me with that kind of unguarded admiration. His "Mom, you're crazy" look, however, I fear will become more and more familiar as time goes on.

2004-07-18 22:30 (John) We're in Orleans (a suburb of Ottawa) for a few days so that Jamie can meet his maternal grandfather Rod and his step-grandmother Nicole, renew acquaintance with his grandmother Laraine, his aunt Jennifer, uncle Jason and cousins Rebecca, Anna and Owen, and possibly meet a few of Kristen's Ottawa friends. We're also honing our travelling skills, in preparation for our trip to New Orleans at the end of the month.

(Kristen) After our experiences with car trips, we decided to take the train to Ottawa. Jamie was much more interested than I thought he would be in watching the scenery race by through the large picture window, and he sat in my arms quietly. He also got some practice walking up and down the aisle of the car, stopping occasionally to make friends. He particularly enjoyed looking out the back of the train, as we were in the last car, and watching the track unravel behind us. It was a very pleasant way to travel from place to place.

(John) The one time Jamie did have trouble falling asleep on the train, I took him to the back of the train, where he was mesmerized by the receding track and fell asleep on my shoulder within two minutes. Whenever he was awake, he was happy to eat, walk up and down the car, or just watch the world go by outside the train. We very much appreciated this, as it meant that we were able to take turns catnapping, which was a good thing after going a few hours short on sleep last night: I had to make another trip to Dental Emergency Services after my toothbrush knocked a chunk off of one of my molars.

(Kristen) When we got to Ottawa, Mom's friend Rod Matheson picked us up and took us to Jennifer's place. My father and his wife, Nicole, were there, and the kids were too. Jamie got along famously with all of them, and Mr. Separation Anxiety gleefully went for a number of short walks with his cousins around the neighbourhood while I got caught up with my family. We stayed until the "witching hour" of 9 PM, when Jamie started to fuss and demand to be taken home to bed. He's still having trouble falling asleep--last night, it took over an hour to calm him enough that he'd close his eyes--but it wasn't as hard as it has been. It may be teething trouble, as I felt and saw his left eyetooth today, and it would be long before it breaks through and I can start calling him "Fang," as planned.

(John) On one of our walks, Rebecca and Anna took turns going down a slide with Jamie. It took him several goes to decide that he liked it enough to keep his eyes open, then another several goes to decide that he would rather just stay on the platform at the top of the slide, surveying his domain.

Jamie observed our impromptu cherry-pit spitting competition (won handily by Kristen's disciple and husband) and was happy as long as we kept feeding him bits of cherries. I would say that he really likes fruit except that he has the same reaction with just about any adult food that we share with him. He lunched, for instance, on a jar of baby food together with rice, asparagus and grilled salmon. He did find a taste of black olive hummus to be a little intense (it's a bit salty and does taste strongly of olives), but was willing to try seconds. I wonder how long he'll enjoy such a diverse diet.

I think we're spending tomorrow morning in Orleans and then going to visit Kristen's friend Badger in the afternoon. We'll write again tomorrow evening.

2004-07-19 24:45 (John) I slept in while Kristen and Jamie walked over to Jennifer's house in the morning. When I caught up with them in the afternoon, Jamie was just waking up from a nap. He spent a lot of time playing in the yard with his new favorite toy, a Talking Teletubby Dipsy: he can't resist the "bup-a-tum" song, and I admit I've already caught myself mumbling it too. His main interest today though continued to be food. I am terrified of how he will eat as a teenager, as he is already setting impressive records. He paces himself, too. As his stomach fills up, he gets up for walks to let the food settle before going back for seconds and thirds. In the afternoon, it was a bowl of freshly picked raspberries (he had about a dozen) and a couple of jars of baby food.

Then we hopped on the bus downtown, sitting at the back so that Jamie could bus-surf ("ooh! ooh!"). We met Badger, Jeannette, Cameron and Nathan (the newborn at our wedding) for Chinese food. Jamie ate half a jar of baby food, the contents of one and a half spring rolls, the insides of five pieces of deep-fried tofu, a few teaspoons of moo shi beef mix, and several tablespoons of assorted steamed vegetables before finally slowing down to the point where he could be distracted by a book. (Ron Lyen also dropped by the restaurant, having heard we were in town and wanting to meet Jamie.)

Speaking of books, his interest in them is growing too. He will sit calmly in your lap if you give him a book. This morning, he woke up to find an advance proof of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal within sight (thanks, Chris!), and crawled three steps to grab it and examine it more closely. He hates crawling: he won't even crawl for food!

It's been a lot of fun watching Jamie with his cousins. They adore him, and are so good at playing with him. It's a tough fight each time deciding who gets to push his stroller, help him walk or play or feed him. He's a lucky 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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