Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 37

2004-07-20 24:07 (Kristen) Jamie was up around 8:45, and was playing with Anna and Rebecca (who had stayed overnight at my mom's as well) about three seconds later. He went for a walk around his grammie's garden, and had fun playing with her cat. He cadged a few bites of curry from John, and managed to get a little on his little blue laughing turtle. Now, we call the turtle Curry, or (more formally) Mr. C. Turtle (say it out loud). My mom, my dad, Jennifer, her three kids, Jamie and I went for breakfast (thanks, Mom!) and realized at one point that it was just us and the kids: no significant others. It was a strange feeling. We went back to pick up Owen, John, and Nicole, and headed to the local mall.

We bought birthday presents (early and late) for the girls, and visited favourite stores. Jamie slept in his stroller for his grammie, which pleased her greatly. We also bought some alphabet fridge magnets for Jamie, since he loves the ones at Tom and Michelle's. We've started to set them up on the freezer, which has a large expanse of magnet-free space. [John: he's seen them, and gave them a big "ooh!"]

He also received a number of toys and clothes from his auntie Jen. In particular, he loves the Teletubbie Dipsy toy, the xylophone, the toy piano, and the little car with the loud rattling balls inside. The clothes will fit him better when he's older, and will be dear when he does.

Jamie was good once again on the ride back to Toronto. We were sad to leave all our cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents behind. However, it is always nice to be home, and to fall asleep in our very own beds.

(John) Thanks to Kristen's mom for putting us up in Ottawa and driving us to the train station, to her friend Rod Matheson for lending Jamie a car seat for a few days (and for the raspberries), and to my dad for picking us up on our return.

I think we forgot to mention that Jamie's favorite part of Laraine's house is the ceiling fan, but that almost goes without saying.

2004-07-21 24:18 (Kristen) Jamie slept in until almost 10:00 AM, which is something that he has not done in ages. He ate a huge breakfast, played with his fridge magnets and talked to Ayami, and wandered around the house, visiting the things that he had missed while he was away. He had a morning nap, and then went over to Tom and Michelle's with his dad while I got ready myself.

It was a miserably hot, smoggy day, and so we ended up staying with Michelle in her nice, air-conditioned house for most of the afternoon. Jamie was in an inquisitive, wriggly, exploratory mood, which made it difficult for me to feed him while he was sitting on my lap. By the time he ate, he was too tired to enjoy it, and got mad when he stuffed his mouth full of the watermelon that he insisted on eating by himself and couldn't a) swallow or b)stuff more watermelon into his mouth. I took him up for a nap, which he enjoyed for 45 minutes or so.

Michelle, Daniel, Ross, Jamie and I headed out into the heat of the afternoon to find a Baskin Robbins, and Jamie had his first taste of sherbet (lemon, non-dairy). It was a good thing that I ordered it, as he was very vocal about having some too when he saw Ross, Daniel, and me eating. He seemed to like the coldness of the sherbet, but was perhaps unsure of the tartness of the lemon. His fang is hanging on the edge of breaking through, still, and I can't imagine that it is comfortable for him. The lemon sherbet reminds me that Jamie's new facial expression is to suck his cheeks in like he is sucking a particularly tart lemon, and he thinks it hilarious if you imitate him doing this.

We headed over to Tai Tai's for dinner before heading up to the Scrabble club with Craig Rowland. He slept in the car almost the entire way up, and was an absolutely wonderful boy the entire time that we were there. He was full of smiles and laughs, and he slept almost the entire way back in the car as well. If I time it correctly, I can get him to nurse himself to sleep using the bottle. This is a significant advance in the science of Getting Jamie to Sleep.

2004-07-22 24:29 (Kristen) It was a hot and sticky day today, which may explain why Jamie and I slept in until 9:20: we were supposed to get up at 9:00 so that we wouldn't rush to get to our hair appointment, so we rushed. I fed Jamie while John got his hair cut, and then they went out while I had mine done. We dropped by Bakka to say 'hi' to Chris and Michelle (and to return Chris's copy of Going Postal by Terry Pratchett, sniff), and Chris was very glad to see him. Then it was over to Browning for some lunch, and home for a nap. I managed to get Jamie to sleep for two hours this afternoon in bed, which let me get some much-needed work done.

John took Jamie when he was awake over to his Tai Tai's for more fuel, and then we played with Lisa Kessler and Lisa Deift. More precisely, Lisa and Lisa came over to discuss Scrabble with John, and Jamie played with Lisa's keys, and Lisa's bracelets. We ate dinner at Browning, said 'hi' to Kelly, who just arrived for a two-week stay, and then home for a bath and bed.

He was in a lovely mood again today and drooling like a faucet. His new eyetooth is slowly working its way into the world, and the lesion is getting larger even though I can't actually feel the tooth with a finger yet. He doesn't seem too bothered by it anymore, and I'm glad for that. He learned a new vowel ...aaaaa... [John: that's like the /a/ in "cat"] and startled his dad into thinking that there was something terribly wrong until he realized that the 'aaaa!'s that he was hearing were just Jamie experimenting with a new sound.

(John) I've been sitting Jamie in a laundry basket at my mom's house while feeding him, because the tiled kitchen floor is the coolest thing in the house, and easy to clean, and we're usually pretty hot by the time we get there. Today, Jamie realised he could just grab the edges of the basket and lift himself up entirely unassisted into a standing position, which he practised half a dozen times, getting faster each time.

We've been noticing this past week that Jamie's started to "make strange". I'd never heard this expression before, but it apparently means that he distinguishes between strangers and kinfolk. Today's victims of this were Lisa Deift and Kelly, each of whom had to go through 15 minutes or so of acclimatization before he would let them pick him up. He does seem (if it's possible) even happier now though to see familiar faces.

2004-07-23 23:01 (Kristen) We did a lot of visiting today, starting with a visit with our friends Kate Doe (she of the Scrabble quilt fame) and Lisa Kessler. We sat on the patio at Timothy's, and Jamie had fun talking with an eighteen- month-old boy named Neils. He fell asleep on the way back home, and so we went directly onto the subway rather than change strollers (I was pushing the SUV, which is a little harder to manage) at home. We went to lunch with Lisa, Lisa Deift, and Kate again, along with John, at an Indian buffet on Yonge near Bloor [John: it was the Banjara]. Jamie wasn't fond of the curried cauliflower, but seemed to like the usual rice and korma sauce.

Gary and Ayami (whose birthday it was today) looked after Jamie for an hour while I worked, and then he had a nap. Then it was off to visit Tai Tai, back home again, and a hard night playing with Papa. He was acting quite tired early, and so we had him ready for bed by 9:35. He wasn't quite ready, however, to go to bed and so I took him for a walk around the neighbourhood. He was very excited, and there were many 'oohs' as we watched a few buses go by. I tried to take him down Browning, away from Broadview, but he kept saying 'ooh' so much, trying to get me to turn around, that he gave himself the hiccups.

When Jamie came home from his walk with Gary and Ayami, Gary carried him inside. I came downstairs to greet them, and Jamie lunged straight for me, with a huge grin, and planted an enormous openmouthed kiss on my lips. It was absolutely wonderful.

(John) I took Jamie out for a walk to the lookout point at the end of Chester Hill Road, which we hadn't done in a few weeks. It was a much longer walk than I anticipated, because Jamie has reached the age where he obsessively looks for what Jennifer calls "floor friends": anything that seems out of place on the floor and might conceivably be food. Clearly, he can't spot all the floor friends from his usual perch atop my shoulders, so I had to hold his hands while he walked himself, stopping every few metres to inspect a friend. He's learned that the year marks that cement layers leave in the sidewalk can't be picked up, that maple keys and other seeds are not edible, and that you have to be careful when picking things up off cement or else you scrape your knuckles.

POTD archive browsers please note that as of today, I have split the POTD into thirteen-week chunks. You can get move between sections as usual by clicking on the links at the tops of the index pages.

2004-07-24 23:45 (John) I went off to do the usual Saturday morning grocery shopping this afternoon, walking as far as my parents' house with Kristen and Jamie, where my mom fed him raspberries from the garden. When I came home, I took a nap and then found Kristen and Jamie at Ben and Sam's house, where Jamie was happily playing with a pinwheel.

We picked up Daniel and Ross and all went to Andy and Christine's BBQ, where Jamie tried some escobar* (it's a fatty Hawaiian fish with one anagram) and ate an apricot, while I made three plates of gravlax canapes. Jamie was in full-on explorer mode, and had fun looking all around the house and environs, dodging excited children at every turn.

2004-07-25 23:55 (John) Kristen and I were busy working today, trying to get work done before our trip to New Orleans. Kristen's proofreading a scholarly journal, and I'm reediting a paper with my thesis supervisor. We had a lot of help looking after Jamie, and as a result, I'm not sure what he did today!

I know he went downstairs to play with Ayami and Gary a few times, and out for a very long walk with Daniel, Ross, Ken and Kelly, as well as over to Michelle's house for at least two meals. His shoes were completely full of sand, so I think he spent some time at Withrow Park. (Also, Ken called to ask if it was okay to put Jamie in a swing - yes!)

When I bathed with him at the end of his day, he was blitheringly tired and crying all the way through the process, until I hit upon opening one of his bath books and pointing out the (Japanese baby talk) names of each of the things pictured therein. He calmed right down and concentrated raptly on the books. He sure is his mother's son.

I heard from Kristen that he's started trying to stand unsupported today, and can manage it for five or six seconds at a time. He apparently also was playing "chase me" with Kelly, walking up to her and then running away to try to get her to chase him.

2004-07-26 22:45 (John) Kristen's still working on her proofing, but I've finished with the paper, yay! Jamie had another day full of eating and exploring, and seemed quite happy for it. At lunch, we walked down to Broadview and Danforth, then over to Sun Valley, running errands in preparation for our trip, with Jamie mostly in the stroller (he's finding it difficult these days to ride on my shoulders without some speck of dirt on the ground catching his attention). We stopped awhile on the way back at the Second Cup, so we could all have a snack.

In the afternoon, Kristen and Jamie spent some time in Ben and Sam's backyard, before we headed down to Mocha Mocha to celebrate the end of my paper. Jamie was torn between oohing at the ceiling fan and oohing at the steady stream of emergency vehicles going by on the Danforth, but managed to eat a reasonable amount of avocado, cucumber, rice and Ethiopian chicken stew.

On the way home, we stopped in at my parents' house, where Jamie ate more food (big surprise there) and explored the second floor of the house. Kristen saw him put his hands together (gochisousama*) at the end of his meal spontaneously for the first time.

Bathtime was a repeat of last time. Screaming and shrieking while being scrubbed clean, then rapt attention while I read him his bath books.

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

Back to Vol. 0 No. 36, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 0 No. 38.