Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 43

2004-08-31 23:31 (Kristen) Another day of a late wakeup, and little napping.

Today's big news is that Jamie free stood three times for up to 20 seconds each time. He did it while holding an object in both hands, contemplative, and didn't seem to realize that he was doing it. Either that, or he didn't care. The free standing, along with his rapidly developing crawling technique, means that I had better get those cabinet clips attached in the kitchen, along with the rest of the baby proofing that I've been doing.

We went for a walk to the library, and accompanied John on a few errands. This included a ride on the subway, which he enjoyed, particularly since we got a seat on the first car. Jamie got to stand on a seat, and watch out the front of the subway car at an unimpeded view of the tracks and tunnel. He liked it very much. He ate a good deal, and is more and more eating adult food, and less pureed baby food from a jar. He laughs, and claps, and waves, and is the sunniest, happiest boy. I hope that he is always this easy to make happy.

2004-09-01 24:57 (Kristen) Jamie's mouth is beginning to fill with teeth as his two middle top teeth clear the gumline to join his other pearly whites. I think that he's working on yet another top tooth, to judge from the look of his gums and his trouble falling asleep tonight. It took three tries, and he didn't finally fall asleep until close to 11:30: a good hour and a half later than usual.

The new teeth are changing the look of his face. He is looking less like a baby, with a soft, toothless grin, and more like a toddler. He is acting more like a toddler as well, as he roars around the house, cruising or grabbing onto the hand of a passing adult. He continues to work on his freestanding ability, and is starting to make tentative stabs at walking. Right now, he steps away from whatever he is holding onto for support, and will let himself fall with a step or two towards where he wants to go. He's still very cautious, and I don't think that he'll walk in the next week or two, but he's almost there.

We walked to the Second Cup today, fed the birds, and had a tiny nap. Then, after refusing to sleep later in the afternoon, we went outside only to be greeted, fresh from their return from Boston, by Sam and Ben. Jamie loves playing with them, and Alexandria joined us to complete the Fulton Avenue Regulars. Then I went to meet Suzanne for coffee, while John and Jamie had dinner at Tai Tai's. We went off to the club for an hour, where Craig Rowland had two Japanese children's books for Jamie. One was Issun-boshi (or Tom Thumb in English), and John read that to Jamie during a rest in Jamie's relentless exploration of the club meeting room.

2004-09-02 22:02 (Kristen) Jamie didn't fall asleep until quite late last night, finally closing his big brown eyes somewhere in the vicinity of 11:30 PM. It was unusual, and I suspect more teeth. He's sprouting them like flowers in May. The plus was that he stayed asleep until 10:40 or so this morning. I was up for over an hour before him, and kept expecting him to wake up. I got some reading done as he slept, which was nice.

We went for our usual library/Second Cup/Big Carrot rounds, and came home for a nap. He slept for around half an hour, maybe less, when the phone rang and bang! there was the end of the nap. He didn't sleep again until just now: a very tired little boy. In the interim, he played at home, ate lunch, visited his Tai Tai, and ate some more. He played with Tom, Gary, Kelly, Ross, and Daniel, and almost fell asleep on my shoulder as we walked home in the warm summer night.

2004-09-03 22:54 (Kristen) Jamie has really been sleeping at night, and is starting to give up his morning nap. He is also giving up his evening nap, leaving a short hour and a bit for his total daytime napping while sleeping for up to twelve hours at night. It means that when 9:00 PM rolls around, he is *really* ready for bed.

Today's big outing was a trip to Withrow Park with Kelly, John, Daniel, and Ross to the Withrow Park wading pool. I came prepared, with bathing suit, towel, and changes of clothes. I should have brought a change of clothes for myself, as Jamie peed on me for the first time in months when I was changing him on the park bench in preparation for the wading pool.

After all that, he didn't even really go into the pool. He just wasn't in the mood, despite his enjoyment of it last time, and spent his time circumnavigating the edge of the pool, or playing in the nearby play structure with John. Daniel and Ross had a good time, and the only time that Jamie decided to get his feet wet was when a 10-month-old named Anton came nearby. They talked, and Jamie splashed a little, but soon it was time to come out and go to the Second Cup for a cookie and a good deal of his dad's peach nectar.

We went to Tai Tai's for dinner tonight. At one point, I was handing a walking Jamie over to John when the transfer was muffed (shades of Olympic 4x100 relays). Jamie was going fast enough that he took a few steps by himself past John before he fell, squawking. That boy's really close to walking: he just doesn't realize that he can do it yet.

2004-09-04 22:27 (Kristen) I cursed myself! I did! He woke up at 8:20 this morning, unnegotiably, and irrevocably. Gnrts!!!!

So we had breakfast, and he was not in the best of shining moods, having a good yell as I dressed him and tried to get him out of the house. We ran a few errands, and he finally fell asleep at 11:00 for about half an hour. In the meantime, I found a pair of rollerblades that fit for $10 at a garage sale. I'm hoping to blade about with Jamie on our walks, as he enjoys it when Kelly does it.

Home again for food with Papa, and then we headed out again for Withrow Park and another run at the wading pool. No dice: he was not interested. If anything, he was more reluctant to go in than last time. Anton was there, splashing like a fish, and Jamie clung to me like a limpet. I didn't push the issue, since we'd already had a fight about his hat (I wanted it on, he cried for five blocks and ten minutes without stopping) and I wanted to minimize the total amount of trauma in his day. I wouldn't have pushed it anyway, but today seemed like a bad day to do it if I had decided to.

I packed him up, and we went to pay a "welcome to the neighbourhood" call on Claire Orchard, who is the wife of Andy Orchard, my friend at the Centre for Medieval Studies. They just moved in nearby, and we ended up staying for a good part of the afternoon with her and their son Oscar. Jamie and Oscar (who is three) had a great time roaring about, with Oscar pretending to be a dog, and Jamie just thrilled to be chased and to chase. They had a great time together until John came and picked us up for a walk. I think that we'll be seeing them again soon!

(John) Out for a mid-prandial walk with me, Jamie produced a few new phonemes, clearly enunciating "Va, va, va!" and perhaps less appopriately "Bois, bois, bois!" Then again, maybe he was pointing at all the wooden fences, and not asking for a drink. Jamie's use of language is a subject of ongoing debate. "Ghoo" (with an initial voiced velar fricative) almost always accompanies appetizing food, so I think it means "yummy"; but there are questions concerning its possible metaphorical usage, and what the occasional bilabial click means ("This is really tasty" or "There's something on my lip"). He does usually gleefully shout "Dada" (or sometimes "Daidai") when running either towards or with me, and Kristen has kindly suggested that he is consciously pronouncng my title; I am still open to the possibility that it means "Look at me, I'm running!"

2004-09-05 23:17 (Kristen) Jamie was up early again today, and definitely seemed to be in pain. We heard Ben and Sam outside, and went out to see them. Jamie always likes to see them, and Ben and Sam love Jamie, lavishing him with hugs and kisses. We went back in after a while, and hung around the house while Jamie had a hour and a half morning nap (unusual) until early afternoon, when we decided to go to the Withrow Park wading pool one last time before it closes for the winter (brrr, what a thought). Sam, Ben, Paul and Betsy went with us, and we had a very enjoyable walk to the pool. We found Oscar, Claire, and Oscar's older sister Ellen there already, and it was a fun, social time. Eventually, we went to Baskin Robbins and home for a nap.

While at the park, I found evidence that Jamie had finally broken a new tooth. I can't tell if it's another incisor or an eye tooth, but I'm inclined to think that it's an eyetooth, since it caused him so much more trouble than the middle incisors. He's much more comfortable now, and to prove it, ate two bowls of fish, broth, soba noodles, and veggies at his Tai Tai's. He was pretty tuckered out after all of today's running about and playing, and was asleep by 9:45.

2004-09-06 22:42 (Kristen) Jamie was up with the birds again this morning, and was pretty cranky until I put him in his stroller for a walk. He slept for close to two hours in the stroller, and I was dead on my feet despite an emergency coffee.

So, I made John take Jamie for a bit while I had a lie down in the afternoon. Some food and an hour and a half nap made me feel a lot better, and I joined Jamie and John at the Withrow Park playground. They had walked all over, and Jamie had napped a bit, before they went to play. Jamie enjoyed the swings and the usual attractions, and was cruising along a balance beam when I arrived. John had his turn at lying down, and I watched Jamie discover the joys of dirt. Not dirt, exactly, but a sandy grey gravel, which piles up attractively when you pick it up and drop it. He liked it. I looked for wipes for the aftermath.

Then we dropped by on Peter, Laura, and Jonathan, and walked back over to John's parents' place for dinner. Then it was over to Browning so that Kelly could show me more about roller blade maintenance, and so Jamie could play with Daniel and Ross. Michelle was back from Worldcon, and Jamie was pleased to see her: she got an "ooh" when he saw her.

(John) "All over" means that we walked up Broadview and Hillside to O'Connor, at which point Jamie started fussing about his teeth (or more specifically, his upper right lateral incisor, which will be his sixth tooth), so I gave him a teething cookie and he was asleep within minutes, cookie still gripped firmly in fist. He slept as I walked to Pape and then down to Withrow Park, where he woke up in time to share a box of blueberries with me. When Kristen met up with us, we walked almost all the way down to Gerrard to drop in on the Suzuki-Cooks, which by my reckoning means that I put about 7.5 km on the stroller today.

Jamie is still improving his cruising skills. He now happily circumnavigates rooms, as he did in Michelle's living room while we watched the series premiere of Monk. on DVD. His free-walking record is still three steps (I think), which he's achieved twice while inadvertently losing adult support, and he can free-stand for about thirty seconds if he's absorbed in what he's doing.

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

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