Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 45

2004-09-14 23:08 (Kristen) Jamie woke up sometime before eight o'clock this morning, had breakfast, and settled back down for a nap from nine until ten thirty this morning. After second breakfast with John, he and I decided to go for a walk together, but this time I took my rollerblades# for a solo run. We bladed from our house to the library, and then to Withrow Park, where we took a break and sat under the trees for a cookie and milk in perfect weather. Jamie fell asleep soon afterwards, and I took him to the Second Cup. There, one mother and one Cup regular commented on how cool it was to rollerblade# with the stroller: I haven't felt cool in months and months. It was a good feeling: all this and positive exercise endorphins too!

We went home, and Jamie woke up soon afterwards. Sue, Tracy, Patrick and Maggie came over, and we all had a good time playing in the front yard. Then we played with Alexandria and her visiting rabbit friend, Oreo, and had soba, peaches, and blueberries at Tai Tai's. This was rounded out by second supper at Browning, when Jamie finally had enough food. A very tired boy was taken home and put to bed by 9:30.

Jamie is learning signs from us, and it's funny that the signs that he knows are not the ones that I thought he would learn. He knows that putting his arms up in the air means "pick me up," how to wave goodbye, and that putting your hands together when your mom says "gochisousama" means that the meal is over. He also claps very well. John tells me that he has been waving his hand in front of desirable but dangerous things like power outlets at other people's houses while saying "no, dangerous" in Japanese. Now Jamie will walk to the dangerous or forbidden object, and wave his hand in front of it, clearly understanding that this is not a thing for him. John apparently did the same thing at Jamie's age. This is a good sign for him to know.

(John) Jamie still gets indignant when he is horizontal, but can easily raise himself to a sitting position (first downward dog, then pushing back onto his bum, which I'm not sure I can do myself anymore) while griping all along about having to do so. With any sort of a handhold, he can lift himself up to a standing position, and cruise at a surprisingly fast speed. He knows which handholds are safe (furniture, generally) and which are not (doors, things on wheels), and will gingerly test unfamiliar objects. He always has a mission in mind that is clear to him, though not always to us.

2004-09-15 25:49 (Kristen) It's really late so, quickly: it was a good day. Jamie slept, ate much food, and went for a long walk with me and Michelle this afternoon after helping me with the groceries this morning. He ate cookies, and fed the birds. We went to the Scrabble club tonight, where he impressed everyone with his ability to almost walk by himself. He has a will of his own, that is only getting stronger with his ability to move himself around without any help from Mom or Dad, thank you very much. Balls are cool. So is Dipsy. Getting a diaper change is uncool, unless Dad distracts him with a baby Marvin the Martian rattle. If Dad or Mom make fools of themselves by pretending to cry while wiping their faces first, he'll accept having his face wiped with good humour. We still get to eat all the good stuff, but he'll have another cookie until he's allowed to have what we're having. He's asleep now, thank goodness.

2004-09-16 22:35 (Kristen) Jamie had a long nap between 6 and 7 tonight, so he's roaring around his room with many "ba ba ba"s and "go go go"s. He slept in this morning, and had a late breakfast. Daniel came over for lunch while his parents were at the doctor's with his brother (routine), and after we walked him back to school, we went for our own walk. We looked at the leaves on the trees, and talked about how the wind blowing through them makes the sound "sara sara" in Japanese. We sat in the park and saw pigeons and squirrels at ground level for the first time. Then Jamie fell asleep, I had my coffee, and we headed home to meet John.

We saw Debbie Ohi at her place briefly on other business, and Jamie was delighted because Debbie has all sorts of musical instruments that make noise. He had a nap, and then played with Ross and Daniel. He is a little annoyed that he is too tall to walk under tables without bonking his head. He ate a whole banana on his own.

2004-09-17 23:48 (Kristen) Jamie seems more confident and more stubborn than he did yesterday. Moving about on his own means that he is able to express his very defined opinions about where he wants to go, and when he wants to get there. The more tired he is, the more this is accomplished by yelling at his mom or dad until they figure it out. We're looking forward to words.

As a treat this afternoon, I bought Jamie an avocado roll from a local sushi restaurant. He happily devoured the avocado, and the bits of rice that I was able to scrape off the nori. John suggested that he would be able to eat the nori if I ripped it into little strips, which meant that he would get all the rice and a new flavour sensation. He loved it, and ate six little pieces of avocado roll in total. He only had one nap today, and was hysterically tired by the time his poor father brought him home from Tai Tai's. I really didn't want him to sleep, and so kept him awake while I went through a big bag of baby clothes from Sue (thank you again, Sue!). He finally pooped out at 8, and slept until almost 9. Ah, I thought, maybe he'll go straight back to sleep after his bath if we get him in now. He managed to stay awake until a little after 10, not the 1:30 AM that I feared. Whew.

2004-09-18 22:50 (Kristen) I made Jamie a larger-than-usual bowl of cereal and banana today, in order to gauge how much he's eating. He's been finishing his bowls lately, and I always worry that I'm starving the boy. He started to wind down near the end of the bowl, and as I urged one more spoonful on him, waved his hand in front of me in a clear "no more" fashion, and then put his hands together in the proper "gochisousama" position to indicate that he was done. I just about fell over! I'm so pleased with him and his ability to pick up and use those signs on his own. Two! In combination! What a guy. Next, I hope to teach him the signs for "hunger" and "sleep."

When Kristen left to go to the film festival (The Libertine with Johnny Depp, hooray), Jamie and I had our morning natto, packed provisions and set out on an expedition down to Riverdale Farm to inspect livestock. We stopped en route to watch the soccer games in Riverdale Park (East), and to watch the traffic go by under the pedestrian bridge over the DVP. The livestock all seemed in order, and Jamie was more interested this time in the other children. He did appreciate the chickens again, though not to the point of kecking, and thought that any farm animal that made noise (notably a turkey and some pigs) was amusing.

We walked north up and through Wellesley Park and the Forsythia Playground, where we spent a long time on the swing, and then an even longer time stocking up on sand (in our pockets, in our cuffs, in our shoes, down our back, and in our mouth). When we were almost at Parliament, I thought to ask Jamie (who had been subsisting on fruit juice) if he wanted a teething cookie. He snatched it with lightning speed from my hands, then dropped it a block later when he fell sound asleep. Something to remember the next time I want him to fall asleep - that's twice he's waited for a cookie before falling asleep on a stroll.

We walked home, total elapsed time about three hours, and were just heading inside when my cellphone rang and woke Jamie up. He woke up peacefully though, and was delighted with the idea of chickpea curry and rice, in almost worryingly large quantities. Not too long later, Kristen came home, and I'll let her take over.

(Kristen) Jamie hadn't slept for very long, and was a little restless when I got back home. I tried to nurse him back to sleep around 4:00, and while I think he appreciated the bonding time, he wasn't interested in sleeping. So, while John had his well-deserved rest, I took Jamie to the Second Cup for a bit of banana and some bird watching while I had a much-needed coffee. Then we walked to John's parents' place for dinner with Ted, Alice, Ian, and Amy, who arrived to a speed visit while they go to Canada's Wonderland tomorrow while John went to see his movie at the festival.

(John) When I got back to my parents' house from my film (Primer), Jamie had just managed to slam the piano lid on one of his fingers and was indignantly refusing first aid. I finally had to mime biting one of my fingers, yell "Ow", run a washcloth under cold water, wrap the washcloth around my finger and sigh "aah", before he would let me do the same for him. This sort of interaction has become commonplace recently, where Jamie will initially refuse to do something that makes no sense to him (or isn't part of his detailed current agenda), but when it is explained to him (in a combination of pantomime and baby talk), he goes along with it willingly. I find myself communicating with him much the way I would to a foreigner with whom I shared only limited vocabulary.

On the walk home, I carried Jamie in my arms because he seemed tired. Halfway there, he arched his neck to flop fully away from me, and stayed sound asleep in that position, even when I eventually put him down on our bed so that Kristen could have a longer than usual soak in the tub while waiting for him.

2004-09-19 21:30 (John) The last few mornings, Jamie has sat with me for Fisher-Price's interactive ABC web page, which sings the usual song. We are always careful to loudly sing the proper pronunciation of the letter zed over the (American) Fisher-Price version. I emphasize that "J" is Jamie's letter, which intrigues him, and this morning I showed him that he has a "J" fridge magnet too, and that the fridge magnets are all in the shapes of letters. He got a look on his face which I remember occasionally having myself as an undergraduate student, indicating that I had pointed out something to him which was clearly interesting and significant, but that he did not yet totally grasp, and which he would need to reflect on further in his own time, customarily accompanied by phrases such as "Yes, that's obvious. Give me a few minutes to figure out why it's obvious."

I met up with Kristen and Jamie in the mid-afternoon, walked with them to Sun Valley and we all snacked on our purchases on the way home. Jamie fell asleep munching on chicken samosas and black grapes. In the evening, Jamie and I went to my parents' house, where he had his usual soba, along with grilled tuna, which being a new taste sensation was his favourite. After he said he had had enough of my spoon-feeding, he continued to meticulous pick every scrap off the plastic tablecloth in front of him, and in so doing ate about as much again, while I discreetly put food in front of him.

I spent a few hours today designing a new interface for this blog. I'll probably switch over to it as the default interface sometime next week, but retain this old format for historical interest.

2004-09-20 24:50 (John) First breakfast with Kristen was the usual cereal. Second breakfast with me was bits of chicken samosa (something that could be put on his tray quickly straight from the fridge, to keep him busy), natto with okra (shared with me, eaten as much as possible with a spoon under my control), and wild blueberries (spread on his tray to keep him busy while I cleaned up). Then a walk with Kristen, returning in time for late lunch (curry, I think), and then the bus, subway and streetcar to the math department.

On the way home, much walking up and down on the St. George stairs outside Sid Smith: he's getting the hang of using arm strength and a handrail to assist with the physical effort of climbing stairs, even though the scale (ha!) requires that he lean about 45 degrees backward (carefully supported by Dad) to get his foot onto each next step. Very insistent as always on Doing Things By Himself The Way Grownups Do. Not minding at all the amount of fawning attention small children get at universities.

Jamie fell asleep sipping a peach nectar with me (well, actually, since he's still working on the whole sucking from a straw thing, I use the straw as an eyedropper), so we walked all the way home, taking about an hour. At my mom's, he ate a fair amount of red snapper in addition to his usual soba.

He was in an unusually good mood today, I suspect because his day had the right mix of outings, exercise and food.

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

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