Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 49

2004-10-12 23:37 (Kristen) Jamie woke up in a much better mood today, and was much less bothered by his cold and his teeth. He had a nice, long nap with Ken this afternoon, which helped him to keep his sunny disposition throughout the day.

He is turning into a lap baby, and will come and sit with me or John in our laps for relatively long periods of time. He will sing, or clap, or watch Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbour Totoro in English). He will also come and lie down across our legs, and roll so that his head is almost upside down and he is on his back, laughing away. It's pretty funny. He likes it when John and I sing, and will sing along himself in a high, tuneless hum that isn't anywhere as annoying as it sounds. He is also starting to do the baby dance, which involves holding onto a piece of furniture and bobbing up and down.

(John) He's continuing to eat large amounts of everything (and pooing# accordingly), so I imagine he's growing. He's getting a little choosy about his food: he'll eat a few mouthfuls of anything, but if he sees something else that looks better he'll insist on trying that instead. He may have had his first pineapple today (he thought it was okay). He definitely had his first good long look at the fountain at the Eaton Centre through all its cycles.

2004-10-13 23:15 (John) I'll leave it to Kristen to write most of the blog today. I think Jamie's cold is doing better (but we'll still go see Dr. Kennedy tomorrow). We'll be sure to ask her if it's normal that his left cheek is still puffier than his right, but she's going to look at me funny because thanks to what Dr. Hiltz described as a "brutal" hour of periodontal surgery, I look just like Jamie tonight.

(Kristen) And here I am... Jamie was up around 8:00, happy and chatty. I think that we have established a new pattern for waking up, and I could be happier about it. However, he did take a nap in the morning for about an hour or so, which was helpful to me. We did our groceries, and saw John off as he headed out to the periodontist (poor John). He tried yoghurt for the first time today, and was very interested in it. He likes raspberry and blueberry (surprise).

He wouldn't sleep for me at home in the afternoon, so we went back out again to meet John at the subway, and over to the library. He fell asleep for almost two and a half hours, and woke up while I was doing a little gardening. He watched some of My Neighbour Totoro, walked around the house, played with me, ignored me, and tried to sneak past me when he wanted to do something that he knew that I didn't want him to. He's a smart cookie. He went with me on the subway to Andy Beaton's house for a small birthday dinner for Andy, and had a good time exploring Andy and Christine's house. He sang to the Beatles album on the CD player, gobbled grapes, and enjoyed himself. He fell asleep again on the way home, and was very sweet to watch.

2004-10-14 24:20 (John) Kristen thinks that when Jamie says "Dada" and signs a cellphone on his ear, he's refering to me. I think that one of the many meanings that "Dada" has for him ("I'm running", "Dad", "Daniel", "This is exciting") is "Telephone", and that despite the fact that every time Jamie sees me I have a phone on my ear, he is quite capable of distinguishing me from the phone.

Dr. Kennedy says that Jamie does indeed have a mild infection in his navel (keep it dry, apply Polysporin), and he seems to have overdeveloped muscles (not glands, and not bone tissue, possibly from asymmetric nursing) on his left cheek and referred us to the paediatrician who visits her clinic each week. He's almost over his cold, which is nothing to worry about. Jamie now weighs 22 lbs. 2 oz. (to the nearest ounce, it's hard to say exactly because it's Fun to sit on the scale and rock it back and forth) (just barely over 10 kg) and stands 73 cm tall (it's the first time he's been tall and steady enough to be measured that way). We'll celebrate by turning his car seat to face forward. Jamie celebrated by eating an exceptionally large quantity of food, especially the mackerel, soba and blender salad at Tai-Tai's, where he cleaned his plate and dug into both mine and my mom's.

2004-10-15 24:53 (Kristen) Jamie woke up in a sunny mood today, and was like that pretty much all day. I snuck a peek into his mouth tonight, and saw the pearly top of a new tooth: the lower left one, just beside the front left. No wonder he was in a good mood.

He woke up around 9, and had a good breakfast. He crawled around the house a bit, using his strange half-walk, half-crawl, which involves using one leg in a cocked position on the floor to row, and the other with his foot flat on the floor and his bum in the air to push. He did, briefly, crawl by using both knees in a conventional crawl tonight, but only for a few 'steps' before reverting to the tried and true method. Then he had lunch, went for a walk with Ken, and came back for me and went out again.

The mother of our tenant, Momoko, was visiting Toronto and came by for tea. She very kindly brought us Japanese snacks (rice crackers! yay!) and some books and a DVD for Jamie, which was very thoughtful and generous of her. The DVD is of some Japanese children's entertainers singing chidren's songs onstage, which he'll love. The books are a Japanese equivalent of an ABC book with hiragana, and a board book with flaps so that the child can play peekaboo with the characters in the book. Jamie loved that one, and played with it repeatedly. This evening, when we were coming home from an evening out, he had the book in his stroller. I heard him chattering away, then making the 'ba!' sound of 'inai inai ba!' (I'm not here, I'm not here, boo!) and laughing like a maniac. He was obviously reading himself the story, and making the sound he likes. What a smart smart Boo.

(John) I think Jamie asked for a diaper change for the first time today. He took me up the stairs and to the change table, and then laughed delightedly as I changed his diaper, which (believe me) is not his usual reaction. Then we played many rounds of Try To Explain To Jamie Why He Is The Only One Not Allowed To Climb Stairs By Himself.

At 10 kg, Jamie and his car seat can now face forward, as we demonstrated on our way to and from Polyglot Scrabble at the American Translators Association. Happy screaming all the way there and back, as Jamie came up with all sorts of ways to say "Whee!" and "Faster!"

2004-10-16 24:00 (John) We were up pretty late after we came home from the ATA Scrabble Social, and Jamie slept in until almost eleven, bless him. I fed him his second breakfast (lentils and rice), or rather, I gently steered him back onto course whenever he directed his spoon too far from his mouth. Apparently spoon-feeding is for babies.

During our n-times daily playing of the Fisher-Price ABC Song (I've downloaded the file) Jamie said "Mom" when he saw the "M". I think it was partly intentional, and am encouraging him to say it again. He currently insists that we stop at the letters D and J, so that he can grab my finger and make me trace the letters on the screen, while reciting the important words that start with each letter (Daniel, Dad, denki, Jamie).

My mom and I took him to the market, and he's still trying to figure out what the best way to say "Whee!" is in his forward-facing car seat. He likes the view, he likes the overhead light, he likes the fact that we can make faces at each other (I angled the rear-view mirror diagonally so I get a reasonable view of the road behind me at the upper left, and can see Jamie smiling in the lower right), and for some reason he thinks that hand-over-hand steering (and hence parallel parking) is hysterically funny.

We took a snack break to split a bran muffin while listening to a Russian busker play ABBA's Money on his mandolin. I gave Jamie a loonie# and he happily dropped it into the mandolin case, just like the other kids ahead of him had been doing.

He fell asleep on the way home from the market around three, and Kristen got him transferred into his own bed, where he spent the rest of the afternoon asleep. He's been sleeping better since his seventh tooth cut, but he's got a couple of weeks to catch up on.

(Kristen) Jamie has a new game that he loves: I flop across the bed, and he runs from one side to the other around the foot of the bed, laughing hysterically. Maybe it's the combination of being able to move himself around the bed and 'sneaking up' on me, but he loved it. He laughs like that when I grab him and kiss him under the chin repeatedly. He will also come to me if I tell him that I am going to give him a hug and kiss, which he clearly understands. He is very open and affectionate.

He liked watching the Japanese DVD that Momoko's mom brought for him, which is a stage-play/sing-along with a live audience full of children. He enjoys the singing. I think that we're going to have to enroll him in the Royal conservatory children's music appreciation classes if they're not too expensive.

2004-10-17 23:15 (John) Jamie's definitely learned that if he needs a change, he should take us to the change table. What a clever boy, and what a useful thing for him to learn! He also sings the first four letters of the ABC song if he wants me to play the Fisher-Price ABC file (admittedly, he calls them all A, but he gets the notes right).

He continues to be interested in picking up things and putting them into other things, so I imagine that soon he will discover the joys of putting things on top of other things. In the bath, he is exhibiting a slight preference for bath books with an actual narrative thread, rather than collections of interesting images. His favorite is definitely the Wheels On The Bus with its little electronic rendition of that unforgettable tune. I have to sing a slightly modified version of the song for Jamie, in which the baby on the bus does not go "wah, wah" interminably (which he finds upsetting), but only does so plaintively twice before the mother intercedes not to say "hush!" (which he finds a bit threatening) but to sing the mockingbird lullaby and then the baby sighs contentedly "aah" before the wheels on the bus continue their going round and round.

I think he likes the basic drama. He certainly has a fine sense of melodrama, especially as it applies to the tragedies that beset him every day. He also knows that the difference between comedy and tragedy is just one of point of view, which can be useful at times. It started weeks ago when I realized that if I made a big fuss about wiping my own face after a meal, he would find it funny and then not make a fuss himself because he wouldn't want me to laugh at him (not that I would). Now of course he starts mocking me before I even start wiping my face, smiling, rocking his head from side to side and making ironic moaning noises. This week, we started doing the same thing with brushing teeth, and he's already at the point where he makes fun of my resistance to the toothbrush and then happily lets Kristen guide his hand to brush his teeth.

2004-10-18 24:38 (Kristen) Jamie had quite a rough night last night, and so did we all by extension. He is chewing hard on things, and we think that he's working on yet another tooth, and allowing no metaphorical moss to grow beneath him. We trekked off en famille to the 9:30 appointment that we had with the pediatrician about Jamie's cheek. She said that his puffier left cheek appeared to be due to a larger amount of baby fat on that side (not muscle, bone or glandular tissue), and after palpating thoroughly inside and out said that it was unlikely to be the result of paniculitis* (which would have presented additional symptoms, and left something harder that she would have felt) or a disorder of his parotid gland. She agreed that the asymmetry was noticeable, but said that she had seen far worse, and can't think of any reason for us to worry or subject Jamie to further testing (e.g., ultrasound) for the time being. We'll see her again in January to confirm, and he was pronounced otherwise healthy and in good shape.

Jamie had a good walk with Ken, and played with me for about half an hour before going out with John to find Daniel. I rested until they came back, and we headed to John's parents' place for dinner. John and Jamie spent some quality time together this evening as I went out to play Trivia. They looked at fountains at the Eaton Centre, rode up and down the glass elevators, and Jamie went down an escalator outside of a stroller for the first time. It took him a long time to fall asleep tonight, possibly because he fell asleep at 7:30 again, and partly because of his teeth. I hope that he has a chance to sleep in tomorrow.

(John) As usual, on our way to picking up Daniel, all Jamie could say was "Da! Da!" He shared my carrot cake with me while I got Daniel to do his homework by threatening to tell him about my periodontal surgery if he missed one of ten writing checkpoints I established. When the carrot cake crumbs were evenly distributed across Jamie's face, hands, stomach and environs, we headed home. All the way, he went "Mum! Mum!", the first time he'd managed to sustain that syllable, which I had previously heard once or twice in response to the letter M in the Fisher-Price file. Kristen was delighted to hear this; I felt slightly threatened.

In addition to the listed activities this evening, we also went to HMV, where Jamie exhibited too much appreciation for obscene rap music (the staff were amused), and to Indigo's Biggest Bookstore, where I bought him Caillou's bedtime book (in preparation for night weaning).

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

Back to Vol. 0 No. 48, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 0 No. 50.