Back to Vol. 0 No. 49, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 0 No. 51.

Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 50

2004-10-19 23:46 (Kristen) Jamie was in a particularly sunny mood, despite his omnipresent teething problems. We did some errands in the morning, and he fell asleep around 12:10, much to my horror: this is much too early to fall asleep as he might wake up before his walk with Ken and my carefully-planned day would fall apart. However, he stayed asleep, and went for his walk. Ken says that he woke up around 2:15, but was happy to just see the sights until Ken brought him home around 3:00.

John went for his haircut, and Jamie and I took the subway soon afterwards to meet him. We dropped by John's aunt Nobuko's atelier to show her Jamie's new shoes, which she had paid for as Jamie's birthday present. He had a good time basking in the attention of Nobuko's sewing students. He is shy about walking around people that he doesn't know, and spent time hiding behind my legs and laughing. He is a delighted sort of shy, not a sullen shy.

He was very tired by the time we went to Michelle and Tom's for dinner (as were John and I), but it was the 'witching hour' and he was not allowed to fall asleep. We all spent time keeping Jamie both entertained and awake (not easy: he can be quite single-minded at times) until we were able to go home, pop him into the bath, and let him sleep the sleep of the innocent, sweet baby that he is.

(John) Daniel was delighted to observe that Jamie had for the first time figured out how to make one of Ross' Brio trains move, pushing it forward and backward.

2004-10-20 24:40 (John) Today was the Day of Three Naps. Jamie woke up early in the morning, then fell asleep on a rainy stroll out for groceries with Kristen at 10:00. Came home, had natto* with me, got packed up to go to the university (and say hi to Ida, Emile and Steve), for once managed to stay awake on the way down, but fell asleep on the rainy stroll back up to Bloor Street and the subway. He was starting to stir by the time I got him home, so Kristen took him out for a walk (did I mention it was raining?) just so he wouldn't fall asleep in the early evening. Dinner at my parents', then the drive up to the club where (of course) he fell asleep and stayed asleep so long that Kristen had to wake him up before her opponent Idelle started her clock.

He was quiet happy between naps, and eager to explore the community centre where we play Scrabble. While Kristen played Idelle, Jamie sat in my arm while I played foosball* with a child. Jamie got so excited (he thinks the little men are hysterical) that he cracked me good on the bad side of my jaw, drawing a bit of blood from my surgical wound. After Kristen finished her game, we kept Jamie busy with a couple of billiard balls and a rack, underneath the ping-pong table while we played over his head. He can still comfortably walk under the ping-pong table, which is a good sign of how early he's walking.

On the way to the club and back, we sang the Wheels On The Bus verse about the wipers going swish, swish, swish, because of course it was raining and we had our wipers going. So of course at bathtime, the only bath book page that interested him was that page in that book.

2004-10-21 24:30 (Kristen) Jamie had a relatively good night last night, and we managed to stay slug-a-bed until almost 10:30. Today was the day that mom napped, since I was a very sleepy mommy all day. Jamie didn't mind, and ran about the house exploring, and seeing if I really meant it when I said that he wasn't allowed to go up the stairs without an adult.

He is pretty good at going up stairs, although he still makes mistakes that make me nervous, and is getting the hang of going downstairs on his bum. He is getting very good at telling us what he wants, as he dragged John to the diaper bag at his Tai Tai's (due to the absence of a change table), and was so pleased that he lay down by himself for the change, giggling. You must understand that this is not his usual reaction to a diaper change. He and Tom played "give me the ball" for a while, with Tom asking for the ball and Jamie happily handing it over to start the game again.

As if to make up for sleeping in, he only had one short nap today. He was tired tonight, and fell asleep by 10:00, which is an hour and a half earlier than the last three nights. No wonder I felt tired!

(John) At Tai-Tai's, Jamie observed me carrying the dinner dishes to the table, and oohed insistently at the soba, which he likes enough to eat plain. The mackerel he oohed at after he'd had a few bites, but I think he'd have been happy with soba, soba and more soba. Later at Browning, Tom was surprised when he tried to tell Jamie that the furnace room was off limits because "it was too dark" and Jamie pointed out the light switch.

2004-10-22 24:50 (Kristen) He was wide awake and chirpy at 9:15 this morning, and there was nothing to be done but feed him breakfast. He's more a creature of habit than I suspected: he likes his mixed grain cereal, and doesn't like substitutes, like an egg yolk and toast. He'll accept fruit, and maybe some yoghurt, because that's still new, but the cereal had better be there. Sigh. [John: natto* is still on the acceptable list, especially for second breakfast.]

He had fun playing over at Tom and Michelle's, and then fell asleep for a two and a half hour nap. He woke up smiling and cheerful, and we went with Daniel to play at his house after school. Ross was very interested in Jamie today, and when asked what he wanted to do, he replied that he just wanted to make Jamie happy. Ross has more sibling issues with Jamie than Daniel does ("Make sure that Jamie doesn't mess up my trains," for example), so I was really happy to see the two of them having fun together in the basement. Ross wasn't even interested in playing with Daniel, much to Daniel's chagrin as he tried to recruit Ross for a three-person game of Lost Worlds with John.

We went over to play Scrabble at a new Club 3 member's home, and Jamie had a great time. Their condo is (no kidding) much bigger than our house, and roomy enough that Jamie could run around, sit on the window seat and watch the nighttime traffic and traffic lights from nine stories up, and play with the cat without running into any of the many people over for a nice social night of board gaming. They also have a Monopoly-themed full-size pinball machine, which had as many sounds, lights, and attractions as a small boy could want. Geoff, our host, was very kind and genuinely thoughtful with Jamie, and the truest way to a mother's heart is to be kind to her child. It was a great night out for the three of us.

2004-10-23 24:28 (Kristen) Jamie and I woke up at the thunderingly late hour of 11:15, which amazes me still. We got up, had breakfast, and all headed out: John and Jamie to the St. Lawrence Market, and me to do errands. [John: Jamie obligingly fell asleep on the way to the market, and stayed asleep through the north building, waking up in time to say hi to Wei at the grocer and Merly at the fish market. I exercised him a bit before getting back into the car - he enjoyed walking back and forth along the grates on the pavement south of Market Square.]] We didn't meet up again until 4:30 or so, but I did receive one phone call from John when he was at the Loblaws, with a yelling Jamie in the background. Apparently they had passed by the raspberry display, and Jamie pointed out quite vociferously to his father that he was raspberry-less, and that this was not acceptable. The yelling that I heard was John feeding Jamie from the raspberry box, and taking too long to pop the next one into his mouth. Jamie is serious about his raspberries. [John: They were Driscoll raspberries. We had a deal. He screams, I give him a raspberry.]

He was quite tired when we reached home, as he had only napped for about half an hour in an exciting afternoon. I finally stuffed him into the stroller, despite the fact that it was after 5:30 and he would go to sleep late if he fell asleep (as he was most certainly guaranteed to do) and went walking on errands. He did indeed fall asleep, which was better than Hysterical Tired Boy by a good long way. He slept for an hour and a half, which had me worried a little. We stuffed him full of dinner, and I took him for a walk to go back and forth across the crosswalk at Browning and Broadview. He is fascinated with the street lights, and has a ritual for crossing the street: we press the button to make the light change, discuss that a red hand means don't cross, a walking man means cross, and a flashing hand means go fast. Then the walking man appears and I carry him across the street to repeat on the other side. John is responsible for this. We stayed out until I got cold, and we put him into the bath. [John: Getting ready for the bath, he managed to make a tower out of three stacked stacking cups for the first time. He now also willingly puts his head in the water for me to wash his hair, without a word of complaint, I think because he finally trusts me not to splash water in his face. He's getting to the point where he'll go along with brushing teeth too, though half the time I'm still having to make a big fuss pretending to hate brushing my teeth, which (1) makes him smile, exposing his teth, and (2) makes him feel foolish about acting like Dad.] I had no hopes for him going to sleep, but bless him, he did. You can colour me amazed.

Despite his overtired spell this afternoon, he was a great deal of fun to be with. He has a huge capacity for fun and affection. He spent time waiting to get into the bath tonight hiding behind me, and me saying "Where's Jamie?" He kept standing where he thought I couldn't see him as I looked around, and peeked around my shoulder. Eventually, he couldn't stop laughing and gave himself away every time (although his hands on my back were a tip off too).

2004-10-24 22:40 (John) We found something that Jamie likes more than raspberries today, ikura* (salmon roe, from the Russian икра). I picked some up for him at the St. Lawrence Market this week, and he made it clear at dinner time that he wanted it to be a regular part of his diet. Kristen was making little ikura-maki (ikura*, rice and a little shread of nori) as fast as he could and it wasn't fast enough to keep him from complaining.

I gave Jamie a bath tonight so that I could wash his hair, and John gave me a long list of instructions on recent changes to bathtub rituals. It all went out the window, however, as Jamie decided that the only bathtub ritual that he was really interested in was getting a free nurse. He had a difficult time falling asleep tonight, and I gave him some Tempra to help: his bottom right tooth is just about through, and he has been so good about it.

2004-10-25 23:45 (John) Aargh. Jamie started sniffling last night and woke up with a full-blown cold, just after he finished the last one. I can't imagine where he got it, except possibly from any of the zillions of things he touches everyday that he knows are 汚い (which he pronounced as a rough, low "aaah", same as 危ない): the toilet, the nostrils of anyone he finds amusing, things on the ground that catch his eye, etc. Oh well, at least he's in a good mood, despite the teething, the cold and the ensuing lack of sleep.

He spent much of today out on walks. In the morning to the library with Mom, in the afternoon along the Danforth with Ken, in the late afternoon back to the Danforth with Daniel and me. On the last walk, after stopping in at Schilling's so that Jamie could eat an apple strudel (we shared it: he ate the filling and I ate the crust, and we were flexible about who had fork control), we discovered that running into someone's ankle with the quick-release lever on the stroller's front wheel will cause enough damage to make walking challenging. (I'm off to Dr. Ling's tomorrow to have him inspect the damage, and may have to ease off on the walking a bit.)

Right now he's sleeping propped up in the U-shaped pillow so that he can breathe better - the decongestant doesn't seem to be working as well tonight, so it may be a long night.

I've decided to start writing a little in Japanese each day too. 今日から少しずつ日本語でも書くことにした。 When Jamie eventually takes over writing this, I don't want him to think it should all be in one language. いずれジェイミがこの日記を自分で書くようになったら、勿論英語と日本語で書いてもらいたいなあ。

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

Back to Vol. 0 No. 49, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 0 No. 51.