Back to Vol. 0 No. 55, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 0 No. 57.

Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 55

2004-11-30 20:56 (John) Jamie apparently slept enough yesterday for two days. He woke up an hour early this morning, ran around with Mom until he ran out of steam around eleven, and took an hour's nap. That was it for sleep until bedtime.

I picked up Jamie outside Michelle's after lunch, and walked with him around the neighbourhood as I did my month-end errands. He was happy as long as I kept singing. I must expand my repertoire.

I took him on our monthly visit to the Bank of Montreal to inspect their magnificent collection of ceiling fans (point, rotate finger, make nasalized dorsovelar* fricative), to Sun Valley to admire their vast array of edibles, to Withrow Park to play in the strangely deserted playground (it was 5°C and windy), to the Big Carrot to admire both their edibles and their ceiling fan, and back home again. Jamie looked increasingly tired, but did not nap, not even when we got home and Kristen nursed him.

Tuesday dinner as usual at Michelle's, and when my Mom came over to drop off a light meal for me (I'm still having to watch what and when I eat quite carefully; in exchange for the light meal my Dad later came over to pick up two salmon dinners to go), Jamie started chanting "Umma! Umma!" and wouldn't stop until I put him in his highchair#, where he proceeded to eat my dinner (pickerel and soba).

He still had plenty of room for second dinner with everyone else, but does seem to be trying to stretch his stomach these days, eating more at one sitting, but less often. At any rate, we didn't have any trouble getting him to bed tonight, and I'm curious how things will go tomorrow.

2004-12-01 23:44 (Kristen) Jamie was up, smiling, around 9:00 this morning after sleeping relatively well all night. He was utterly uninterested in breakfast for the third (fourth?) day in a row, which was a bit of a drag, but I managed to get him interested in an English muffin with a very little cherry jam and some yoghurt. He also enjoyed some salmon and some salmon roe (ikura*) with that. I think that it's time to have him eat other things than cereal for breakfast. He also will, I have discovered, go more easily into the highchair# if he has some food in his hand first.

Then it was a visit with Elmo and the Teletubbies, with some other play mixed in. We lasted until 12:00, when he very insistently demanded "umma." He had some chicken curry and avocado, and then went out for a walk with his dad.

(John) Jamie fell asleep on the way to the sidewalk, as he often does, but woke up with a start when someone slammed the computer room door an hour into his nap. He was tired and clingy for quite a while, and I had to carry him and push the stroller for much of the trip home. We stopped in at Pearls, where I helped my mom with some work in exchange for her feeding Jamie, which improved his mood substantially. I think Jamie is discovering (as I did at a similar age) that out-stubborning hunger is a bad idea, and that he really ought to eat food when it's offered, even if it doesn't fit in with his immediate Plan.

(Kristen) They didn't come back from the university until quite late in the afternoon, and visited John's mom on the way back. Daniel was over after school, and he and Jamie had a very good time playing together with blocks and the fire engine that Jamie got for his birthday. Jamie is actually afraid of the engine, which has a loud siren and will go by itself for a short distance when you bump the driver, and will sit in my lap (or Daniel's) while the engine races about. However, he is also fascinated with it, and protested vociferously when I took it away. The day concluded with dinner at John's parents' house (with multiple cries of 'banzai!" and arms thrown up in the air), and a trip to the Scrabble club.

Jamie was born on the same day as my grandfather's older sister, my Great Aunt Edith. She died on the 29th of November this year, aged 87. It was very special to me that they shared a birthday, and while she lived on the other side of the country, and I only knew her a little, I will miss her a lot. I will tell Jamie about the woman he shares a birthday with still, and he will remember her too.

2004-12-02 23:30 (John) I had to take the day off to catch up with my sleep today, so it's up to Kristen to tell most of the story. I can say that Jamie and I shared our dinner more closely than we usually do, as he decided yet again to try some of the salad I was enjoying. Given that he doesn't quite yet have molars, the lettuce proved to be beyond him, but he quite enjoyed my mom's salad dressing. So he proceeded to suck all the dressing off each leaf and then stuff the soggy remains of the leaf in my mouth.

Then in the bath he decided to see exactly how gullible I was. He has an ongoing interest in portions of my anatomy that are usually only accessible during the bath, but knows that they're ticklish and off limits. This doesn't keep him from coming up with increasingly sophisticated attempts to reach them. Tonight, he pointed out the fact that I'd dripped a bit of caulking into the tub the last time I re-caulked the tub, and as I leaned over to see if I could remove the caulking, he reached back without turning his head and grabbed.

When we'd gotten all the water back into the tub, he of course tried again and again, until I finally suggested that he might want to call for Mom, which he did quite clearly for the first time: "Mom!" (instead of the usual "Da!").

2004-12-02 23:07 (Kristen) Jamie and I woke up before John this morning, and headed down for breakfast. He continued his dislike of breakfast, despite my attempt to vary his diet somewhat, and instead wanted to spend time with Tinky Winky, Dipsy, La-La, and Po. I did get some food into him, but he was a little cranky by the time we went to Browning for lunch. We got some chicken rice into him, and he also insisted on eating some of my kamut toast with hummus and cucumber. He was feeling more pleased with the world by the time we set out on our afternoon walk, and he stayed asleep for an hour and a half while I did some shopping and went to the library. I picked up four videos for him, including three Teletubby tapes and (dare I write this) Elmopalooza! The Teletubby tapes are a hit, but I think that he's still a little young for the Elmo tapes.

We also read a number of books, including Where's the Bone, which is a favourite of his right now. He loves his bath books and his soft cloth books; he isn't as familiar with his board books, although we're working on it. The book has a dog on the front with long floppy years, and sometimes we play peek-a-boo with the dog using its ears. He initiated the peek-a-boo this time, which surprised me, and he is often quite insistent on reading it together.

I was a little tired after the day, and Tom kindly played with Jamie for a bit, but he was quite Mummy-centred tonight. He was drooling a lot, and so I think that his teeth were bothering him. He also ate a great deal for dinner, but kept asking for "umma." I wonder if he likes having something hard to chew on, as it helps his mouth. He really enjoyed the cold chew toy that I gave to him earlier today. I made some congee with chicken broth today and froze it in ice cube trays, like Tami does, and I'll hope that he'll enjoy chicken rice at home. I also cooked a little pasta, and will try giving him that for lunch tomorrow, along with a little red sauce and mixed veggies. I'll try a bagel and fruit tomorrow for breakfast, with a little yoghurt, and see if that interests him.

2004-12-03 24:18 (Kristen) Jamie was up at 9:00, which has been the norm lately. He stirs around 8:00, and I keep him in bed with liquid bribe until around 9:00. Today's breakfast was more successful than the previous few days, since I was smart enough to put a corn cob in his hands before I put him in his highchair#. A bit of yoghurt, a little cereal (with grapes in it) and some grapes went down fairly easily. Then it was lots of Teletubbies before going over to Tom and Michelle's around 12:30. He was very tired at that point, and fell asleep in the stroller on the way over. I had to pick him up and carry him there to keep him awake. He ate some of my kamut bread with hoummos# and veggies again, and demanded that he have it from the big piece, not the little piece. Sigh.

We went for a walk, and he fell asleep almost instantly. We went to the Second Cup for the first time in a while so that I could work and John could get some work done too, and he slept for about an hour and a half before waking up. We went back home, and Ayami played with Jamie for a bit while John and I got some work done. We three went to Geoff Gibson's for a potluck tonight, and I made guacamole while John made a double batch of his latkes. Good thing, too: they were all gone at the end of the dinner! Jamie enjoyed eating and exploring, and watching people play pinball on Geoff's Monopoly pinball machine. He had slept for a bit (I had a headache earlier and was glad to convince Jamie to sleep too) between 6:30 and 7:30, so he was full of energy to run around and around Geoff's large apartment. He was eating a pear at one point, and John and I had a bad moment when we realized that we didn't know exactly where it was. Fortunately it was on Jamie's plate and not on one of Geoff's lovely white pieces of furniture, or somewhere else equally dreadful. Sigh.

Gary has been sick for the last few days, and hasn't been able to see or play with Jamie for that time. He really missed Jamie, and Jamie missed him too. He came upstairs to see Jamie when we got home, and Jamie clung to him like a limpet, refusing point blank to be parted from Gary before receiving a tour of the basement with him. He had a good bath afterwards, and to my surprise, was asleep by 11:30, despite the late hour of his nap.

2004-12-04 21:00 (John) Jamie slept in until the civilised hour of 10:30 this morning, ate natto* and we managed to get in the car to go to the St. Lawrence Market just after noon. He fell asleep as we were arriving, and stayed sound asleep in his snowsuit the entire time, thanks to several brisk walks in the cold.

He woke up ninety minutes later as I put him back in the car to go to Loblaws, but was in an excellent mood. He worked at spreading the contents of a spinach cheese croissant over himself and the inside of the car until the classical FM station I was listening to started playing Dvořák's New World Symphony, which entranced him and soon had him swaying his head side to side with the music.

(You know that you've been living with an editor for too long when you dither for five minutes over the correct style for "New World Symphony". Should it be "'New World' Symphony"? "Symphony no. 9 in E Minor (New World Symphony)"? "Symphony no. 9 in E Minor (the New World Symphony)"? "Symphony no. 9 in E Minor ('New World' Symphony)"? "Symphony no. 9 in E Minor (the 'New World' Symphony)"? "New World Symphony (no. 9 in E Minor)"? Do I capitalise "No."? Do I dare disturb Kristen's Pile of Stuff to get at the old copy of Chicago, or run downstairs and get the current Chicago?)

(John) I discovered in the Loblaws parking lot that Jamie is now strong enough to pull the top off a bottle of Yop. Fortunately, I caught him doing so before he was able to do what he seems to most like doing with Yop bottles, namely seeing what effect gravity has on drinking yoghurt in an inverted bottle.

In the latter part of the afternoon, I took a nap, then Jamie took a nap, and we both woke up hungry. I visited my mom, and she sent me home with the rest of the tsukudani* (I can't believe that's not in the dictionary) that Takako had brought from her Japan. Jamie's eagle eye spotted the package in my hand and he was grabbing it chanting "Umma! Umma!" before I could even take my shoes off.

As I write this, it sounds like he's happily chasing Ayami around downstairs, and I'd better go tell him it's bath time soon.

2004-12-05 19:40 (Kristen) We had a restless night last night, and so we woke up around 10 again. Ugh. I took Jamie downstairs for breakfast after we played for a bit upstairs, and he made a beeline for the TV. Aargh. I did manage to get a bit of food into him, but the sanctity of "you eat only in the highchair#" is getting tarnished. John gave Jamie a cucumber to eat, and there is cucumber juice on the floor in front of the couch. I am so glad that we don't have carpets. He was into everything today, and there were CDs, books, and videos all over the place. He likes to take books off the paperback shelf and hand them to me, one by one. It's sweet, and I'm glad that he likes to share, but... nothing in his reach is in alphabetical order anymore. But he doesn't care, because he doesn't read yet.

We went out to IKEA this afternoon, and Jamie seemed to have a good time running through the aisles and investigating this and that. We think that we may have decided on a toy box for him, but are still thinking about it. He definitely needs one, as his toys are all over the dining room. He had a blast eating the apple cake that we bought him at the IKEA restaurant, but was unsure of the ball pit for the three and under set. He seems to have been well stimulated by the whole experience. The only downer was when I lifted Jamie into the air and he flung his head back, breaking my glasses. Good thing that I have a backup pair.

(John) Jamie seemed to be in a mentally receptive mood today. He was looking for new things to do and say, and at the end of the day he managed to pronounce quite clearly the Japanese word for 'screw' (neji), pointing at the screws holding the wall plate for the shower control.

2004-12-06 23:54 (Kristen) Jamie woke up at 9:00 this morning, and zipped straight downstairs for his Teletubbie fix. He consented to have a little food put into him, and then was taken out into the world to see his first snowfall in more than half his life. He didn't like his new boots much, and he wasn't too sure about all this cold white stuff. John says that Jamie asked him if it was food, to which John picked up some snow from the ground and handed it to him. John reports that Jamie looked at him like he was stupid. He knows that stuff on the ground like that isn't food. I found John and Jamie talking with Sam and Ben's dad, Paul, and we had some explaining to do to convince Jamie that we weren't hiding Sam and Bed under a rock with malice aforethought.

I then took Jamie on a morning walk to get my glasses fixed, and he fell asleep for two hours. I got my errands done in the cold and wind and snow (yay, stroller!), and had some time at the Second Cup to myself. I then took Jamie back home, where I played with him for a bit until lunch, and then handed him over to his dad so that I could get some work done.

(John) We played with toys, ran amuck about the house, and had a grand time. I set up blocks for the battery-powered fire engine to knock down. Jamie asked me my thoughts about Teletubbies and a selection of books in his library. He surprised me at one point by pulling one of my tournament gear boxes out from underneath the sofa, pushing it over to the television and then climbing on top of it to see what was on top of the television. He really hadn't seemed all that interested in the bathroom step last night, but had apparently grasped and generalized the idea right away.

(Kristen) I met up with them again at Browning, where Tom had generously offered to make chicken katsu for us (and his family too, of course). Jamie was having a good time being fed, and is getting better at using the palms together sign for 'I'm done,' instead of the 'drop food off the edge and smear it all over the highchair# tray' sign, which I think is good. Gary came over as well, and Jamie was delighted to play with him. There was apple crisp for dessert, which Jamie loves, and he insisted on feeding Gary the apples himself. This was very very funny. (John: Gary being what one might politely call fastidious, except that I've never heard anyone refer to Gary politely.) Jamie also enjoyed running full tilt into Daniel and knocking him over, which is a game the two of them invented.

(John) I picked up a new toothbrush for Jamie today. It's an Oral-B model that has much, much softer bristles than the GUM toothbrush that I got for him for free at my dentist, that he has really grown to loathe over the last few weeks. He was quite happy with the new toothbrush, and did a passable job of brushing his own teeth!

(Kristen) Then it was home again, and into the bath. Jamie calls to me from the bath when he is with John. Just to make sure that I haven't fled to Tahiti without him, I have to call back from wherever I am on the second floor. As separation anxiety manifestations go, this could be worse.

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

Back to Vol. 0 No. 55, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 0 No. 57.