Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 58

2004-12-14 22:56 (Kristen) Jamie slept the sleep of the exhausted last night, and woke up in a lovely, happy mood. He wasn't in a hungry mood, however, and grazed more than actually dined for most of today. I think that he stuffed himself silly yesterday, and needed time for the food to settle.

Rebecca and Jamie played together this morning, in between episodes of Fruits Basket, an anime that I introduced her to. He even kissed her, which was a surprising and great sign of favour. When she was watching TV, Jamie was content to drag me about while waiting for his turn on the TV. He is much more assertive about what he wants; I think that he is experimenting with volume as a way to make things happen. If he yells loudly enough, then the object works because a deafened adult will fix the problem. It seemed to work when he was trying to make a train go thorugh a tunnel sideways.

We went out in the afternoon to take Rebecca to the bus station, and see her back to Ottawa. Jamie fell asleep on the way down to the station, and slept through the rest of our afternoon errands. Then he played with Ayami, ate a little chicken, and went over to Browning with me for dinner, meeting John there. We had our usual Tuesday dinner, and came home for bed. We were trying to go to bed earlier tonight, but managed to come home when we would have normally. We're only one hour behind our goal: practice makes perfect!

(John) Jamie's pronunciation of "buubuu" (car) is improving: it's no longer "bahboo" but more "bubuu". He's also making a clear distinction among the words that a few words of his own invention: "da" is "Mom/Dad, I can't see you, come here!", "dada" is "Hello, familiar person that I can see. Come closer!", and "daddy" is "Hey, grownup, make yourself useful and do my bidding!".

2004-12-15 17:20 (Kristen) Jamie slept well last night again, and woke up happy around 9:00. We lazed in bed as a family until the phone started ringing, and started about our days. Jamie ate breakfast in his highchair# for the first time in weeks, and ate some more in front of the TV. His appetite has returned, and he has cheerfully eaten a great deal more today than yesterday.

He spoke on the phone with John's mom, as he looked at photos of her in Mexico on the computer. John hopes that this way, he will understand that she is away, but that he will see her again. Then he and John went Christmas shopping for a couple of hours, while I tried to get some work done. He seemed to enjoy that, and visited Gary at Book City as well. He apparently made Gary carry him around the store, and show him things. We're getting ready to go to the Scrabble club, and I have to go help get things prepared.

2004-12-15 23:40 (John) Jamie woke up ninety minutes into the Christmas shopping expedition, which was fine with me, as I wasn't looking forward to much more shopping myself. We were at a Radio Shack, and a passerby was picking out tunes on a keyboard. I didn't realize Jamie was awake until I heard him trying to sing along.

As usual, Christmas brings out the best and worst in people. During that ninety minutes, I had two people offer to let me in ahead of them in line at the cash register, one mob-ette of teenagers who felt the need to stand around the stroller on the subway and laugh and shout (I moved to the other end of the car, they didn't follow) and one man who almost jolted Jamie awake by slamming a mall door on the side of the stroller.

Jamie's attitudes toward cars have changed quite a bit in the last month. He looks forward to riding in the "baboo", and asks each time we get ready to leave the house if the baboo might be involved. I don't see why he shouldn't like it, after all, we go places that he finds interesting, feed him all the way, and if it's dark he gets to see everyone's Christmas decorations. I have fond memories of riding in the back of my dad's VW at Christmas time when I was little.

At the club, Mark Hamilton brought nut-free chocolate fruitcake (Scrabble players may wish to pause to consider the nineteen-letter biochemical anagram of the phrase POSH SHOP: NO FRUITCAKE) which Jamie happily devoured with his dinner (delayed tonight because our meal schedule has shifted with my parents' southward migration). This led to a holiday injury though, and poor Mark turned ashen when I brought a red-forehead-ed Jamie to accuse him of preparing unsafe yuletide cuisine. "I'm sure there were no nuts, but I forgot to mention I added a tiny bit of rum...!" What actually happened was that Jamie fell flat on his face while running (which he still does if he runs too fast), and although this usually leads to no serious injuries as he is quite expert with his break-falls, in this case he had two fists full of fruitcake that he was quite unwilling to release, so he had to break his fall with his forehead. After I cleaned and disinfected the mild case of road rash, he stopped bawling, gleefully unclenched his fists and kept the fruitcake. Mark has been cautioned about bring food that Jamie likes to the club in future.

Lastly, Jamie has also been increasingly interested in moving under, around and through things. For a while now, if you sit down on the floor, Jamie has found it irresistibly tempting to start orbiting you closely. Now though, if your knees are up, he has to crawl underneath them, and then over your lap, and walk behind you and lean on your back, and generally behave like a puppy or, well, a small child.

2004-12-16 22:59 (Kristen) Jamie woke up in a cheerful mood around 10:00, and blazed a path down the stairs to his beloved Teletubbies. He ate a good breakfast, read books with me, played with his pop-up friends, and cheerfully went about his business. He ate a second breakfast with his dad, and went out for his walkwhile I worked.

Usually, Jamie falls asleep quite quickly on his walks, but today he decided that he would stay awake. John came home an hour later, and called me beforehand to say that Jamie was not asleep. I shrugged on my coat, as John needed to go out, and got my things together to continue Jamie's walk. Of course, Jamie was asleep when he and John came to the door, but as I was going to walk with Betsy, our neighbour, I went out anyway. I came home an hour later, with a still-sleeping Jamie, and he kept sleeping until after 5:00, letting me get the work done that I thought that I wouldn't be able to do. He's a good boy.

(John) Jamie often does this - he forces himself to stay awake, in this case despite the administration of heroic quantities of apple strudel filling, as long as he thinks I'm going somewhere interesting, then falls asleep on the home stretch.

(Kristen) John made dinner, and for some reason, we sat on the floor of the kitchen to eat. Jamie enjoyed walking in circles around me, and picking the good bits out of my bowl as he completed each orbit. I felt quite Aristotelian, as I sat, earth mother-ish, being orbited by the son. Jamie also enjoyed going out to the corner store with John for ice cream. John says that he "ooh"-ed and bobbed the whole way. The ice cream also met with Jamie's approval. He started showing signs of fatigue again at a little before 9, and we carted him up for a bath. He was asleep by 9:30 for the first time in I don't know when, giving me time to write this at a decent hour and get some other work done. I think that we will be trying this early bedtime thing out a little more often.

2004-12-17 19:30 (John) Kristen will fill in on the first part of Jamie's day, which I spent as follows: three hours in the dentist's chair (crown preparation on the horrible molar, crown preparation on the implant, minor filling restoration), two hours of Christmas shopping and a half hour relaxing over lunch at Salad King. I hadn't been to Salad King since their big renovation, and their student-targeted Thai menu is still as good as ever. My spicy food tolerance seems a bit off though: I ordered the green chicken curry at two chilis, and my mouth burned the way it used to at three.

I'm digressing wildly from the subject of Jamie, but as I was finishing my meal a scruffy-looking man sat down at the stool beside me, and I thought "too well-dressed to be homeless, maybe a biologist wandered over from Ryerson?". Joe Seara introduced himself as a geophysics grad teaching computers and physics at a private school called Rosseau Lake College. Knowing that there are only so many geophysicists in Ontario, I checked and of course he knew or knew of Daniel's grandfather Gordon West ("Is he still around? He's the nicest physicist I've ever met") and Ted's boss Yves Lamontagne ("Where did he go when he left Toronto?"). Anyhow.

Jamie and I took Daniel out for his traditional end-of-term dinner at the Coffee Mill (see blog* entries for 2003-12-19 or 2004-06-23), and Jamie (in between two diaper changes) enjoyed their cuisine for the first time. He had a large amount of debreceni* sausage, a few slices of their excellent rye bread, some potato salad, and half a glass of a ginger ale float (his definite "ummamma" favourite#).

On the way home, Daniel and I were discussing why the Emperor might draw his light saber in a Star Wars video game, instead of just using his force powers to go "Zzzst! Zzzst! You're dead!" and Jamie did an excellent (if perhaps unnecessarily gleeful) impression of just that: "Zzzst! Zzzst! Y'a deh!"

2004-12-18 23:00 (John) Jamie was up rather late last night, slept in, and as a result we didn't leave for the St. Lawrence Market until almost 1:00 P.M. This had the single benefit that we saved a lot of money on groceries that were priced so that the farmers could go home early. However, since Jamie felt like neither sleeping through the shopping nor staying in his stroller, and since the Market's "valet shopping" parcel drop-off has relocated due to construction to a position inaccessible by car, shopping was much more challenging than usual.

I must have been looking ~~psychotic~~ harried, as people everywhere were awfully nice to me. Shopkeepers running around finding things for me in stores, then ringing them up ahead of everyone else in line, offering Jamie whatever food caught his eye (it all did), etc.

On the bright side, we survived the process without additional injury (I'm still limping from mildly dislocating my good (well, less bad) knee yesterday, am otherwise a bundle of aches and pains, and just lost a dental crown; Jamie has got a few noticeable bruises from falls the last few days), and as I write this Jamie is quietly sawing twigs in bed.

(Kristen) A little late last night? My beloved son fell asleep at 1:15 AM, after I finally (in desperation) put him into the stroller and went for a walk. I was a little ~~psychotic~~ stressed myself as I watched all my work time evaporate, but felt better after I gave up hope. I sent Jamie and John off shopping while I did some Christmas shopping myself, and met up with them around 4:30. We headed home, and John notified me that Jamie had only slept for about 20 minutes all day. Uh oh. I took him upstairs when we got home, and spent about half an hour nursing him, and convincing him that he really wanted to go to sleep. He enjoyed the time together, and the crash, when it came, was abrupt. He slept for about an hour and a half (I slept for about 45 minutes), which gave John and me the chance to completely clean out the fridge, take out the compost, and put away all the new groceries. John made dinner, and Jamie ate fully of pasta, chicken, corn, cherry tomatoes, rice, and ikura* (fish roe). Jamie watched Teletubbies while I cleaned up the kitchen and did other housework, and while John worked on his laptop in the living room. Jamie did take time out to devour a good part of an apple strudel, however.

We put him to bed around 10:00, after I gave him his bath (free nurse to the bathee*). It took him a little while to calm down again enough to sleep, and I am wondering what it is that it keeping him up. He did get plenty of exercise today, but he may be needing more. Or it's his teeth. I was watching a TV show tonight about babies and their parents on the local cable channel, and feeling very much the bad mother as these parents had their children doing crafts (before the age of 1!), and all sorts of enriching things while my child is glued to the Teletubbies. He does like books, however... Am wondering how concerned I should be. We should go out and do more things, at any rate.

2004-12-19 24:38 (Kristen) It was cold today. Boy, howdy. I mean absolutely bone-numbing, and as a girl who has lived in northern climes for most of her life, I am not just saying that. Somehow the bottom dropped out of the thermometer, and we were staring -14°C in the face. Jamie and I stayed home, ate some food, and watched Teletubbies when we weren't playing with the fire engine, while John went out and came back with the popsicle report (John: I was awoken at 8:30 by my dentist offering me an emergency appointment to temporarily reattach a crown). Jamie had woken up close to 8:00 AM this morning, and needed a nap around 11:00, so slept for about 45 minutes.

By 2:00 he was ready for his next nap, and we headed out into the cold to do some groceries and Christmas shopping. He was bundled to within an inch of his life: three blankets, three layers of clothing before the snowsuit, and a wind shield (usually a rain shield, but useful for this purpose as well). A number of people commented on how snug he looked, which was good. He was much warmer than I was! The wind chill was in the -30 range, and by the time we came home, I was feeling somewhat frostbitten. Jamie had woken up by then, and was somewhat hysterical by the time I got him out of the stroller as he had had a poo, and he loathes being in his stroller/sitting when he does. It is the one thing that he will lose it over. A change and a nurse put things to rights, however, and he was pleased to spend some time with his mom before going on with his day.

We had Craig Rowland, Brenda Megannety, and Glenn Mosher over for a night of Scrabble, and John made a lovely snapper with a side of linguine with spinach sauce (yum). Jamie hoovered a good deal of food, and had fun seeing new people and playing with Ayami. He had a good time going through his father's tournament supplies, and I think some of the blank slips are a little soggy now... We gave him a bath around 9:30, and he went to sleep very well. It was a good day.

2004-12-20 24:08 (Kristen) We got off to a good start today, despite the fact that Jamie was restless for the second half of the night. I was pretty exhausted, and dozed on the couch after breakfast while Jamie read books, watched Tubbies, and went about his routine. We had lunch at Tom and Michelle's, and then took Jamie shopping in the car.

The car worked its magic for about an hour and twenty minutes, during which we got some shopping done on Queen Street. When he woke up, we headed up to the big underground mall complex at Yonge and Bloor, and continued shopping. Jamie was fabulous, and very patient with both of his parents, except when he decided that he was hungry. He agreed to be pacified with a piece of banana cake, however, which was quite reasonable of him. By 6:00, we were hungry and shopped out, and in the mood for a treat. We went to Ichi Riki, which is our favourite Japanese restaurant and handily close by where we were, and introduced Jamie to Riki-san, the part-owner and sushi chef there. We told him that Jamie liked maki* (rolls), and avocado maki in particular. He made Jamie an avocado roll on the spot, and Jamie was very interested in the process. It was a lovely meal, and Jamie seemed to appreciate both green tea ice cream and ginger ice cream equally.

He was very tired, however, and fell asleep on the way home at 7:30. Aargh. He was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed until close to 12, when he finally consented to be coaxed to sleep. I hope to get more sleep tonight myself, since I need to be more functional in order to get the present wrapping and final shopping done!

(John) For the last few days I've been asking Jamie "Where's Baby Lion?" while reading his bath book "What Floats", whose protagonist is the aformentioned lion cub. Today he finally got the idea and started pointing at Baby Lion, and I lavished him with praise.

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

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