Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 63

2005-01-18 23:27 (Kristen) We were not woken up by construction noises this morning for the first time in days, likely because all the big, tough construction workers were in hiding because it was -20 C outside (with the windchill, -33). We were still up by 9:00, after another disturbed night. I don't know if Jamie's teeth are bothering him, or if he is having nightmares, but he cries out in his sleep and it takes a conscious effort from me (aargh) to get him back to sleep. I don't know if he even wakes up fully; I don't think he does; but he is very difficult to console when he is in that fugue state. He was cheerful enough when he woke up, however, and that was fine.

He sat in his highchair# and ate toast and blueberry jam with a little yoghurt and a lot of grapes for breakfast. We played with toys, played with Gary, and watched Tubbies. Trifina was cleaning, and he didn't like the fact that his toys were put away or the sound of the vacuum. It was weird: yesterday, we couldn't keep him away from the "Nu-Nu" (Tubbies strike again), and today it was scary enough that he kept trying to turn it off at the power bar. It is possible that he is starting to go through the "make strange" stage that children go through around this time: this odd fear comes and goes, and he didn't really want to be parted from me for any real amount of time this morning. By the afternoon, I was chopped liver, and everyone was more fun than me. He went for his walk with Ken again, and we had a mellow time together after he woke up. He was tired by the time we went to Tom and Michelle's, and he ran poor Ayami ragged while John and I made dinner. He pounced on Gary when he arrived, and had fun with Ross's new sky-train Brio set.

He makes little sounds when he eats that would drive me insane if he was an adult (I have a thing about noisy eaters), but give me great pleasure because it means that he's enjoying his food. He likes to walk backwards because he can. He decided to learn the sign for "more" tonight, and we'll see if he has it tomorrow. He is surprising me with his dexterity and ability to solve problems when he puts his mind to it. He nurses before his bath with John, because he can, standing up and pleased as punch with himself. He is a very open, cheerful, and beautiful baby, and it amazes me that I'm going to learn more about his world from him very soon.

2005-01-19 23:21 (Kristen) Jamie slept a little better last night, after a dose of Tempra, but was very tired all day. It is possible that he is fighting something: his appetite was there, but lighter than usual. He was quite crabby by the time we put him into his stroller to go for his afternoon walk, but fell asleep in about three minutes flat. John and I took him on the subway to our hairstylist's place, and he slept for two and a half hours. Much was made of his eyelashes and hair while he slept on, oblivious, and it was decided that we will just trim the bits that are getting into his eyes, and worry about actual "haircuts" later.

He woke up in the Second Cup while I was having a coffee and a snack, and was awake then for the subway trip back (which he enjoyed). We went to see Daniel and Ross, and Jamie had a good time eating a little chicken and ikura*, playing with Ross's Brio skytrain set, and bossing everyone around. We headed off to the Scrabble club, where his usual games room was shut (I presume for cleaning, since all its contents were outside). After a moment of dismay, he discovered the room where the day care is, which is usually shut, which had a little plastic shopping cart that he liked pushing around quite a bit. He was a very good boy tonight, and was social and well-behaved. He fell asleep in the car, and is currently sleeping on the bed, half in and half out of his snowsuit as I dared not remove any more and wake him up.

He has become very helpful lately, trying to clean surfaces, putting things away, and helping me to dress myself (he tries to help me to pull up my jeans, for example). He gets buckets of praise when he does, and he seems to enjoy the active involvement in his world. He also used the "more" sign for the second day in a row, and I think he's got it. Smart kid.

2005-01-20 22:59 (Kristen) We were up around 9:00 this morning, and intended at first to go out with John to Queen Street so that I could indulge in some errand running for Mexico and buy some wool at a very good wool store. However, it was -20-ish, and the wool store doesn't allow strollers, and my backup (the backpack) was too cold for Jamie. So, we didn't go. I was pretty tired, however, and probably wasn't all that much fun for Jamie to hang with. He was pretty tired himself, however, and nursed himself to sleep on the couch (a guerrila nursing...). I got him up to bed, and with one emergency nurse, managed to have him nap for close to three hours. I was amazed and grateful, since I wasn't thrilled about taking him outside. He has enough blankets: I get cold!

I must have been looking a little ragged, as John ended up taking Jamie, Ross, and Daniel out while I tried to work and get some sleep. We met up at Michelle's for dinner, and Jamie spent a good deal of time eating, playing in the basement, and with Elmo on the computer. He was tired enough to try a repeat of his noon nursing in the basement, but I saw the signs and we took him home instead. He now sleeps the sleep of the young, and I hope to sleep the sleep of the log soon myself.

2005-01-21 24:20 (Kristen) Jamie and I stayed in bed late this morning, and I think that Jamie was up long before I was but was content to nurse until I decided to get up. He ran about playing with his toys (trains, sorter bin, blocks) and watched Tubbies until we went to Browning for lunch. He really likes eating hummus off a spoon: vegetables are a vehicle for getting hummus to his mouth. Amazing.

He went out for a walk today with Ken in the frigid weather while I got a little work done. He was swaddled in sheep fleece, and about three blankets and quilts under the wind shield. He was quite warm! He was awake after an hour and a bit, and was surprisingly clingy: I think that he nursed a great deal all afternoon, and needed more of my direct attention than usual. John had some errands to run, and came home around 6:00 in time to go over to Browning again for dinner. Jamie ran in and took the hand of Shinichiro, Michelle's cousin who was visiting. We were quite surprised by this, but not as surprised as Jamie, who realized that it was not his father's hand. He was almost in tears, and avoided Shin for the rest of his visit. We don't know if he was scared, or embarrassed, but it was an unusual reaction for him: indicative, I think, of the "strange" phase that he's going through. It comes and goes, but when it's there, it's there. He spent the rest of the evening playing mainly in the basement, going up and down his slide, or grabbing unsuspecting adults to drag them off to play Elmo on the computer. He was very tired, and went to sleep with no fuss at all. In fact, just to jinx it, he hasn't woken up at all since he went down. That's unusual, and I attribte it entirely to fatigue and the fact that we play classical music for him at night. Yay!

2005-01-22 10:25 (John) As we all sit here lazing in bed (me on the laptop), Jamie is playing the Name Game, where he calls "Dada!" or "Ma!" and we have to answer "Jamie!" Now he's moved on to the Light Game, where he points out a light in the room and we have to turn it on and off. Oh, and now he's exploring the room, so we'd better go keep him out of mischief.

2005-01-22 20:25 (John) We got 15-20 cm of snow today in temperatures that ranged between -15°C to -20°C and windchills another ten degrees lower. After digging the car out, Jamie and I drove to the St. Lawrence Market as usual, but tried parking in the underground lot at Market Square to ease the transitions to and from the car. They advertised an hour's free parking with a ten-dollar purchase at the Dominion (supermarket), which we discovered was a typical downtown parking scam when we tried to pay the $2.50 half-hourly rate for the quarter hour we'd gone over hour free hour by, and were told it was a "$6 flat rate all day". Serves me right for buying anything at the Dominion, which set itself up next to the farmer's market in a blatant attempt to divert customers from the market.

But I digress. I didn't repeat last week's mistake of keeping Jamie in the stroller at the market, but instead let him roam freely within the north building. Given that we were both dressed like astronauts against the cold weather, this was enough exercise that when it came time to dash across to the south building, Jamie was happy to sit back in the stroller with a samosa and gradually carbohydrate himself into a stupor. I managed to execute the tricky stroller-to-car-seat transfer, then gave up on going to Loblaws as I listened to the traffic reports, which described horrific driving conditions across the city. It took us a little while to get home, as our usual route was impassable: the steep uphill segment of Pottery Road was too besnowed to afford passenger vehicles enough traction.

We spent the rest of the day at home, stepping outside only to shovel more snow. Jamie now sticks his tongue out and pants when he sees dogs (on his Tubbies tape), and he is quite happy with a belated Christmas present we received from our German friend Agnes, Rundherum in meiner Stadt, whose very first page is a detailed illustration of a construction site. Needless to say, in several readings, we haven't yet gotten past the first page.

Possibly because of the weather (and ensuing snowbound stir-craziness), possibly because he's about to cut another tooth, possibly because he's going through a "nervous if Mom isn't in the same room" phase, Jamie has been nursing a lot this week. Poor Kristen.

2005-01-23 24:12 (Kristen) Another morning spent sleeping, and slowly crawling out of bed and into a more or less functional state. Jamie slept well enough last night, and seemed in a good mood. We took him to Loblaws in the early afternoon and to the wool store (where I spent longer than I should have), and surprisingly didn't fall asleep in the car until we were on the way home, around 3:00. This meant that John was stuck in the car with him until he woke up, which was around an hour later. We were all pretty tired, and it was not a very exciting day, all around.

On the other hand, Jamie did make the sign for "cat," and made a two part sign sentence yesterday, by asking for "more food." Yay! I was very excited by this. I'm trying to feed him more and more signs, such as "bird" and "apple," and other daily words. He also pants when he sees a dog (such as the dog on the Teletubbies tape), so he's getting that one down too. "More" impresses me the most, since it is the most abstract. He also knows that if he wants my undivided attention, he should grab a book and plop himself down in my lap. I don't say "no," even if I'm in the middle of something, if he asks to read something together.

2005-01-24 24:32 (Kristen) Jamie is continuing to improve with his use of sign language to let us know what his latest set of orders is. He repeated the sentence "more food" this evening, and definitely is starting to connect the sign with a positive response and the thing that he wants coming to him. John and I were talking about how many signs he knows, and we think that we counted over twelve. They are: cat, dog, more, food, phone (also doubles for Dad), gasp (denotes shock), dangerous, fall (includes "aaaaah" sound), gochisousama* (thank you for the meal, I'm done), "Go that way, you fool, you fool!", (pick me) up, no, brush teeth, yes, nurse (a favourite#); and point to this and that thing. He's pretty clever.

It was the usual sort of Monday, although Ken cut short his walk with Jamie today because the snow was making walking difficult. Jamie woke up soon after, and played with Ayami for an hour. I took him upstairs at one point for a change, and he went down the stairs on his bum, as he usually does, nowadays. Then he ran into the living room at a fair clip, laughing away, and tripped. He whacked his head against the coffee table (thankfully a round edge, which makes it relatively safe as furniture goes), and gave himself a nasty bruise, with a slightly bloody welt at the point of impact. It took him about half an hour before he started to feel more like himself again, and to recover both from the pain and the indignity of having his dad hold ice to the spot.

I took him for a walk soon afterwards to run an errand or two, which he usually enjoys, and he fell asleep on the home stretch. As he'd only slept for an hour and a bit in the afternoon, I wasn't worried. Also, John and I were going to go out for dinner together for the first time since before Jamie was born, and Jamie was going to spend time with Tom and Michelle babysitting for the first time. John and I have had lunch together since he was born once, and we have gone out for dinner with other couples twice, but we have not had dinner together the two of us alone since before Jamie was born. We were successful in not spending all our time talking about Jamie, although John did reduce me to tears laughing by imitating Jamie's little inquiring, plaintive "eeee" sound at one point. We returned to find that Jamie had had a great time, eating his food and everyone else's, and making everyone do what he wanted. It is such a great relief and blessing to have friends so close that we can trust Jamie with, with our families so far away. We feel very lucky.

(John) I was also pleased that Jamie figured out how to make his windup bath fish work today. One more useful life skill taught to my son, my work today is done.

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

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