Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 66

2005-02-08 19:15 (Kristen) We've been here for a week now, and have settled into a nice set of routines. We wake up between 6:20 and 7:00, have breakfast of some sort, often with John's aunts (who have been fabulous by the way: Nobuko has done a lot of the cooking, both help look after Jamie, and I have not been allowed to do any dishes yet. They're fun to be with, and I've enjoyed getting to know them better). Then we run about, and Jamie has his morning nap. We have lunch, run about some more, and have an afternoon nap. Then it's evening, we have dinner, and it's time for bed around 8:30-9:00. John and I collapse and sleep quite soon afterwards. I've even managed to get some work done, although not too much.

There was a slight variation in routine today, as Jamie got up early as he and John accompanied me to yoga class. I tried to get him to sleep around 10:00 with a long walk into town, but he had none of it. It's been quite hot today, with the cloud cover that has been hanging out for the last few days finally vanishing, and that might explain some of it. We came back home, and tried again around 12:15. He finally fell asleep when I pushed the stroller very fast between shady spots, and I headed home quickly. I fell asleep myself for about an hour, and Jamie stayed asleep for almost three. This proved to be his only nap today, but it was a good, long one so I don't mind.

After the nap, we accompanied John to the shore to watch him go swimming. Jamie and I played in the sand (that is, Jamie stayed in my lap and poured sand over my legs, protesting occasionally when the sand strayed onto him) before we headed in. John went to see the massage therapist, and Jamie and I swept the house. He was acting a little funny and clingy, wanting to do one thing and losing his train of thought while still needing to do something right now. It was somewhat exasperating, and when John came home, we went to the beach to meet Hisae after her swim. He enjoyed playing "inai inai ba!"* with Nobuko, as she hid her feet in the sand and produced them again. Finally, when we got back home, I asked Jamie, using sign, if his mouth hurt. This was a new sign: "pain" is made by bringing your index fingers together, and I made the sign, said "ow ow" while making it, and pointed to the side of his mouth where the new teeth are coming. He got it very quickly, and pointed to his mouth and then made a pretty good approximation of the sign. We sat on the couch and nursed for a while, and he seemed to feel a little better after that. Boy, sign helps a lot. I'm teaching him a bunch of new ones, and we'll see what sticks and what doesn't. Book, bird, and pain are the ones that I'm concentrating on right now. He also scraped his big toe running on the concrete, and while he didn't mind it, we did and will perform more medical intervention (polysporin, etc.) while he sleeps tonight.

We haven't decided what we're doing for dinner tonight, other than we're going out. I suspect that it's to Los Pelicanos, one of John's favourite restaurants and one that his aunts have been eyeing all week. They're due to leave on Thursday, and while we're looking forward to the arrival of Peter and Leslie on Friday, we're going to miss Nobuko and Tomoko a lot when they leave. I'm going to try to cook some Mexican meals tomorrow after we go to market, and see what Jamie thinks of sopa de lima and eggs with nopales, cheese, and tomatoes. Wish me luck!

(John) We did end up going to Los Pelicanos, and were served by Abner, who's been with the restaurant for as long as I've been coming to Puerto Morelos. He remembered all of our family and asked after my parents (who stayed home) and my brother (who hasn't been done in a few years); he himself is 50 now and a grandfather.

We ordered the filete de mero tikinchik (me), pulpo a la Veracruzana (Kristen), filete de mero al ajillo (Tomoko) and the camarones al ajillo (Nobuko), with a ceviche mixto grande and some guacamole to share. Jamie liked the mero tikinchik, the standard tomato and onion salsa, the guacamole, the sides of beans and rice, and the desserts (flan and coconut cream pudding). I'm sure he would have liked the rest too if we'd let him try it, or if he could have taken more time out from his busy exploration of the restaurant.

2005-02-09 22:49 (Kristen) I wasn't feeling very well today when I woke up after a rough night for both me and Jamie, and spent the first part of the day feeling somewhat grumpy. We went to the Wednesday market, and met another little girl there whose birthday was two days before Jamie's, on November 9. We went home, and I got Jamie to have his nap around 10:30. I lay down myself, and we both slept until around 12:00 or so.

(John) I took Jamie over to La Pagoda (my parents' house) for a snack sometime in the late morning, and joked with him about what was food and what was not. I tried to eat his hands and feet, and then laughed and said "No umma-umma!" He laughed too, but more nervously.

Early in the afternoon, my parents and I were to go snorkelling, and when Jamie asked if he could come along, I was delighted to take him as far as the beach to work on his sand and sea aversion. It's odd - he likes being at the beach, as long as he's at least a metre away from any particles of sand. I spread out a towel, this time having chosen a colour that contrasted with the sand so that he could more easily see his safety/danger zones. We played for a while with the sand, and then followed my parents down to the shore so they could start snorkelling. By keeping Jamie's attention on distant objects I managed to wade into water hip-deep before he caught on, and by that time we were right next to a fishing boat that was interesting enough (what with it being a vehicle held together with screws) that he didn't care that he was mere centimetres from seawater. On the way out from the water, we chased some kids around and got splashed a bit, and while Jamie was not especially pleased, he didn't freak out. By that point, Kristen had come down to join us, so I left Jamie with her on the beach while I caught up with my parents in the water.

A couple of hours later, it was Kristen's turn to swim with my mom, and I had no trouble talking Jamie into coming as far as the beach. I built a few pail sandcastles# for Jamie to destroy, then dug deep enough in the sand to build a figure-eight loop (with underpass) to run his toy bulldozer on, using the tailings to shape a sculpture of a sea turtle. Jamie liked this, and started getting more sand on his fingers as he pushed the bulldozer. At some point, he had a revelation and he stuck his fingers in his mouth.

I say "at some point" because by the time I realized what was going on, he had clearly ingested quite a bit. I tried to tell him "No umma-umma!", which he thought was another joke, only this time I was the one who was nervous. He seemed to be enjoying it so much, I even tried some myself, in case the local sand was made of sugar or salt instead of the usual silicon. It's not.

He's still a little nervous around large expanses of sand, but I know now that I can leave him playing on a towel on the beach, and the worst that will happen is that he will eat his fill of sand. We'll continue to play at building sand structures, but I think it's time to get him into the ocean!

(Kristen) I went for a swim myself later in the afternoon with Hisae, while John and Jamie stayed on shore. After I came out, we talked for a bit with the father of a twenty-month-old that we've talked with before, and who we discovered is an English geologist who studies reefs. We didn't know that there was a connection between geology and reefs, but apparently there is. We think that he and our biologist friend, Peter, will have lots to talk about if they meet. We headed in, and gave Jamie his bath. He hated it almost as much as last time, but as I was still in my swimsuit, I got into the little tub/pool with him and so it wasn't as bad as before. He enjoyed the entitlement nurse afterwards, however.

Jamie and I headed to the zocalo* so that John could have some peace and quiet for a bit, and as I was feeling better after my swim. We puttered around until we saw the woman and the baby we had met at the market in the middle of the zocalo*, talking with two other mothers with children. Jamie was wild and wriggly, so I let him loose to play with the other children. It turns out that the other two children (both girls) were born on November 9 and November 17th: the birthdays of both of Jamie's grandfathers. The girl that we had met in the morning was Cianya, and Jamie was enamoured of her stroller, which doubled as a bike (with a steering mechanism at back for Mom to steer and push with), and also played music. He also enjoyed running around, which he is quite fast at. Finally, the mothers broke up to go home, and Hannah, Cianya's mother, suggested that Cianya give Jamie a kiss goodbye. We put them close together, and they gave each other a number of sweet little baby kisses: it was absolutely adorable. So, Jamie's first kiss was in Mexico--something to remember for him.

(John) Jamie was pretty tired when we got home, especially since he had skipped his afternoon nap, and was awfully frenetic as a result. He ate a good meal (Mary made panuchos yucatecos, which Jamie started snatching off the platter as soon as they were within reach), however, and was out like a light by 9:00. Nobuko and Tomoko came back from a day trip to Tulum and Xel-Ha, and brought him a cute t-shirt from Tulum. It's just about the right size, and we'll put Jamie in it tomorrow.

2005-02-10 21:30 (Kristen) It was a yoga morning, and we were awake by 6:30 in time for a 7:00 class. Jamie was asleep when John woke me, and we briefly considered letting John sleep in with Jamie and follow me to yoga later. However, a lightly-sleeping Jamie was startled awake by a loud noise, and that was that. He's been very easily startled, and hates the sound of loud car engines in particular. I am not sure why this is, but it does seem to correlate with how tired he is, unless it's our neighbours revving their dune buggy, which always upsets him.

(John) I think it's a manifestation of low-level anxiety at being away from home for so long. Especially toward the end of the day now, he wants to spend concentrated time with both of us in close proximity, to provide reassurance that all is well and normal. He is also absorbing new experiences at a rapid rate, and has a lot of processing to do to sort out good from bad, safe from dangerous.

(Kristen) John ran Jamie's little legs off while I was in yoga class, chasing cats, playing with balls, and other good baby stuff. He was so successful, in fact, that Jamie was asleep again by 9:15, and slept until after 11:00. I made a Mexican lunch, with eggs with nopal and cheese, guacamole, and sopa de lima, and Jamie enjoyed eating the garlicky, limey chicken from the soup, as well as heroic amounts of the guacamole. He even ate some of the nopal and eggs, which surprised me as he doesn't traditionally like eggs. I guess that he'll eat them if I disguise them with enough other stuff.

(John) I make refried beans with onions, garlic, salt and poblano chiles, but since I do that every few days and Jamie hoovers them, it scarcely bears mentioning.

I went swimming with Jack around 3:00, and John and Jamie went to play in the sand while we did. Jamie was standing and sitting by himself on the towel, instead of sitting in his father's lap, and was playing with a shovel when we returned, but was acting somewhat the tired tyrant/construction tycoon, as he ordered John to move the bulldozer here and there. We went in and got ready to take Jamie for a walk, but he remained wide awake, to our surprise. He enjoys running about the zocalo*, and seems to think that it is his right to do so now. He spent a good deal of time bird watching today, and loves to watch them fly. He was very excited by the flock of pelicans that flew over him and John on the beach, and likes the magnificent frigate birds too. We eventually headed back home when it started to get dark, and ate dinner. Jamie was very tired, and ended up nursing himself to sleep in my lap for twenty minutes before I woke him up for dinner. He remained quite wriggly, and would run to the table and away after a few bites. I miss the highchair#! After a failed attempt at 8:00, we got Jamie to sleep around 8:35. He seems to be giving up on the two nap a day system in favour of one long nap, which is making the evenings a little tricky when the nap occurs early in the day. Tomorrow we say goodbye to Nobuko and Tomoko, and hello to Peter and Leslie. On Saturday, we switch houses from Casa Azul, two houses from John's parents, to a new house down the street and closer to John's aunt and uncle. It's pink, and I'm going to have to look up the word for "pink"--Casa Rosa? It's cosier than Casa Azul, but looks comfortable and like it will be a good place for the second half of our stay.

2005-02-11 20:34 (Kristen) Jamie and John are playing with his car seat. Jamie sits in the seat, and John pretends to drive him places that he wants to go. He's been very active, as he gets used to being able to run all over the place in a larger, more empty space than our house. He frequently angles to go outside, either to visit John's mom, to play in the sand, or to just see the sights.

Nobuko and Tomoko left this afternoon, overlapped by less than fifteen minutes by an arriving Peter and Leslie. We took them swimming, which was refreshing but not particularly edifying: the current and wind were both strong, and so the waves were large and visibility low.

(John) We started the day off by going to watch the sun rise. I took along one of Jamie's favourite# bath books, which features a page showing a sunrise seascape that has always intrigued him. We were all delighted, Jamie included, to point out the correspondences between literature and reality: sun, clouds, birds, boat, etc. Then he insisted on going birding for half an hour, which was excellent preparation for Peter's subsequent arrival.

After the afternoon swim, we went for a walk to the zocalo# with Peter and Leslie and ended up at Los Pelicanos for dinner. First outside watching the shorebirds, then inside after a swarm of mosquitos attacked. Jamie slept for two hours, missing all of dinner, but waking up as we were on the fisherman's pier looking at weird jellyfish with bioluminescent blue dots that spun round in circles (the dots, not the jellyfish).

I'll have to cut this short now, as we're moving tomorrow from Nancy Wenker's house to Coni Butcher's house, and there's still some preparation to do for the move.

2005-02-12 20:35 (Kristen) We moved from Casa Azul to Casa Rosa (which is more of a salmon colour than a real pink) this morning with a minimum of difficulty. Peter and Leslie donated their car to the cause, and we were packed and moved (including a good deal of food) in a couple of hours. During that time, the cleaning lady, Carmela, showed up with her three children: a young teenaged girl, another girl about eight years old, and her son, Ian, who is about three. We had the Teletubbies on, as usual, and Ian was rapt, proving that Tubbies know no language barriers. Jamie was fascinated with him, and they played in a fashion: Jamie followed while Ian did his thing. Later, we arranged with Nancy's new tenants to rent the TV for the rest of the time we're here, so that Jamie can have some continuity and comfort with his favourite video. We picked up the TV on the last trip, allowing the younger girl and Ian to spend some time watching Lilo and Stitch (a tape left behind by Nancy), and stay out of their mother's hair.

The new house is a bungalow, with exterior stairs leading up to a flat roof for sunbathers. We're enjoying the lack of steps and stairs, which were beginning to tempt Jamie a little too much. It's cosy and well built, and I'm looking forward to our time there. It has a patio that goes around three quarters of the outside, and Jamie has enjoyed running around it so far. It's more shaded than Nancy's back yard, and much more pleasant to Jamie-watch in comfortably. The only drawback, as far as Jamie is concerned, is that the couches are much higher, and he can't climb on and off of them by himself.

He only slept for about an hour at 11:30, and did not settle down for an afternoon nap, which isn't too surprising, given the amount of change he's been through today. We had lunch at Casa Verde (John's parents' place), with Leslie and Peter, and Jamie spent most of the lunch chasing Beatriz's cats all over. We went back to Casa Rosa, and he wandered about there, and had a good long nurse while John and his parents went swimming (from Casa Rosa all the way to the palapa pier), before he demanded to head out himself. We went to the Hotel Oho de Agua to look for John, as that was where he usually comes out of the water, and met Jackson, who shares the same birthday as Jamie; they are exactly the same age, in fact. I've been meeting a remarkable number of November babies this trip. We eventually found John, whom we had somehow missed, and headed on to the zocalo*, where we saw Ceinya again. Dinner was at John's parents' place, with wonderful shark empanadas made again by Mary, who works for Beatriz and Laureano, and who we have known ever since Laureano and Beatriz started renting Casa Verde. Jamie had fun eating and playing bottle caps with his dad before finally succumbing to sleep around 8:45. He has been falling asleep around that time and waking up bright and chipper around 6:15: I am hoping beyond hope that he stays asleep a little longer than that tonight.

2005-02-13 20:35 (John) I woke up refreshed after a good night's sleep in the new house, partly due to how much quieter it is on the outskirts of town. No dogs barking, no dune buggies revving their engines, etc. Mostly due though to the long swim I had yesterday. Kristen and Jamie had a more difficult night, I think because of stress related to the change of location.

Around 11, the three of us set out for a day in Cancun. As we expected, Jamie fell asleep for his morning nap on the way there, one of Trifina's Heinz toddler biscuits gripped tightly in his fist. He stayed asleep through a stop at the lookout point on the hotel strip, and more miraculously, through the transfer from car seat to stroller at Plaza Kukulcan.

Kukulcan is under major renovation/reconstruction, with less than a quarter of its space open. In particular, the 100% Natural restaurant has been reduced to a food court snack bar on the second floor, and there is no dive shop or bookstore. It was however a nice air-conditioned space in which to let Jamie spend the rest of his nap, during which we bought me a pair of shorts I'd been looking for for some time, and some souvenir T-shirts.

When Jamie woke up, we drove to Mercado 28 to have lunch at K's Cafe, a lovely Japanese restaurant in the middle of some of the best shopping in Cancun. We had boquinete* sashimi with yuzu-tougarashi, zaru* soba* (Jamie ate half, I ate half) and sushi, and Jamie got to run around the merchants' stalls with gleeful abandon before, during and after the meal.

After a mad dash to and through the Soriana supermarket, we drove home quickly so I could go for a swim before sunset; quickly also because Jamie WANTED watermelon or Pepperidge Farm goldfish, and we ran out of the former halfway home and didn't figure out about the latter until we were almost home. We'll all be much happier when Jamie learns to say "I want goldfish" rather than "AAAAA!".

While I swam, Kristen and Jamie went for a walk to the market, about which more hopefully from Kristen later. When they came home, Jamie pointed out the moon to me, and was delighted when I said "Goodnight, Moon", the title of one of his current favourite# children's books. He repeatedly waved goodnight# at it until it hid behind a cloud.

(Kristen) Jamie ate a ferocious amount of food during the afternoon, and never fails to amaze me with his capacity for more. At the Soriana, I showed him a stuffed lion, which he adored: he took it from me and twice kissed it on the nose. It travelled with him in the cart through the store, and ended up coming home with us. He was wild and wriggly at the store, and tried to go solo exploring in the spice aisle. He ran about through the Mercado 28, and did not want his hand held as he explored.He was also very wriggly after the car trip, and I am not sure how much of his problem today was his teeth hurting him. I'd say a good deal.

We headed to the zocalo* when we got home to see if his girlfriend, Cienya, was about, and we played with/around her for about twenty minutes before we headed back home. He's full of energy, and we've already gone out for a walk to the beach since to burn off some of that drive, and to keep him out of trouble in Jack and Hisai's little kitchen area. He also visited Laureano and Beatriz's cats twice today, and is very taken with them. He says "meow" and points to their ouse when we arrive at John's parents' house, and insists of going to the door tosee if a cat might be available. John has just called out to me to say that Jamie is saying "va va va" (a new consonant), and that this might be an imitation of car engines.

2005-02-14 21:15 (John) Peter and Leslie are spending the day climbing ruins and birding at Cobá. Jamie and I walked to the zocalo* to buy juice in the morning, and it was so hot we had to stop midway at La Pagoda (Jack and Hisae's house) each way for Jamie to stock up on watermelon bits.

We packed up for the rest of the day to avoid that hot walk, and got Jamie to fall asleep for his noon nap while we went to Los Pelicanos to enjoy a Valentine's Day game of Scrabble and a rare meal by ourselves.

(Kristen) Jamie woke up about 45 minutes before we got back, and was apparently very good with his grandparents, eating a great deal and looking for Bush and Tigré (two of Beatriz' cats). I looked after Jamie while John and his dad went for their afternoon snorkel, and then John and Jamie played on the sand while I went with Hisae. The wet people went in quickly after the swim, while John and Jamie followed after. They took longer than I thought, and when they arrived, John told me that Jamie yelled and yelled on being taken *away* from the sand: this is the boy who would yell if he was brought within two feet of sand a week and a half ago. He finally accepted leaving the beach when John thought of taking a bucket of sand with them, which he played with, along with a small shovel, in John's parents' backyard. It took about ten minutes and a full change to get rid of most of the sand, and there is sand I know that I haven't found yet.

(John) I had one of the more eventful swims of my life, and got to see two normally solitary ocean triggerfish swimming together (my mom said they were celebrating Valentine's Day), a huge barracuda swimming through a large school of spadefish without getting hurt, and a spotted eagle ray doing barrel rolls and somersaults trying to get rid of two remoras. Kristen also was too modest to point out that she beat me by ten points in our handicap game, 493-483.

(Kristen) We were invited out for dinner with Laureano and Beatriz for Valentine's Day to Hola Asia, the local pan-Asian restaurant. He looked tired, but only fell asleep after dark, when John took him for a walk in his stroller along the pier. He slept for close to an hour and a half before waking up after we arrived at John's parents' place to write the blog. He is in John's arms now, listening to a CD of children's songs in Japanese, with everyone singing along when they know the words. He'll probably fall asleep again in an hour or two for the night, and be wide awake at 6:30 again. He has been living fourteen-hour days, instead of his usual Toronto day of twelve hours, occasionally with only one nap. He's also far more active than he is in Toronto, and I will have some pressure on me from him to look into new outlets for that energy when we get back. It's great for him to be here.

(John) Jamie continues to be fascinated with the moon, which is directly overhead around sunset now, and a beautiful crescent. He thinks it's a ceiling fan on the world, and therefore calls it "goo" (guru-guru, goes round, in Japanese), and waves byebye at it for "Goodnight, Moon" as explained yesterday.

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

Back to Vol. 0 No. 65, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 0 No. 67.