Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 73

2005-03-29 16:40 (John) We all got up early this morning to see Kristen off to jury duty at 8:00 A.M., and then Jamie and I had breakfast together. He ate rice with ikura*, nori, shoyu and fukujinzuke*. He was getting frustrated with his chopsticks when he happened to notice that he could spear grape halves with them, which led to his eating perhaps a dozen more grapes than he otherwise would have.

Mio showed up around at 9:00 and Jamie insisted on going outside for an hour to shovel what's left of the snow on this the first really springlike day we've had this season. When he came back in, he was looking tired and plopped his head down on his Spongebob throne instead of climbing up on it, so Mio took him back out for a walk in his stroller and he fell asleep for forty-five minutes.

When he woke up, he was delighted to find that Kristen had come home, having successfully deferred her jury duty by showing the antibiotics she was taking and coughing at the clerk. We went to Daniel's house for lunch, and then Ken took Jamie out for a long walk, during which Jamie stayed wide awake. He was rangy by the time he came home, so Kristen tried taking him on another walk and is now trying to nurse Jamie to sleep for his afternoon nap, a few hours late.

2005-03-29 22:37 (Kristen) I was sorry, to an extent, that I wasn't able to serve this week. It isn't often that you get called up on a short week (yesterday being a holiday). It wasn't hard to convince the clerk that I wasn't suitable for sitting in a room full of people, sharing my germs. The morning was quiet, and Jamie was happy to see me when I got home. John said that every time he coughed, Jamie would look at him oddly and look for me. "Ma! Ma!" He enjoyed our walk together, but was very upset for some reason when we started. I had chalked it up to fatigue, but he may have just been upset that we weren't communicating properly. He is getting more and more frustrated when he can't get his meaning across. We got around this by my holding his hand and walking beside the stroller as we walked (not particularly easy, but oh well), and talking softly to him. He was calm by the time we reached the Danforth, and enjoyed the rest of the walk.

He slept for about two hours (and I slept for an hour and a half), until around 7:00, and then we headed over to Browning for our usual Tuesday night dinner. His appetite is definitely back (much to my relief, and John's), and he had fun playing with everyone. He melted down utterly at 9:30, and was hysterical through his bath and getting dressed for bed. I didn't even try to cheer him up with Leon. I was surprised, since he had had a long nap so recently: usually that gives him a little extra "oomph". He might also have been a little thrown off by how little he saw me today.

2005-03-30 22:45 (Kristen) Jamie was awake around 7:00 this morning, which I seem to be getting used to. We got up, had breakfast (fish, salmon roe, rice...he's manifesting his Japanese side), and played a little before Mio arrived. She stayed for the day, as I have some catching up to do on work, and Jamie was cool with that. We had lunch together before he went off on his walk with Mio. She enjoyed getting out and stretching her legs (being made to shovel in the front doesn't really count), and Jamie slept for an hour and a half.

He is watching Totoro but not as obsessively. Mio said that he picked up the case for Lilo and Stitch, and so she put the disc in the DVD player, and it seemed to go over OK. Totoro went back in after, though, so it hasn't been replaced yet.

We headed up to the club tonight for what felt like the first time in ages. We've only been there twice in the last two months, what with trips to Mexico and John being out of town, and illnesses. He enjoyed being at the centre, and liked playing with a volleyball that he found. I was smart and knew that he would be plenty tired by the end, and packed not only his sleeper but a bunch of books for him to read. We spent the time that he would have been roaring about, crying and melting down, quietly reading on a couch. Much much better. I hope that it'll work next week. John got a Dairy Queen ice cream cake for me to share with the club for my birthday, and Jamie loved his piece. He had blue icing dripping down his face, and was not interested in having it removed. He fell asleep in the car on the way home peacefully, and is asleep in bed after being successfully translated into the house from the car.

(John) We've started looking for a new tenant today. Wish us luck! 今日から又テナントを探しています。ジェイミが益々大きくなってくると彼の意見も聞かなくっちゃね！

2005-03-31 22:34 (Kristen) It was a lovely spring day today, with thunder and rain at times. Jamie and Mio played outside until the rain started, and then came in to play. We put together the little Fisher-Price trike that my mom got for him for Christmas, and he loves it. He rode around the house, and will be tearing up and down the street in no time. Jamie is pushing his boundaries, like any good toddler, but so far has been very good about coming back when called and about not going onto the road. He still bears watching, all the time, of course.

After his nap, we played and read books. He loves the visual dictionary that John brought back from Boston, which is in Japanese (My First Thousand Japanese Words), and the book of trucks which John also bought for him. We watched tv too, but the books were the important part. We played with puzzles, and he correctly identified a duck, and said "duck"--OK, the "uck" part was very clear, the 'd' sound is a little harder, but it was clear that he knew that it was a duck. He has been enjoying the praise that he gets when he makes the sign for 'cat,' and signed 'nurse again. He hasn't been using his signs much, and we haven't been pushing them, but his frustration with communication makes me think that we should be more proactive in using them.

I took Jamie on a walk while I did some errands, and he was pretty good. I met John on the way back from the library, and we took Jamie to the play park at Withrow Park. Jamie had a ball climbing up the stairs to the little fort that has a slide running down the other side. He managed to make it up the little flight of stairs by himself, holding onto the railing, and having me behind him all the way. He also did surprisingly well at walking along the balance beam, while not being fond of the swings this time. He protested very much when we left, but was appeased with cheesy fish (Goldfish). Dinner was at Browning, and he cuddled with Leon before bed but decided to nurse instead. When he got up this morning, he had spent about twenty minutes cuddling and playing with Leon. It was adorable.

2005-04-01 22:23 (Kristen) Jamie was pretty good today, waking up at 8:00 or so, and playing well with Mio in the morning. He went for his walk with Ken, and slept for around three hours, which was great for me: I got a lot of work done, and managed to slough off a little stress. He was all sixes and sevens when he woke up, however, and had to have a nurse to start feeling better. While he was eating a little snack after his nurse, Mio and Taka dropped by on their way to a basketball game (Taka's). Jamie didn't recognize Mio in her baseball cap, but was delighted when she took it off and he saw who it was. He instantly got off the couch where he was watching Totoro with John, and demanded that she take him outside to play. That made her happy.

John, Jamie, and I headed over to Withrow Park to run Jamie around, and he had a great time on the slides. He visited the little slide that he spent so much time on yesterday, and went down the red tube slide. He went down the red tube slide head first one time, probably by accident, and found that a little scary; he didn't do it again, but went down feet first many more times. He enjoyed looking at the planes and birds too. We went to Mocha Mocha for dinner, where two couples with girls in the eight to ten year old range used Jamie as an example for their children: don't lie down on benches (bad example for the baby) and look, the baby's eating spinach, why won't you? The girls took it in stride, and the second one enjoyed watching and interacting with Jamie. Jamie had fun eating and playing with the spoon. We were all very tired when we came home, and Jamie nursed and played with Leon before finally falling asleep.

2005-04-02 23:15 (John) I was a little nervous heading out to the farmer's market with Jamie, as the weekend forecast as for several centimetres of wet snow, an unwelcome respite from our first taste of spring. For the first time in several weeks though, Jamie followed my plan.

He was drowsy but not close to sleep when we arrived, and spent an hour shopping with me in the stroller, loading up his stomach. Rice ball, chicken samosa and turkey kielbasa. As a result, he fell asleep on the two-minute drive from the market to the Loblaws, and I had no trouble transferring him to the stroller. He woke up two and a half hours later, while I was working on my laptop, the groceries all packed in the car, and was in a sunny mood.

Jamie spent what was left of the afternoon with Kristen, then alternately ate and pooed# his way through the evening. Not sure why. We watched Lilo and Stitch together, and he likes the musical scenes but not the fight scenes. I think I may try him on some other musicals, though I'm also tempted to show him some Bob the Builder tapes.

2005-04-03 24:00 (Kristen) Last night we set our clocks ahead of time before we went to sleep. That way, when Jamie woke up at 6:30 this morning, we could say to ourselves, "At least it isn't 5:30 AM." Your guess is as good as mine as to why this was the situation, but it messed us all up. We fought the inevitable until 8:30, when John took Jamie downstairs and I slept for an hour and a half. Then they came back to bed, and I coaxed Jamie to sleep until 11:00. Leslie called, and we went to brunch with her and Peter. I was prepared for trying to eat in a restaurant with Jamie: I had the Big Digger (which he has 'borrowed' from Daniel) , books, and the little digger. The little digger kept him amused, particularly when Leslie used it to help him pick up little pieces of corn. He laughed his true laugh, which is light, bubbly, and utterly infectious, and made her do it again and again.

He didn't fall asleep on the cold, rainly/sleety trip back, but I managed to get him to nurse himself to sleep later in the afternoon. He stayed asleep until 19:00, which gave me time to get some work done. He's definitely drooling again, which makes me wonder if he has a new tooth coming (not that we've recovered from the last one, mind you). We played with the ball, and other toys, watched a little TV, and had a big dinner. He is chattering away all the time, and is starting to pick up on more signs and words. He does the sign for 'rabbit' and is getting good at all sorts of words, and particularly the ones with 'b' or 'd' sounds.

On that note, he ran about the house calling "Dan-el, Dan-el" tonight, as he played with the big digger of Daniel's. We called Daniel twice before we could have Jamie say it into the phone. We went to the Dairy Queen with Ross and Tom, and Jamie had a great time putting pennies into the donations bin for the Hospital for Sick Kids. It has slots with ramps and wheels inside it, which the coins run down, and is a large, transparent, freestanding cylinder which is about six inches taller than Jamie. He was getting good at putting the pennies in the slot a little above eye height for him, which impressed me. He also liked my cherry sundae, but that was less surprising.

2005-04-04 24:00 (John) Mio looked after Jamie in the morning. Kristen may add more, but I was asleep or busy until lunchtime. I guess this is a good thing, that Jamie can function without me for half a day! When I was finally up and free, I took Jamie on the bus, subway and streetcar to the university to meet with my thesis supervisor.

The plan was that he would fall asleep on the way to the university, and I would have a quiet half hour to talk. I had however underestimated the growing tenacity with which he clings to consciousness when in an interesting and new environment. I took him first to the Harbord Bakery to ply him with raspberry rugalach* and mango juice, which just made him full and sticky (and fascinated with his environment).

Running out of time, I took him into Sid Smith just to tell Steve that I couldn't meet with him, then decided that maybe we could chat as long as Jamie was calm, because Jamie seemed happy just to sit in his stroller, chew his pastry and listen patiently to the mathematical discourse. He's been doing a lot of listening lately: if two people are talking in his presence, he will stop what he's doing to look and listen.

Five or ten minutes into this, along comes Marie Bachtis, who waves her hand in a mystic gesture around Jamie's head, and Jamie's instantly asleep. I said "Wha-a-a-at?!". Marie asked "You didn't know about that?" "Didn't know about what, that my son had a sleep button just like a laptop or a clock radio? What did you just do to him?" Then she showed me.

She stroked his cheek once softly to get his attention, then drew big soft circles in the middle of his forehead with two fingers. His eyes closed on the first circle, and by the third circle he was practically snoring. Wow.

The rest of the day was practically uneventful by comparison. I took sleeping Jamie to the Second Cup, met Kristen, did some work, then went home, picked up food to take to my parents' house, had a quick bite, bundled everyone up to go to my parents' house, where we waited (together with Nobuko) for my parents to return from Mexico.

Jamie was delighted to see my mom, dragged her around the house to play, and gorged himself on mango, soba* and pickles.

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

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