Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 85

2005-06-21 23:04 (Kristen) Jamie had another very restless night, coupled with an absolutely sodden diaper at 5:45 AM. This is unusual, as he usually is pretty dry until he starts waking up. He did wake up fully but only after I changed him and put him back to bed, ironically. He went back to sleep and didn't get up again until 9:10, when I decided to wake him up in order to keep him on some sort of schedule that matched everyone else's (it's exhausting to have him awake at 11:30 PM because he napped late). He was a little 'wha? hunh?' then his usual happy self. He ate half of my breakfast, played with Mio, and was ready to head over to Browning to eat lunch and play with Ross's trains by 11:45. He only slept for an hour and a half, but was full of beans and ready to play when he woke up.

I took him to the little kids' park at Jackman, where he played around and actually consented to walk on the cedar chips with his sandals on (he loathes getting wood chips under his toes, and who can blame him?). He wanted to go down the spiral slide, but it was occupied by a gaggle of kids. He consoled himself by walking along the little balance beam multiple times, and he was getting pretty good at it. We had to leave when he noticed a work crew installing a new play structure in the big kids' area, and was about to be put out that he couldn't play there while they were working. We went home and played for a bit in the house, then did some gardening with John.

We ate dinner at John's parents' place, and Jamie startled me by climbing up into his high chair by himself, despite my telling him to wait for me. He also took his own plate, fork, and spoon to his place. He was hungry and ate well, then had climbing practice in the living room on the furniture. He can climb onto the couches by himself now, and is very pleased with himself.He also did something different in that when he said "gochisousama," he got in my face to make sure that I saw him make the hand signal. John was more impressed by this than I was, pointing out that Jamie now understands that I'm not always watching him, and that he sometimes has to work to get my attention. Not a bad thing, I suppose.

On the way home, we stopped at the school yard to see the new play structure, which was very popular and covered with kids. Jamie went down the new fast big kids' slide with me a number of times (and the plastic slide in the big kids' area is three times faster than the plastic slide in the little kids' area. Who knew?). When he tired of that, he went into the little kids' area to go down the blue spiral slide that he had been denied earlier in the day. He also played very well with another little boy of almost the same age, by taking a ball that was being thrown and giving it back to the boy each time. We were so proud! He denied needing help on the structure on the way to the blue slide, but would hold my hand when he went down. It was very cute.

Then it was home, a bath, and bed. He isn't falling asleep anymore for me when I rock him, and insists on going outside to look at the moon if I do. So, we're back to nursing to sleep. Sigh. Just when you think he's broken the nursing to sleep habit, he switches back again. Back to the drawing board.

2005-06-21 25:30 (Kristen) There was a lovely moon out tonight, a full moon on the summer solstice, with lovely clouds moving across the face of it. Jamie woke up around 11:45, upset, and it seems to have been gas pains of some sort given the amount of gas leaving our boy. First John then I took him downstairs and out on to the back porch, where he looked at the moon in rapturous contemplation for at least half an hour. He could have stared for much longer, but I brought him in out of the perfect night to go back to sleep, which he did.

2005-06-22 22:47 (Kristen) Jamie slept in again today, and was in fine form. He ate more of my breakfast, dragged Mio out to look at buses, and helped John and me garden. Jamie helps with the weeds (bye-bye weeds!) and waters things. Because it was Wednesday, I walked Jamie down to the library for his afternoon walk, visited the library, and came back home an hour or so later. Unfortunately, I woke him up when we got there, or rather, the sound of the screen door opening (squeaky thing, but I usually can open it without waking him) when I went in for a moment woke him up. I had pulled him up onto the porch, and it was too close to the sound. After I got over my initial dismay, we played with trains, read a little, and watched a little afternoon kids' television while I rested and Jamie nursed.

Jamie is very aware of the way things have to be. For example, you do not wear your shoes inside the house. I had grabbed him to run up to the bathroom after his shoes were on, and rather than remove them and put them on again, I just carried him. He was quite disturbed by having his shoes on even while sitting on a bench and waiting for me to take him back downstairs. Later in the day, he was disturbed by some pylons left behind by a road crew, and we had to reassure him over and over again that someone would be there to pick them up and he didn't have to worry about them.

We took Jamie up to the Scrabble club, where he ran around and had a good time playing on the play equipment. He went down two little slides by himself for the first time (he has always insisted that I hold his hand), with me meeting him at the bottom. I had to carry him around the playground, however, as the grey sand would get into his sandals, and I got tired of taking each sandal off and brushing the sand from his feet after the sixth or seventh time. John took Jamie for a bit while I played a game of Scrabble, which was an unexpected pleasure. We headed home around 9:30, and Jamie slept sweetly in the car. He's asleep now in bed, and I hope for the night.

2005-06-23 22:58 (Kristen) My son is in a full-blown train obsessive stage. If he was British, and a few years older, he'd be in an anorak trainspotting. Every day, playing with trains is the first thing he wants to do in the morning, and the last thing at night. He wants to go over to Daniel and Ross's house when he's bored with his trains and wants to play with Ross's. But he's having fun, and I'm glad for it. It keeps him away from the television.

His tummy was feeling a little off today, and he didn't really eat much. This would explain, in part, why he only slept for an hour and a half for his nap, and why he's tired tonight. Unusually, he was very interested in plain rice for breakfast, which he usually passes up in favour of something with more flavour. I'll try to tempt him with miso shiru and rice tomorrow, and see if his tummy is any better.

John had him laughing hysterically in the bath by taking three stacking cups, and holding them onto his face with suction. Jamie would take the largest off, leaving the next, and take that off, leaving the last. It was very funny, but Jamie was falling asleep on his feet in the bath, and didn't take long to nurse himself to sleep. However, he is awake now, and with John moonwatching. I hope that he falls back asleep soon, for John's sake.

(John) He fell asleep quite soundly on just one lap around the block in the stroller, and is sawing little twigs beside me right now.

Today he surprised me by bring a plate of grapes to where I was sitting and asking for one. He knows he's not supposed to eat them whole himself, so I always bite them in half for him. What was new though was that he understood that bringing the plate to where I was sitting would expedite the preparation of the grapes. He's been doing a lot of observing and thinking about the way the world works, and how to turn it to his advantage. A few days ago he realized that if he wants to get Kristen's attention when she's talking to someone else, he has to get into her line of sight. So instead of just signing that he was done with his meal (gochisousama!), he leaned over so that he could hold his hands in front of her as he signed.

Today's linguistic milestone is that he's starting to form contractions. "ba-ba-da-yel" (bye-bye Daniel) turns into "ba-ba-yel", "ba-ba-da-ki" (bye-bye Duckie) turns into "ba-ba-ki", etc.

2005-06-24 23:39 (Kristen) And it was hot hot hot today, at a balmy 34 C. We tried to do all our outdoorsy things before noon, when the temperature really started to rise. John did some gardening, Jamie watched some densha and some trucks, and I stayed indoors. Then it was over to Browning for lunch and a walk for Jamie, who slept for an hour and a half. He was awake when a hot Ken brought him home, and more than willing to stay outside.

I brought him in, since I wasn't up to the heat. We played inside for a bit, and then John took him outside around 5:30 while I made dinner. I called John, since Jamie had (of course) dragged him over to Tom and Michelle's to play with the trains, and they came back for a meal of cold soba noodles and leftover veggies and fish in a soba sauce. Jamie particularly enjoys soba, and ate a great deal of it by himself.

In the evening, we went to our friend Geoff Gibson's to play Scrabble, and to walk over to Church Street with friends for the kick-off festivities for Pride Day weekend. Jamie had fun playing with Geoff's cat, and with his Monopoly pinball machine. He got tired before the Scrabble games were over, however, and so I took him for a walk in the park until John and our friends were done. Then we walked over to Church, but as interested as he was, Jamie was just too tired to keep going. We went back to the car, took him home, and put him to bed. We'll take him to the Pride Day parade on Sunday, which should be a lot of fun.

2005-06-25 22:27 (Kristen) We all slept in this morning after a very late night to bed, and didn't crawl out of bed until 10:00 or so. I had worried when Jamie was awake at 7:00, but he obligingly went back to sleep until after I woke up myself for good. It was a filthy hot day, and the air quality was poor. John had had a rough night himself, but still took Jamie shopping at the St. Lawrence Market before we met up with John's sisters Pauline and Pamela and their families and John's parents' at Il Fornello for lunch. What a guy! They were behind, and so John dropped Jamie off to me on Browning as I walked to Il Fornello. He had just fallen asleep, but was only sleeping lightly. I wasn't able to transfer him from car to stroller, and he woke up in the heat.

A brisk walk later, we were in the restaurant, where he enjoyed his first Shirley Temple, and ran around looking at this and that. John arrived a little later, and took Jamie out when Jamie asked. John says that Il Fornello is not a good place for us to eat, because Jamie knows that it is across the street from Treasure Island, the local toy store. John called me to come get him, and I came over to see that he had a train in hand, ready to buy for Jamie to play with in the restaurant, while Jamie was playing at the train table. We strongly persuaded Jamie to return, where he played with his new train and ate some of my lunch. Afterwards, we walked home in the soupy weather, but Jamie didn't fall asleep because he was woken up after two minutes of sleep by his new train, which makes noises when the wheels move. This includes when a mother leans the seat back on the stroller, and the train is jostled. Grrr.

This set us up for an afternoon of Hysterically Tired and Overly Hot Jamie. After trying to nurse him to sleep with no luck, we went downstairs and played with trains. After it became clear that I could do Nothing Right, and that Nothing Could Ever Be Right, I took Jamie upstairs for another attempt at a nap. This time it worked, and he slept for 45 minutes between 5:45 and 6:30. When he woke up, he was utterly disoriented, and it took more nursing and some promises of his dad's fish dinner to get him up and out. We went to our neighbour Annemiek's, where a Cuban salsa band, visiting from Cuba with one of our other neighbours, was in the backyard, putting on a show. It was a big neighbourhood potluck dinner, with fabulous live music. The Cubans were selling CDs, which were the price of admission, as it were, to finance their trip, and they are well worth it (name of band in tomorrow's blog). Jamie had a great time, and even danced with me and with John. We're been working on getting him to dance, and he's been thinking about it, but John caught him swaying back and forth, and I can get him to dance in a circle if I hold his hands, a la "Ring Around The Rosie." He ate, he enjoyed the music (when the band started, he ran up in front of them to study them with that long, hard stare of his), and he drank a ton of juice. There were a lot of people there that had never seen Jamie before, or who hadn't seen him in a long time, and I was amazed by how many people came up to me and said how beautiful they found him. A few times, I came across someone saying "who is that boy?" and being identified as his mom. I talked with John about it, and he said that he didn't think of Jamie as "beautiful," per se, but more as "Jamie" and "Jamie with food on his face." To me, he's Jamie and of course he's beautiful because he's mine, but the rest of the world seems to be seeing things my way, unusually.

We all had a great time, and we brought Jamie home around 9:30. He got in the bath, reluctantly, but then with enjoyment, and went to bed. I read him a book called "Goodnight, Sam," which is a sweet goodnight book about a baby bear and his mom, and he asked that I read it three times (actually, he asked for more, but it was time to sleep). At one point in the book, the mother and baby bear are reading a book together, and he kept signing "book, book" at that page. He really likes this story. He was asleep a bit after 11:00, and I hope we can get him back on a regular sleep schedule tomorrow.

2005-06-26 23:53 (Kristen) It was another scorcher today, and all in time for the big Pride Day parade downtown. We got up late again today, and I'm thinking about how to get us all up on time tomorrow... We were out the door by 12:45, but arrived too late to meet with our friends Craig, Mark, and Glenn. We staked a place out on the parade route, and found the guys later, in the hot, boiling sun. We stayed in the shade, but they had a better viewing spot. Jamie was interested in everything that was going on, and enjoyed the sucker that he got from someone in the parade [John: a Toronto elementary school teacher - he also got purple beads from the Trojan float], but was ready for his nap around 3:00. Our tenant Kayoko and I went on to a better place to watch the parade, and John took Jamie on a long subway ride. Jamie enjoyed himself very much, and they got to ride on the new Sheppard subway line before me. Jamie finally fell asleep around 4:30, after John gave him a piece of sembei* to chew on and fall asleep with.

John and Jamie picked me up at Yonge and Bloor, and we took him home to sleep. He woke up around 6:30, and we all went over, with John's friend Justin, who was visiting for the weekend, to Tom and Michelle's for dinner. Jamie enjoyed playing with the trains, played with me and John in the basement, and then went for a walk with me and Justin to burn off some toddler energy. We went around the block, and Jamie was in a great mood as he laughed and careened around trees, telephone poles, and people. We took him home soon after, and put him in the bath. He hoped to play with the densha* once he got out, but ended up going to sleep without too much fussing. He's sleeping like an angel right now.

I forgot to mention that he's developing quite the sense of humour. In one of his new books, a mouse is talking with another mouse about what they could do today. One mouse says, "We could eat some cheese!" and they run to an enormous piece of cheese. Jamie then grins when reading it, and pretends to eat the cheese with big, hammy gulps and presses the book to his face. He's got a good grasp of the abstract now.

(John) Last night's band's name is Septeto Variedades. They're appearing Tuesday night at Dora Keogh on the Danforth, then heading up to Perth and to a few music festivals in southern Ontario during the rest of their six-week visit.

2005-06-27 24:05 (Kristen) It was another hot, muggy day in the Big T.O., as all scurried into the shade and tried to find a way to keep cool. We were able to keep Jamie inside for most of the morning playing with trains, although he did go outside and come back in shortly afterwards when he decided it was too hot. Lunch was at Browning, where Jamie will sit and eat as long as Ross and Daniel are. He got down after scarfing some watermelon, and went around the table, methodically, until he found someone who was finished eating and would play with the trains with him. He went for his walk with Ken, came home wide awake after napping for an hour and a half, and then headed out with me to do some groceries.

One of our stops was Alex Farms Cheese, where the clerk offered Jamie some mild cheddar. He gleefully took it and ate it, and we discussed the line "We could eat some cheese!" from his book, Let's Play. The clerk, who was Asian, and I talked about Jamie's Asian ancestry, and about what sports Jamie was likely to play when he got bigger. John was good at Greco-Roman wrestling and judo, so I wonder if Jamie will be as well. Jamie asked for a hunk of cheese from the piece that I'd just bought, and happily chewed on it all the way home. Squeak, squeak.

At home, we played with trains some more, read some books, and nibbled on some fruit. We went to the Oshawa Scrabble Club's annual End of the Year dinner, and Jamie had a very good time running around outside the restaurant while John and I took turns eating. He was interested in the candy machines at the front, noting that they were full of balls, but as John put it, he doesn tneed to know that there is candy in them. As far as he is concerned, they are weird lobby art. Jamie had fallen asleep for half an hour on the way to the restaurant, and so was wide awake at 10:30 when we drove home. He finally fell asleep on John's chest in the bath, but woke up again as he was being transferred. He fell asleep for good at 11:30, and I hope is down for the night. I hope to be soon, myself.

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

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