Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 91

2005-08-02 25:00 (Kristen) Jamie was up just in time for Mio's arrival this morning, and spent some happy time playing with her. They went outside, and he dragged her over to Tom and Michelle's to play with Ross, since Daniel is at D&D Camp for the week (how cool does that sound?). He went out for his walk with Ken in the afternoon, and woke up about two hours later. John and Jamie hung out together while I was out, and I took over when I got home.

John and I were doing a little housework by changing the sheets on the bed and adding a memory foam mattress topper so that we can sleep a little more comfortably in the heat. Jamie was very interested in this activity, and insisted on helping. At one point, he was rolling around on the bed while we tried to get sheets on it, reminding me of a cat that I once had who loved to play under the sheets every time I made my bed.

After dinner, we got ourselves together to go and see our friend Jane play at a local Toronto club. Jamie enjoyed going there on the subway, particularly since we sat way up at the front of the train so that he could watch the train go down the track. The subway driver, who has a small son himself, let Jamie "honk" the subway train once between stops: Jamie was very pleased but I think that John and I were even more happy. It was so cool!

We got to the club and said hi to Jane, who was getting ready for the show. Jamie ran around a bit before she started, and we got some ginger ale (which Jamie loves) and some sherbet for him, since the club serves real food. He sucked back a good deal of ginger ale, and he loved the mango and raspberry sherbet. So much, in fact, that Jane said that she could hear him at one point saying "b! b!" He also says "okay" in a lovely, piping little voice, and she heard him say that too when she was talking with the audience.i He also was very good about clapping with everyone else at the end of songs.

After a few songs, Jamie was starting to be a little restless. John took him out for a bit and then I did. At the end of my turn, it was clear that Jamie was very hyper and not looking a bit tired despite the late time. John took him out, and let him run around for a short while in an attempt to burn off the sugar that he'd consumed. There was a building nearby whose entrance looked like a half pipe, and Jamie spent a good deal of the sugar buzz he had by running up and down the half-pipe about 50 times. John says that it looked like so much fun that he did it about 10 times himself.

John then took him home, and I followed a short time later. He was still awake when I got home at 11:30, and he was in bed quite late at midnight. He is fast asleep, and I wonder what time he'll wake up tomorrow. As an aside, Jamie still "has it," as they say: a woman had been watching him on the train as he gleefully watched the track and said on the escalator out that he ahd made her trip. John says that he'll have it a little while longer, but I hope that the world is a good place to him, full of good will, for much longer.

2005-08-03 21:57 (Kristen) We were up really late last night, and Jamie slept in until 9:30 or so. We were going to do outside stuff before it got too hot, but it was already too hot by 10:00 or so. Jamie played with his little pool for half an hour, but that was all: back in he came.

He is enjoying eating the slushie juice cubes that John froze for him, and anything that is cool and watery. Watermelon is a big treat for him right now. I took him for a walk, and kept him outside at the Second Cup in the shade, but he still woke up all sweaty. I was ready with a bottle of water, and that made the waking much easier than usual lately. We did a little shopping, and I picked up some big clips, paper, crayons, and paint brushes in preparation for tomorrow's experiment with finger painting on the big easel he has. That will be a lot of fun. In the meantime, however, we ended up staying at Treasure Island on the Danforth for over an hour while Jamie played with the train tables and we both enjoyed the air conditioning. A number of other parents had the same idea! Jamie enjoyed the company of the other children except for one child who shoved. His parent was on him, but none of the other kids wanted to play after that, and Jamie was very confused by his behaviour. I don't quite know what to do to teach him that other kids won't always treat him nicely. Ross apparently says "Oh, they must be having a bad day," when a child isn't being nice, which only works most of the time. Then I'm there to referee, and make sure said rotten child behaves or else!

We had dinner at John's parents' house, and Jamie ate much watermelon and ran around the house playing 'chase me.' Then we blew some steam off at the playground, got some ice cream, and came home. It was a hot, but good day.

(John) Jamie continues to work hard on his language skills. At my parents' house he likes to drag the stepstool ("eh-too-uh") to the powder room to play with the sink, the water and the nailbrushes. He is unfailingly polite, and will say "Hi!" and "Bye-bye!" to many inanimate objects. Over dinner, he repeated "ba-ba-ba" (as close as he currently comes to "Thank you, Papa", but it's much clearer from context and with the accompanying sign language) a dozen times to hear me say "どういたしまして" and sign "you're welcome".

He is strongly empathic: a three-year-old girl tripped and bloodied her mouth in the playground and Jamie became quite concerned, repeatedly telling the story of what had happened to her.

He does not have separation anxiety. The closest he comes to it is that sometimes he expects Kristen to be around, and if she's not, he'll be annoyed and then get over it. In general, he has a clear idea of what he expects, but his reaction to his will being thwarted rarely lasts for more than a minute. This when he's working on his second-year molars and drooling up a storm. I'm still not sure how he managed to get the best parts of our personalities.

2005-08-04 24:15 (John) It was so hot today that when I asked Jamie if he wanted to go out raspberry and tomato picking, he told and signed me that it was too hot outside (hiss for "atchichi", pull back fingers as though they touched something hot).

After a morning spent mostly indoors (Kristen said he's delighted with the crayons she bought him yesterday), we were getting him ready to go out for a nap-walk when Ruth Ohi dropped down with the first carload of some large toys that her daughters have outgrown, including some toy hockey sticks and to Jamie's delight a large, well-stocked play kitchen that subsequently occupied quite a bit of his day.

When Kristen took him out, he didn't take too long in the broiling sun to fall asleep, but then it wasn't really all that cool even in the constant breeze in the shady driveway, and he woke up after less than an hour and a half. Mio played with him indoors until late in the afternoon, then I took him out to run some errands.

He was delighted whenever we were headed toward a subway station and somewhat displeased when it became clear that we weren't going to enter. I may have to buy a Metropass if the hot weather continues, as I think his idea that riding on the subway is a good way to spend a hot afternoon is sound. I did eventually however find a shop on the Danforth that had an automatic bubble-blowing toy set up that provided several minutes of amusement for both of us.

Tami made chili at Browning, and with a fairly full house there (Michelle's brother Tobin and sister Kelly in for Tami's birthday tomorrow), a very tired Jamie was in fine form chasing everyone around playing "Bye!", his hybrid of hide-and-seek and tag. At least until he wiped out and whacked his head the hardest he's ever done. As will become evident in photos the next few days unless I do some heavy PhotoShopping, he hit the left end of his forehead (not his temple) hard, probably on a tile door sill, gouging a line a couple of millimetres wide and a couple of centimetres long, just deep enough to slowly ooze blood, raising up quite an alarming egg around it. I iced it while Kristen nursed him for about ten minutes, at which point he was ready to go back to playing "Bye!" but I was burnt out from the experience (and likely my medication), so we brought him home, bathed him and put him to bed, where he's been sleeping well.

(Kristen) John's telling of the "atchichi" story reminded me that over the last day or two Jamie has started to have more complicated conversations with me and other people, and is expressing complex thoughts. He told John that it was too hot to go outside, and me that he doesn't want to wear diapers because they're uncomfortable and would prefer to use the potty or go naked. He isn't using complex language, but the ideas are, and he is expressing how he feels and what he wants much more clearly. Abstract ideas and feelings are coming out, and I think that his thinking has taken a quantum leap forward. It's very exciting.

2005-08-05 23:58 (Kristen) We got ourselves together today to go down to College and Ossington for a surprise birthday party for Tami Sagara. Because John isn't driving right now, Jamie's been enjoying the extra time on public transit, and was delighted to take the subway and the bus there. The bus down Ossington was an older model, and the guard rail by the driver was placed so that we had to lift Jamie's stroller bodily up and over it. I didn't know that I could lift it that high, and Jamie thought it was fun.

Jamie enjoyed the lunch, particularly the salmon and corn, but his eyes were opened by the creme brulee. I think that he could have eaten an entire dish of it by himself, and it was particularly fine creme brulee. He played with Gary and Daniel, and Tom and Michelle and Ross took him outside at one point when he was getting tired but wired. Jamie managed to get people to donate to the city by buying parking chits in five cent denominations from the parking machine out front: it works similarly to the transfer dispensers in the subway stations, and Jamie loves those.

Jamie fell asleep when we left the restaurant at close to three in the afternoon, and stayed asleep for almost an hour and a half while we walked around College and Spadina. Then we all went to see John get his hair cut, since Jamie is fascinated with hair cutting. Jamie was duly impressed with the amount of hair his father left on the salon floor. We think that Jamie doesn't like he feel of hair on the back of his neck, and will be cutting off his curls as soon as he has a say in it. Those who have curly hair wish they had straight hair, etc.

We came home on the subway (more densha time for Jamie, who is rapidly becoming insatiable), ate dinner, coloured with crayons, and then went to Browning for birthday cake for Tami. Jamie played for a good while, ate ice cream, and has had more sugar today than he has had in the last three months. He is finally asleep, and looking like an angel.

2005-08-06 23:05 (Kristen) John took Jamie to the market today on the subway, after we took him down to the station together to choose if he wanted to go on the subway or on the streetcar. He chose subway, and so he and John went and I took the streetcar to the library by myself. Jamie was so pleased to be taking public transportation today, that he threw up his arms into the air and cried out "densha!" with great joy as we left the house and told him where we were going.

John said that they took it easy going down, which meant that they stopped for a while to watch a backhoe and played about before making it to the market proper. He devoured an apple, and will eat apple cores, but left the peel. He chased pigeons around, and splashed in a local wading pool. He had some honeyboy cookies, but insisted on having some of John's ruggeleh* too. They met with John's dad, who chased Jamie around Loblaws ("Bye-ee!")while John and I spoke on the phone about which diapers we should buy to augment our cloth diaper usage (we use disposables outside the house, cloth at home still). He finally fell asleep on the way home while drinking back an entire juice box of mango juice.

John had done such a good job of stuffing Jamie with food and running him ragged that Jamie slept for almost three hours. When he woke up, we took him down to Taste of the Danforth (annual food festival that attracts hundreds of thousands, and means that parking is impossible for three days in our neighbourhood). He thought the mango couscous was all right, but really liked the calamari that we got at the newly reopened and rechristened Taste of the Silk Road. It was outstanding calamari, and I'm thinking that we should go and get more tomorrow. We visited John's parents, picked up some groceries, and played at the local park. Jamie has been eyeing one particular slide for a few weeks now, but hasn't gone down because it has a steep drop and is quite fast. He decided (and John and i decided) that he could go down it today if he wanted too, and he did so with great glee. Slides are "whee!" to him, and much "whee!" was heard. He is getting better at climbing up to the top of the slide (where a parent always is spotting him) and can control his descent quite well with his feet. He came home, reluctantly, and was still quite wound up after his bath. It took some convincing, but he finally was asleep around 10:30. More adventures tomorrow.

John points out that Jamie understands negotiation. We're trying to get him to understand that brushing his teeth is "bye bye bleah" in his mouth, and he's willing to listen to this argument. He still dislikes his diaper, and is listening when we explain that mummy and daddy don't wear diapers, and that other people he knows don't either. Diapers are to catch pee, and if he doesn't want to wear them, then he should use the potty. We're working more concertedly on the toilet training, because he really seems to be in the mindset where he could learn now, and quickly.

2005-08-07 21:25 (Kristen) I was pretty sleepy after another restless night, and was not the sharpest mom in the drawer this morning. Jamie got to watch a couple hours of tv, and ate a lot of watermelon this morning which didn't leave a lot of room for his tamago no gohan. We took him down to Taste of the Danforth for more squid and bubble tea, which he enjoyed immensely.

Given his couch potato morning, I wasn't expecting him to fall asleep anywhere near his usual time of 1:00. We walked over to Treasure Island after buying our squid and tea (and a coffee for a sadly dragging me), where Jamie had a great time playing with the Thomas/Brio tables. John spent his time wisely by picking out around $20 worth of small toys to take with us to Reno to keep Jamie amused day by day during our stay. He had to be pried away from the toys, and the tone of his voice was a sign that he might finally be ready to have his nap. He almost fell asleep on the way home, but a little mini fire engine roared by, and roused him from his pre-nap stupor. I took him out again after dropping John off at home, and he fell asleep almost instantly in the position you see in the photo. He was out like a light for almost an hour and a half.

After waking up, we took him out to the back yard for some naked running about as we did some gardening. John and I thought that we might let him do that as part of the preparation for learning to use the potty on a regular basis, and he rewarded us by peeing into a cup twice. Yay Jamie! kWe had dinner at John's parents' house, it being Sunday, and Jamie was happy to see Jack after yesterday's play at Loblaws. He calls Jack "oh oh," which is pretty close to "Ho Ho." Then it was off to the park for some last minute running around before bed. He enjoyed going "whee! bang!" down his new favourite slide, and thought it hilarious that I mugged being scared of the slide and insisted that I go down too. We saw the new moon on the way home, which he was very excited to see after a few days of no moon, had a bath, and put him to bed.

He likes having me and John there when he falls asleep now, and is now talking about going to sleep while he is nursing. Today's funny item was that Jamie loves to share, and he insisted that John eat two pieces of watermelon (which John despises), and John had to eat them because Jamie was sharing. Tee hee.

2005-08-08 21:25 (Kristen) I don't have much to report from the world of Jamie today; I was working, or trying to sleep, or too tired to do much of either, and so looking for quiet, non-physical things to do with him. Mio played with him this morning, Ken walked him this afternoon, and Ayami played with him this evening.

After his walk this afternoon, I took him over to Tai Tai's house for some watermelon and mango. He was very appreciative of the mango, particularly when I took him over to the bench across the street from the subway station to watch streetcars for an hour. He still protested when we left, but not as vociferously as he would have after only half an hour.

He played the scream and chase game, but has turned it into a run and hug game: he'll run from one person to the other, pinging back and forth between hugs. He kisses sometimes when he hugs, and is delighted whenever he is caught and hugged. He also enjoys cleaning the dishes, loading the dishwasher, and taking out the garbage. We're enjoying it while we can.

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

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