Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 0

2005-10-04 22:06 (Kristen) Jamie was up before 8:00 this morning, and was wide awake and bushy tailed by 8:30. He was a little off, and didn't like the glue on his chin, but he managed to do a number of things with Mio, like colour, play with trains, and other important kid jobs until around 11:00. He was obviously tired, and so Mio took him for a walk in the stroller, letting him fall asleep around 11:20. Mio was beyond great today, as she dealt with a tired, easily upset baby. We weren't willing ot have Jamie sleep his regular nap at that point, two hours early, because he hadn't eaten much, and so we woke him up an hour later to have something to eat. It would have been worse if we had let him sleep, as he would have woken up *starving*. Jamie was off his food for much of the day, making us think that his mouth was still hurting him on the inside, but he agreed to eat a lot of grapes and some special scrambled egg that I made for him with soft, buttery toast.

John took him for his afternoon walk, and came back with a wide-awake baby around 2:15. I took Jamie out then, letting him run a bit here and there; although it was clear that he was very tired, and he drooped occasionally, he Did Not Sleep. Around 4:00, we ran into Claire Orchard and her son Oscar, and Jamie and Oscar happily played together for an hour before we had to head off again to try again at getting Jamie to sleep. No luck, but John called and we decided to have an early dinner at Mocha Mocha, since neither of us was in any shape to cook. Jamie enjoyed his Orangina and quesadilla (which he alternately called "pizza" and "cake," both high praise from him), and seeing John's mother, who decided to come and join us. John also brought Jamie's frog, which Jamie refers to as "baby frog," and alternately holds tenderly like a little baby and throws around in imitation of jumping. Jamie wasn't that interested in Baby Frog, and wanted to be In Motion so we ate and left, walking home partway with John's mom. Jamie almost fell asleep on the way home, but no...at this point, since it was after 6, we weren't sad about that and instead decided to put him to bed early.

One problem today with his injury is that he doesn't like the glue on his chin. John and I caught him picking at it quietly, when he managed to get about a quarter of it off on one side. So, much of today has been explaining to him that he shouldn't pick it because it will hurt (no pick...itai itai*). He remembers most of the time, but then a tired little hand will drift up and start to work away again at the glue. We're seeing our regular doctor tomorrow, and she may have a bit of touch-up glue to put on his chin, hopefully.

When we got in, Mio came downstairs and I must have looked pretty tired, as she volunteered to take care of Jamie for an hour while I took a nap. She is great. Have I said this recently? What a nice nice thing to do. I slept for an hour, and then John woke me up to help him to give Jamie his bath. It went quickly, and we had Jamie in bed by 8:45. He fell asleep around 9:15, which was much much earlier than usual, but boy did he need it. He woke up once since, with gas pains, but he's asleep again. Poor lamb. I hope that tomorrow will be better for him.

2005-10-05 23:35 (Kristen) Jamie woke up four or five times last night, despite a dose of Tempra, which he hasn't done in weeks. We managed to satisfy him with some water in a glass with a straw each time, but it was deeply unusual. He was awake before 8 again this morning, but didn't get up until close to 8:30. He ate some toast for breakfast and played well with Mio at the park, and coloured using his easel, which he really is enjoying. He wasn't very hungry again: it may be that his mouth was hurting. The inside of his lip looks painful, like he is working on the world's biggest canker sore. I hope that it will pass quickly.

After toast, beans, and scrambled egg for lunch, courtesy of Mom, Jamie went for a walk with John. He fell asleep around 1:30, and slept right through his appointment with Dr. Kennedy to follow up on his lip. She said that he should be all right, but that we should keep an eye out for infection and keep the area dry... not easy, since he's drooling again like a faucet. See photos below for images that indicate how much. He woke up horribly, terribly unhappy and in pain; he kept crying "itai! itai!" (it hurts!) but it took half an hour of work and the television to finally get him to snap out of the hysterical place he'd found himself in. It was pretty upsetting for all concerned. However, he played with Ross (we were over at Browning after picking up Ross from school), ate lots of cantaloupe and sembei*, drank apple juice, and was in a better state before we headed to John's parents' place for dinner.

He went with us to the Scrabble club, and played, read books, and ate grapes. He went to bed relatively easily, as he was quite tired, but tomorrow won't be much easier on him as we go to have Jamie's root canal done. It will be under a general anaesthetic, and we're pretty convinced (John: hoping) that all will go well. We'll all be up at 6:30, however, for a 7:30 appointment, and will be at the dentist's office for at least four hours. I'm taking work with me, and Jamie's baby frog just in case.

(John) Jamie uses the Japanese word "ookii" to mean both "big" and "too big", and delighted today in pointing out whenever something was too big to fit in something else.

2005-10-06 21:30 (John) I didn't sleep much last night because I was worried about how to keep Jamie asleep without giving him water after midnight (he needed an empty stomach because he would be under general anaesthesia), but as it turned out he had a fairly calm night. We were all up at around 6:00, then Jamie fell back asleep long enough for me to have breakfast, and woke up fairly happily but much earlier than usual at 7:00 to take the bus and subway to the oral surgery clinic.

His wounds from his fall are still hurting him quite a bit, and he was happy to take the Tempra we offered him in preparation for his ordeal. At the clinic, they assigned us to a recovery room and gave Jamie some Verced and Ketamine, which in just a few minutes gave him a goofy grin and made him completely wobbly. We watched Totoro for a few minutes, then carried Jamie to the dentist's chair and helped keep him calm until the anaesthesia took effect. We were called back half an hour later with the news that the decay was limited to the obvious cavity and a small patch on the adjacent tooth, and that the dentist was going to apply some sealant to his molars, but they required no further treatment.

Rather relieved, we waited another half hour or so until the operation was over and Jamie was transferred back to the recovery bed. It took him a little less than an hour to wake up, during which time I tried to sleep and Kristen had breakfast. When he woke up, he consumed in quick succession a personal best of four freezies*, and asked for more all the way home in my dad's car.

As we were warned, he remained quite unsteady on his feet until the end of his afternoon, but he ate quite well and napped his normal duration, and seems to be more or less his usual if tired self as I write this. Of course, he's on Children's Advil now, and will probably stay on it for at least another day, because of the work done along his gum line, and the amount of pressure the dentist had to put on the bruises from his fall.

2005-10-07 21:57 (Kristen) Jamie seemed his normal self when he woke up this morning, but has been a little off his game all day. Some of it seems to be because his mouth hurts, which is to be expected, but some of it may be because he's fighting off a cold. His nose was running all day, he wasn't sleeping as well as he could have, and he's been warm (not quite hot) to the touch for many parts of the day. It's so hard to figure out what is what: is it recovering from the surgery, teething (one of his top teeth is close to breakthrough), or a virus? We continue to ply him with Children's Advil and Tylenol Cold and Cough medicine (not at the same time, of course), and hope that something will do the trick.

His appetite has been off all day, which is another indicator of his not feeling very well. He has been hyper-focused on his trains, and has spent ten minutes watching TV to every half hour to forty minutes of intense train management. He is also demanding a good deal of adult intervention with track problems and train derailments. The Mummy or Daddy Train must go around the track, but only in accordance with the Master Plan of the Rail Baron that is Jamie. He didn't fall asleep at his usual time this afternoon for his nap, despite the grey weather, which normally works like a charm. When he did fall asleep a couple of hours late, it was only for an hour and a half or so. Here's hoping for a good night's sleep for everyone.

He did have a great time chasing Ross and Daniel around tonight, and did finally get some dinner into himself. He fell asleep in my arms while watching John have a shower, and hasn't stirred since.

2005-10-08 22:11 (Kristen) Jamie woke up early today and was tired enough to talk about being tired but not tired enough to do something about it. I was a zombie, and Mio saved me by looking after Jamie while I ate, dressed, and made coffee. Yay Mio! Jamie was pinging back and forth between watching ten minute (or less) snippets of whatever was on tv, and his trains. Sometimes he drew with his crayons, and he spent a successful half hour putting puzzles together (he can do two and four piece puzzles together on his own with some verbal prompting for the four piece ones, and is working on six and twelve piece puzzles with manual help). He also played at "sleeping," which meant lying on the couch and announcing that he was "nene." Everyone "nene-ed" today: "Mummy nene? Papa nene? Mio nene?" When we were getting him ready to come upstairs, I told him that his trains were "nene." He then took them off the track and laid all the cars down on their sides. Not all of them stayed asleep, of course, but eventually all of them were on their sides and we were up the stairs to bed. (John: in the bath, Jamie lay down beside with me, and insisted that we take a nap with a rubber duck and a rubber fish.)

It was Market Day, and John's mom went with Jamie and John instead of John's dad. It was a crazy day there, as many people who don't normally go to the market decided that they just had to do their Thanksgiving shopping today. Jamie was completely rangy, as he fell asleep in the car on the way to pick up John's mom, and woke up twenty minutes later at the Market. Uh oh. John tried, and failed, thanks to an interesting set of church bells, to get Jamie to go back to sleep, and instead Jamie spent his time pinging around like a human pinball. It was too hard for John's mom to keep up with him, and she was a little frustrated. Finally they got Jamie to sleep around three, and he slept in the car until they got home around four-twenty. Then he was awake again for the rest of the day. Gngh. At least I'd had a nap while they were out, so I was in better shape to look after Jamie with Mio's help.

Jamie does have a cold, and that contributed to his unwillingness to eat, and to his general off-ness.

(John) I believe that his short attention span and general fullness with beans is due in large part to stimulant effect of the pseudoephedrine# decongestant we're giving him. I hope he doesn't have to stay on it much longer.

On the bright side, he managed to spit out for the first time since we started training him a few months back to rinse his mouth (mogu mogu) and then spit (bleah) before brushing his teeth. Up until today he just swallowed the rinse water. If he does this consistently for a few weeks, we'll be able to start him on fluoridated toothpaste.

The house is surprisingly clean despite our cleaning lady being on bereavement leave this month following the death of her father. That's because a good deal of Jamie's nervous energy has gone to vacuuming the house, or when he's tired, supervising other vacuumers.

2005-10-09 22:30 (Kristen) Jamie woke up in a great mood, and was much more his old self today. He had a big breakfast for the first time in days, and I think that really helped him to start feeling better. He didn't watch very much television, and was happy to play with toys, crayons, and puzzles. Yay!

We needed to make a Toys R Us run, and picked up some birthday presents while we were at it. Jamie was overwhelmed by the store, and kept saying "please mummy! please mummy!" everytime he saw something that he liked. He isn't avaricious...he wasn't demanding to own anything (I don't think that he knows what that means yet)...he just wanted to play with everthing. We were all done in in less than ten minutes, but we left with Toby, James, Annie and Clarabelle, and some crayons and paper for his birthday. We also got a bulldozer (Tonka) and a backhoe, which Jamie has been obsessed with all day. It's backhoe this and backhoe that, and backhoe had to floss his "teeth" tonight before Jamie would.

We came back from Toys R Us to meet the workmen who were to take away our old washer and dryer. Jamie played with Mio, Gary, Taka, and Ayami while we ran around helping the workers. Then it was well past time for a nap, and he melted down into unconsciousness for a three-hour nap. He woke up just in time for Thanksgiving dinner, which he ate with much gusto. He played well with his Great Aunt Tomoko, and danced when we sang Japanese songs and when he asked Ho Ho to play the piano. Now it's time for bed, and it's well past time but it was a much much better day than we've had in a week.

2005-10-10 22:01 (Kristen) Jamie went to sleep with the backhoe last night, and stirred in protest when we tried to take it from him after he was asleep. He is very attached to it, and we finally got him to go outside today (admittedly, it was a cold and grey day) by saying that he should introduce the backhoe to the park. That was a great idea, and backhoe came back with dirt in its teeth. Yum, dirt.

He went for a walk with John this afternoon, but didn't fall asleep until 2:45, at which time John was about ready to collapse himself. They hung out on a Starbuck's patio until Jamie woke up again, almost two hours later. Then they walked back, visited John's mom, and got stuck on Ellerbeck when Jamie saw an elephant-shaped children's slide for the second time in two days. He refused to go on until he had gone down the slide a number of times, and the man who had put the slide on the side of the street for claiming by any passersby was deeply amused. His son, who was about six and now too big for the slide, was not, and asked John to ask Jamie to stop going down the boy's slide. John said "one more time," and Jamie grinned at him and said "ni," or "two" in Japanese. After John got Jamie home, he went back with a dolly and got the slide, so we now have two slides and will likely have a third soon. You can't have too many slides.

Jamie came in for a snack, played with Gary, Ayami, and Mio, and they brought Jamie over to Browning, where John and I were making dinner. He had fun playing with trains, although he wasn't very hungry, and was a very demanding Rail Baron. There was a hilarious period where Jamie was trying to make people juggle like Taka does, and he would also try himself after making other people try it. Now we're home, it's late, and we hope that he'll fall asleep quickly and sleep better tonight.

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

Back to Vol. 0 No. 99, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 1 No. 1.