Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 2

2005-10-18 21:45 (John) Two of our ongoing early childhood development projects are to get Jamie to sleep through the night, and to get him to apologize promptly when he does something wrong.

We made some progress on the first task, as I tested the hypothesis that Jamie wakes up around 7:00 A.M. not because he's hungry or thirsty, or because it's too bright outside, but because he's cold. He won't tolerate a blanket unless the temperature is less than about 10°C you see, thanks to his Viking blood. So at about 5:30, I moved closer to him in bed, and he instantly rolled into my armpit and started leaching all the warmth from my body, then slept a good half hour later than he usually does.

I guess we made some progress on the other one too. When Jamie gets frustrated, he pounds his hands on whatever surface is convenient, like a backbencher. At dinner, he pounded his hand on Mom, which is a big no-no. It took us Mio, Kristen and me a very long and patient hour to get him to apologize, making him feel calm and secure enough to be able to do so without feeling coerced.

(Kristen) Jamie has, for the last few nights, laid all of John's clean clothes (pajama top and bottom, t-shirt) out on the bathroom floor and made a nest of them. He lays one item down, declares "nest," and we are to pile more clothes around him. He will stay there for minutes, just resting and thinking. Once in a while, he'll take the t-shirt and stick his feet through the arms, and pull the bottom of the shirt up to his chin. And there can't be wrinkles in the base shirt that he's lying on (I made the mistake of not smoothing a sleeve). Beyond cute.

2005-10-19 21:45 (John) Mom went to her first Ashtanga Yoga class this morning, and boy are her arms tired. Jamie spent a quiet morning with a light appetite; we think his molars are on the move again. He did seem to have a good night's sleep after spending the last couple of cold hours of la madrugada basking in his father's armpits.

He fell right asleep as soon as I took him out for his walk, but woke up after an hour asking for Mio, then after another forty minutes asking for Rice Krispie squares, and wouldn't be put off. We had dinner at my Mom's, and then all through the evening on the way to and from the Scrabble club we kept thinking he was going to fall asleep, but he didn't. Certainly not on the way back home, when he chanted "Mio Taka Gary Ayami!" for twenty minutes.

At the club, he has a 14-month-old friend named Leo, who has a race car on a string that he is willing to share, which for a toddler is pretty much the definition of a friend. I must find some string for Jamie's collection of vehicles.

Something relatively new is that when he gets angry or frustrated, he pounds his fists on things, then gets upset that his hands hurt. Not sure what to do about this.

2005-10-20 21:45 (John) Jamie slept okay again last night, so the idea of warming him up at about 5:00 A.M. definitely seems to work. It was cool and rainy, and altogether good practice weather for our trip to London next month, preparations for which occupied a good deal of our day. I think Jamie will have a good time on the trip; the main thing I'm worried about is that he'll miss all of his friends here, but as that hasn't happened on past trips, I'm sure I'm just fretting needlessly. He'll enjoy spending time with Kristen's mom, and riding the Tube, and exploring new surroundings.

We took him shopping for new suitcases in the afternoon, as we don't think we our current 30" suitcase can be packed in such a way that it will fit new weight restrictions on checked baggage, or be easily manageable on a train. Jamie fell asleep as we reached Yonge station, after happily if somewhat blearily enjoying the subway ride, and slept all the way home, even staying asleep through the tricky transition indoors when it started to rain. He woke up in a good mood, and spent the rest of the day quietly playing indoors with his trains and his Thomas the Tank Engine jigsaw puzzles, or watching Pingu with Gary and Mio.

We were too tired to cook, so we heated up some fish sticks and french fries and mixed vegetables, of which we both had fond childhood memories. Jamie ate well of everything, though he wasn't as excited as he was say by huachinango tikinchik.

2005-10-21 23:02 (Kristen) Jamie slept well again last night, which makes us think that the reason that he was waking up so early was definitely because he was cold. He is a little blast furnace usually, and he doesn't let us put blankets on him because (as far as I can tell) they interfere with his arm and leg movement. You have to make sure your feet are untrammelled when you're asleep so that you can get the most "oomph" possible when kicking Dad's kidneys. He snuggles up close to John, and sleeps through the night. I'm enjoying this.

That said, we were woken up at 5:00 by a friendly but clueless European calling to ask John a question (let's hear it for a seven hour time difference!). Jamie slept through the phone ringing, but it took a little while for John and me to fall back asleep. We were a little zombie-like today, while Jamie was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He enjoyed looking at the city paving crew replacing the sidewalks across the street, played a good deal with trains, and also with his puzzles, which he is increasingly fond of. The Thomas train equipment costs a fortune, but is worth every cent for the amount of time he spends playing with it. He ate a good breakfast again, of english muffin with honey, "special egg" (a scrambled egg with basil, garlic powder, and cheese), and grapes. He's expressing more and more preferences for this and that beyond the "not X!" "not y!" stage. This evening, he pointed to the Rubberdubbers short that he was going to watch, since he was only getting one. John says that it was the first time that he had pointed to what he wanted, instead (I assume) of just answering "is this the one?" with a yes or no.

In other news, we played in the park after he woke up from his afternoon nap, and we cuddled together as he watched Pingu in the basement with Gary, Ayami, and Mio. We played with trains, and ran down the alley in search of raccoons who might be eating "bleah" on the way home from Tom and Michelle's for dinner. He is fascinated with the raccoons, and expressed excitement by spinninng and exclaiming when I took him downstairs to look out the back door in case the raccoons were in the compost again. (No luck). He loves to spin, and to make other people spin around and around. He was also very helpful today, and "did dishes" (played with soap bubbles and scrubbed a plastic bowl or two to make more bubbles). He wants to be of help and be useful. He'll like making cookies.

We're starting to toilet train hiim with a little more intent. Yesterday, he wore his "big boy underwear" all morning, and didn't have an accident (he used the potty to no success a few times, but no accidents are no accidents). He was wearing them again this evening, and did have an accident, but the good part was that he realized that he was wet, and that peeing was the reason. Hopefully, he'll see using a potty as a better option than using a diaper.

(John) Two firsts today: Jamie spontaneously said "Bless you!" when I sneezed loudly in the next room, and when we were choosing which episode of Rubbadubbers to watch, he pointed at the one he wanted. The second thing is a huge step, as it means he's finally willing to do one of several things that he wants to do and not do the others.

2005-10-22 24:10 (John) I had the rare treat today of spending almost my entire waking day with Jamie today, something I hadn't been able to do since we visited Jane's cabin. I slept in as I was up late watching Hurricane Wilma's slow progress over Puerto Morelos, and it was about noon by the time Jamie and I left for the St. Lawrence Market with my mom.

Jamie ate a "Tai Tai stick" (my mom's nouvelle onigiri*) on the way down, and fell asleep as soon as we got to to the North Building. He stayed peacefully asleep as we shopped for our regular groceries as well as supplies for tomorrow's baby shower for Peter and Leslie, but woke up after only an hour and a half when someone slammed a dumpster# lid.

He was in a mellow mood though, munched one of Nupur's chicken samosas, and happily chatted with my mom about groceries at Loblaws. My mom is gratified that he is careful to use Japanese words for things when talking to her. She bought him a bag of mung bean sprouts, which he apparently loves to eat raw or cooked.

We drove home through the grey, rainy day, dropped my Mom off at home, then our stuff at our house (Mio ran him around the house for half an hour while I did this) and headed back out to find Kristen, who was out shopping at Bloor and Yonge (more trip stuff).

Kristen was feeling a little run down, so Jamie and I went to my parents' house for dinner on our own. Jamie as usual was very fish-focussed, vigorously scraping the pan hoping to loosen up even the tiniest scrap of cod batter. He also ate some salad and more dressing (when he started to fill up, he sucked the dressing off of cucumbers and politely put them back on his plate), rice and veggies.

We walked home in the rain, giving Jamie's boots and big yellow raincoat a workout. When he was putting his hands in his raincoat with its elasticized cuffs, he pointed out that you have to make a "baby hand" (fist) to get it through the elastic before you can make a "mommy hand" (his terms). His hands, baby or mommy, got quite cold on the way home, but only because he insisted on picking up and examining wet leaves. He walked all the way up to Ellerbeck, too, quite the hike.

(Kristen) Jamie and I had fun playing with trains this morning and I did some cleaning up around him while we were waiting for John to get ready to go to the market. He isn't watching much television upstairs lately, and is content instead to play with his toys. He does watch a lot of Pingu in the basement with Gary, however. When Gary starts working full time again, Jamie's going to be in for a little bit of an adjustment.

When I was out running errands, I managed to buy him six little pairs of underwear. I think that we'll need more than usual, since he had a number of accidents today when he was wearing his "big boy underwear." He's learning that when he has a little feeling, he gets wet, and maybe he should talk to me first and find a potty. He's sitting on the potty *after* the accidents, but it just means that I have to get him to sit on the potty more often, in an attempt to preempt any accidents. He gets so involved in what he is doing, however, that it's hard to convince him to do that. He isn't objecting to the new underwear, however, which is good. This leads me to the next point, which is that it is unusually difficult (at least at the Bay) to find size 2 underwear for boys. Lots of size 6, weirdly, but not much smaller than that. What they did have was pretty plain (no SpongeBob, even), so my next task is finding underwear that has something on it, and isn't white.

Because Jamie's playroom is also the dining room, I had to move all of his toys upstairs to his room so that we can have the baby shower for our friends Leslie and Peter in the dining room. He was a little disturbed that his toys weren't where he had left them, but soon was building track happily in his room. I took the opportunity to go through all his toys and put pieces together, and also to sort out what he plays with and what he's too old for. He has so many toys that he doesn't know that he has a good number of them, and so I'm going to divide them into upstairs and downstairs toys. That way, he'll have a better sense of what he has, and I'll have a better sense of what he likes to play with, and what can be boxed up for the next child, when and if that happens.

He was happy to reacquaint himself with a number of toys, including a baby doll that he made me buy at a garage sale in the summer. He was very tender and loving with it, making sure that it had a toy when it was sitting on my lap, and being well cared for. When it was time for his bath, we made sure that Baby was lying on the bed, with a blanket on that Jamie insisted that he put on himself, but allowed me to help when he ran into difficulties. He really must observe other moms with babies, or is just instinctively holding the baby the way he remembers being held, because I'm very impressed with his support of the Baby's head, and how he holds it firmly against his chest, patting its little back or head.

2005-10-23 22:52 (Kristen) After all the cleaning and organizing, we had a baby shower for Leslie and Peter at the house today. Jamie had a marvellous time chasing Daniel and Ross around, and eventually ended up in the basement (with a squeal of utter delight) with Mio, Taka, Gary, Ayami, Ross, and Daniel. Gary made Jamie laugh hysterically with a panda puppet that would spit out whatever it "ate." We hope that Gary's sense of humour will age along with Jamie's.

Jamie napped late, from 1:50 or so, for about two hours. John took him for a walk while the party went on, which was very sweet of him. After playing in the basement and watching Pingu, we went to Tai Tai's for dinner. We are all very concerned about their house and friends in Puerto Morelos, which was right in the path of Hurricane Wilma for almost 36 hours. The news is bad: the Ojo de Agua, the hotel that we were planning to stay at, is reportedly gone, as are most of the beachfront properties. Everything is under water, but we think that John's parents' house is mostly OK. We were a little stressed as we talked to relatives on the phone, and Jamie was picking up on that stress. He did enjoy playing with blocks, however, and is quite happy to know what they are properly for. Eventually, he got too tired and we headed back home.

John was out, and we waited for him to get home. He called to say that he was going to be later, and so we tried to get started on the bath. Jamie was a little too tired, however, and wanted to do anything and everything but get ready for it. Finally, John got home and took over, which was good. A change of parent can sometimes do wonders. They're in there now, and I think that tooth brushing is finally over and the bath can begin.

(John) Jamie continued to obsessively count things, especially up to five.

2005-10-24 21:20 (John) It's been yet another in a long series of grey, blustery, drizzly days that are leading inexorably to November and winter. Jamie sleeps well on his naps, but is not especially interested in going outside and I can't blame him.

We ran into Gary and Ayami just as we were leaving the Second Cup, Rice Krispies square in hand (sometimes he will appear to wake up fully in a nap but will fall back asleep in a minute or two, I know he's serious about waking up when he asks for his "Krispie!"), and Gary carried him all the way home, while Jamie pointed out big ("Mommy") and little ("Baby") trees and fallen leaves.

Salmon dinner as usual tonight at Browning, which is as far as Jamie is concerned a brief (and welcome interlude) between playing with Ross's trains and playing "Bye!" with everyone in the house.

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

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