Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 9

2005-12-06 21:30 (John) Jamie woke up a little early this morning and was cranky much of the day. This together with his repeatedly touching his hand to his cheek and some odd blinking lead us to conclude that he is working on some more molars.

Mio and Taka did an excellent job of keeping up his spirits, chasing him around the house, building a new track layout, and (Taka) making little Ghibli animation figures to hang from Jamie's remaining birthday balloons.

We've put him to bed a little early, and hope he's feeling better in the morning.

2005-12-07 22:37 (Kristen) Jamie was up at 7 this morning, which was a bit of a surprise to us. Instead of having his usual apple, which we had thought to bring up last night for the first time, he decided that he was getting up and going downstairs to play trains. He's not quite himself--he's not eating well, and we have to chase him around with food to get him to eat more than a few mouthfuls at a time. He's also a little bloody minded, in a way that indicates that he's not feeling his best, and wants to watch a lot of television.

We're grooving with most of it, being accomodating without being permissive of outright bad behaviour, like throwing things or bad manners. Picking our fights, as it were. He's capable of being entertained, and Gary had him in stitches a few times today. It's cold out, and we're all feeling a little like hibernating.

John and I have been talking about how to get Jamie introduced to other children, and how we might be able to get him to play with other children his age. I will be signing him up for swimming lessons this winter (or will by trying to beat all the other soccer moms to the few registration spots on Saturday morning), and for a Sunday morning playgroup at one of our local community centres. I'm also going to try again for a spot in our local library children's reading series, which I am told is also popular. With any luck, we'll meet people that Jamie likes playing with, and we'll try to give him a bit of a social calendar. He hangs out with adults a little too much, and would benefit from kids his own age, or thereabouts.

John went to the Scrabble club tonight, and Jamie and I stayed at home, since Jamie wasn't really up to going. We had dinner at John's parents' house, but Jamie ate very little. When we got home, I offered him some kielbasa, bread with cheese, and some nori, and he was delighted with it. He just doesn't seem to like mapo tofu. He snacked further on banana, and koala cookies as we watched television together. He spent his time pressed into me, cuddled on my lap, and it was nice to have a "mummy and Jamie" night. I put him to bed early, around 9:15, and he fell asleep fairly quickly.

2005-12-08 20:28 (Kristen) Jamie was up around 7:30 this morning, looking for his apple. He wasn't in a great mood, however, as he was easily upset and fragile before we got breakfast into him. He was fine by 9:00, and spent his morning in the usual way.Ken took him for a walk this afternoon, after a lunch of polenta, tomatoes, and cheese. It was nice to get a good lunch into him, and it may have contributed to his 3 hour and 15 minute nap this afternoon. He woke up on the way back home, and was carried the rest of the way. John, Jamie, and I had an early dinner (tri-color rotini with salmon in a cream sauce, thanks to john, yum), and had a quiet evening in. He watched Spirited Away a few times, played with trains, Gary, and Ayami, and is tired quite early in the evening. It's 8:34 now, and we're about to head off for his bath, and for bed.

2005-12-09 10:25 (John) We had 5–10 cm of snow last night, and the temperature (-3°C or 27°F) was just cool enough that the snow was still fluffy. It took us an hour to shovel it all away, with Jamie taking a passing interest in using his little shovel, but mostly enjoying making tracks in snow and taking in the changed landscape.

(Kristen) He slept for about two hours this afternoon before being woken by a crowd of enthusiastic carollers at the Second Cup. He was pleased to be carried around and to be played with, but wasn't sure about the group of happy singers. Eventually he and John left for the subway, to pick up sushi at Ichi Riki for Mio's birthday dinner at Browning tonight.

Today's little adventure there involved John forgetting the cardinal rule of diaper safety: always assume the diaper is loaded. He didn't realize that there was more in Jamie's diaper than usual when he changed Jamie and Jamie sat on John's knee. It wasn't until they were on the bus coming home that John realized that the suspicious smell wafting to his nose was coming from his jeans, where Jamie had sat. After levitating, he called me to come quickly with a pair of jeans to change into.

Jamie was tired tonight, and was not in the mood to apologize to Mio after he whacked her in the face (by accident) this evening. All night, we were trying to get him to apologize, but he refused, even when it meant that Mio couldn't play with him and he wasn't allowed to have ice cream cake without apologizing. We finally got what we think was an apology out of him as we were at the door to go home. Yet another "sorry" fight with our favourite two year old. It goes with the fights we've had for the last two mornings when I've told him not to bang the floor, and that Mio gets a chance to eat before she plays with him. Two years old... what a trip.

(John) On the subway ride to Ichiriki, Jamie understood the conductor announcing the next stop as Broadview, and was very excited. I think I need to take him on the subway more often.

2005-12-10 21:00 (John) When Jamie woke up at 8:00 this morning, Kristen was at the local community centre signing him up for various programmes for the new year. He was a little unhappy for about ten minutes, but soon calmed down with an apple and Totoro. By the time Kristen came home forty-five minutes later, he was changed out of a full diaper, dressed, and ready for the day.

I drove Jamie down to the St. Lawrence Market as usual, thinking that he might fall asleep there as he has the last few weeks. He was full of energy though, spinning in tight orbits around the stroller, fuelled along the way with a samosa, some turkey kielbasa, a half pint of raspberries and an apple. He was particularly endearing visiting Nupur of Raani Foods, replying with his perkiest "Okay!" to each of her questions, most of which pertained to his interest in samosas. Wei at Family Foods was helpful as usual, letting me wash the raspberries in the back room so that I could pick out my groceries while Jamie quietly ate the soon to be paid for berries in his stroller.

At Steve's, Jamie insisted on liberating a family of rubber pigs, similar to the family of rubber ducks that live in our bathroom. I think Jamie likes pigs, from watching Babe and Spirited Away; and he made quiet snuffling and snorting noises the rest of the day.

He was looking drowsy on the drive down to Loblaws so I put him in the stroller instead of the shopping cart, and sure enough he fell asleep before we cleared the produce section. After I finished shopping, we went upstairs for a couple of hours of father and son quiet time, marred only by the Queen's Quay Loblaws elevator's abysmal service record: I took our full shopping cart of groceries and Jamie in the stroller upstairs, but the elevator was unavailable to take us back down.

We then drove to Sanko to pick up Kristen and Mio up, and spent a quiet evening in. Dinner was the third iteration of Kristen's polenta, which she has been practising since Agnes made us some in Tübingen.

2005-12-11 21:33 (Kristen) This morning, Jamie was running around downstairs looking for Mio. We heard him in the kitchen and in the dining/play room, calling out "Mio? No. Mio? No." as he went form place to place. Mio had been downstairs a few minutes previously, and as Jamie passed by us in the living room, John called out that Mio had gone upstairs. Jamie gave John a look best described as a "well, d'uh!" look, and merrily kept on playing at looking for Mio.

We took Jamie Christmas shopping, and he was pretty tired when we put him in the stroller at 1:30. We expected him to fall asleep by the time we reached the subway, but his stroller is getting a little small for him (yipes!) and he has trouble reclining without catching his head on the roof (although once he is reclined fully there is no problem). So, he was still awake by the time we got on the subway, and that was that. He stayed awake until almost 2:45, when he finally fell asleep as I took him outside into the cold air. The fresh air worked its magic, and he was asleep in less than five minutes. John and I finished our shopping, and had time to have some ice cream cones (mostly) before Jamie woke up.

Dinner was at Browning tonight, because we'll be at the annual Oshawa club Christmas dinner tomorrow, and salmon dinner cannot be missed-- only rescheduled. Jamie had his usual gleeful time chasing Gary, Ayami, Daniel, and Ross about, and is cheerfully knocking over blocks in the dining room as we speak.

John asks me to add that Jamie, while in the bath tonight, quite clearly said "two pigs" in reference to his new bath toys, and that he defnitely included the pluralizing "s." He's going to be babbling in full sentences before we know it.

2005-12-12 23:26 (Kristen) The cold continues to hold sway over Toronto, as the mercury dipped to -8 during the day and plunged to -16 tonight. We've wrapped Jamie up in his heavy-duty gloves, snowsuit, boots, blankets and the newly hated scarf whenever he goes out, and it's just a Good Idea. He has learned to put up with his "mitties" (his word), but the scarf was beyond the pale. He stopped complaining in the wind, however, so he may be starting to see things our way.

Ken took him for a walk this afternoon, but Jamie woke up when I took his mitties off in the Second Cup and was wide awake. No amount of playing boring would get him to sleep again, and that was that. He'd been asleep for an hour and a half at that point, but was in a good enough mood to like the idea of going to Treasure Island to play with the trains there for an hour and a half. I bought a puzzle for him before we left, and I think that we buy more things from Treasure Island for him out of a sense of guilt for the amount of time we've let him run around playing with their trains. And because he'd like them, of course.

Today he played with the trains, and also with some little rabbits and kittens that have doll house furniture and the car garage. He played with a little girl who was about two weeks older than him, and they seemed to co-exist well enough. At one point, however, I turned to see that she was having a "moment," where she told her caregiver that she didn't want to share. Jamie, who presumably was the possessor of the thing not shared, gave the little girl the item in his hand, and when she argued with her caregiver, looked at her seriously, leaned over, and stroked her hair once with a kind gesture. I was very pleased with him.

We picked up John on the way home, who took Jamie to his mom's for some miso shiru while I got ready to go out for dinner. We went to the annual Oshawa Scrabble Club's Christmas party, complete with competitive gift giving and fun. Jamie and I sang songs on the way until he got bored, and then we looked for GO trains along the highway. That was a very satisfying activity, and kept him happy until we got to the party in Whitby. Once there, he ate cheese and other items from the salad bar, some of my dinner and some of John's, and a good deal of the chocolate cake for dessert. "Cake! Cake!"

He played with puzzles, read books, and ran around. He found a little girl about five years old named Cassandra, and was utterly smitten with her. She was with him too, and Jamie knelt beside her chair, hanging onto the arm, and gazed up at her while she smiled back and talked with him. At one point she got up, and he gave her a hug, which was quite unusual. He gave her two or three, in fact, by the end of the evening, and they enjoyed each other's company quite a bit. She sought him out at one point, and told me with a quiet smile that Jamie was her friend. As they were leaving, Cassandra (her name) said that we would meet again, and I sincerely hope that we do.

By 9:45, Jamie was expired, and so we changed him into his pajamas, and put him in the car. He fell asleep quickly, and sleeps now in bed, peaceful and sweet.

(John) This morning, Jamie noticed his Christmas postcard from Craig Rowland, which I had posted on the freezer where he keeps his magnetic letters and Thomas tracks. He pulled it off the freezer and came running excitedly to me yelling "densha!": the postcard showed a festive Christmas train.

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

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