Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 27

2006-04-11 20:18 (Kristen) Jamie woke up at 8:45, after sleeping well. He did have a runny nose, and some green "goopies," but the runny nose was only itermittent. As we've all had colds lately, we're unsure if a cold is resurging, or if it's a new cold. Ick.

He didn't want to go outside this morning, despite the beauty of the day, but did go over to Browning for lunch with Gary and Ayami. He was very good with his "big boy underwear," and had no accidents. He walked with Ken, and slept a good long while. When he woke up, we (Jamie and I) went to have some more mango with John's parents, and to say hello. We talked on the front walk, as we didn't want to go in the house and leave our cold germs lying about. Then it was time to go home, where Jamie happily played with Clare, Iain, and Alexandria by running around, lying on rocks, playing with balls, and chasing Alexandria's kitten, Tulip.

A diaper change drove us inside, finally, where Jamie has spend a leisurely evening watching Elmo and Night on the Galactic Railroad, a Japanese anime. I'm off for a shower, and Jamie (I hope) will be in bed a little earlier tonight than last night.

2006-04-12 19:46 (Kristen) Jamie slept fitfully last night, as did John and I. We were the zombie family this morning, but still managed to keep ourselves going. Jamie ate a relatively good breakfast but hasn't enjoyed liquids (his nose is quite stuffed), and took a time out to see the city plant a tree next door. He was quite excited that the tree was going to get bigger, and bigger, and bigger! (his exclamation mark), just like him.

The weather was iffy, and so we stayed indoors for the morning. He was all right, but not entirely himself. Gary and Ayami came upstairs and played with him while I made lunch (miso shiru* and rice), but he didn't eat much. Then John took him to Sobey's, because Jamie had eaten the last popsicle with lunch (hey, it's water with some fruit solids, so it's not a bad thing when he's sick), in the hope that Jamie would fall asleep. No such luck. Jamie stayed awake until 3:30, when John wearily gave up and came home. They had played with a dog, and at the Withrow playground, and we debated if it was a lack of exercise, his cold, or a break in routine that kept him up so long. (John: he fell asleep on the way home, just as we turned the corner onto our block.) I took over, and we went to the Second Cup for Jamie's continued nap. He finally slept for two hours, relatively solidly (enough that I could clip his nails), and woke up at 5:30, asking for hot chocolate. He drank some, ate the whipped cream (the particular barista we ordered from knows that Jamie likes 1/3 whipped cream to 2/3 hot chocolate). When John called to say that he was at Mocha Mocha, I told Jamie that Papa was waiting for us at the restaurant and that we were going to meet him. "Yay!" Jamie exclaimed, and threw his arms in the air. Jamie is our own personal booster.

He didn't eat much for dinner, which I rather expected, and was rather kinetic (his hot chocolate, perhaps?). John drove us home in the rain, and went off to Scrabble. We figure that Jamie isn't in the best of shape, and should go to bed earlier than a night at Scrabble would allow. He's curled up with Gary, watching Ice Age, and I'll be dragging him up to bed in about an hour.

2006-04-13 23:39 (Kristen) Jamie woke up around 8 in a fairly good mood, and was not as contrary as he has been lately. We had breakfast, and while he wasn't happy at all about getting into the car to go to Hakobune (there were trains that hadn't been played with yet), he settled down and was happy to arrive at daycare. I had some work to do at the university, and walked over to meet John and Jamie at Hakobune for lunch. Jamie was happy to see me, and made a spot for me on the bench they were sitting on. Because it's Easter on Sunday, Jamie made an Easter basket, with a plastic egg, a real egg, and some treats, out of egg cartons and a pipe cleaner (with, I suspect, a great deal of help). He liked the chocolate egg in the plastic egg, the stickers, and the balloon (an Easter present from Sensei). The balloon kept us happy until it was time to get into the car.

His cold is better, although he still is sniffling. He slept for an hour and a half with Ken walking him, and then demanded to go to the sandbox at Withrow park. I met John and Jamie there after picking up a pizza slice on my way (no lunch...bad mummy). Jamie ate half my pizza slice after clambering about the play structures. I was impressed with his ability to shinny up ladders and other bits with no trouble at all, and Jamie was delighted to be a Jamie monkey. I wasn't paying attention to the Clouds of Doom that were gathering, and when the first drops fell, the crowded playground cleared out remarkably quickly. Jamie felt that sitting in the tunnel in the play structure would be sufficient, but was lured into the stroller with a promise of pizza. We ran for the toy store, which was near by, as the rain started to come down in earnest. A minute of two after we arrived, the thunder and lightning started (albeit briefly), so it was a good place of refuge.

We stayed at the store for an hour, and then headed back home after doing a few errands. We stopped off at John's parents' house to pick up some orange juice, and talked with John's parents for a bit. Jamie was happy to see them both, and we're due to have dinner there tomorrow night. Jamie's cold should be even less problematic then, and I hope that all will be well, as we don't want to share our germs with John's elderly parents. Then it was off to Browning for dinner, and stopping to talk with neighbours, including Joy, a nanny that Jamie has gotten to know through the Jackman playground and really likes. John came out to meet us, and when we went inside, Jomie dragged me to the basement to play there for a while.

He had a little dinner, which wasn't bad considering he'd been inhaling food over the course of the later afternoon, and dragged Gary and Ayami off to play. We came home late (9:30), as we all were involved in some sort of game or another, but Jamie still went to bed with less fuss than usual. He fell asleep quickly, turning the light off himself, when I asked, after reading two books.

2006-04-14 23:01 (Kristen) Unusually, John woke up before me and Jamie today, and took Jamie downstairs before I got up, letting me get dressed and start my morning by myself. What a treat! Jamie was in a good mood, and after we had breakfast, I sent John upstairs to do some math for a couple of hours while Jamie and I played. We managed to keep each other happy until 11:45, when Gary and Ayami came upstairs to play with him for an hour. I fed Jamie lunch while he played with Gary, got some house chores done, and worked on getting Jamie ready for his walk around 1:30.

Jamie needed a little convincing to get into his stroller, and had some juice when we left but no nibblies*. He saw me sneaking my lunch (a peanut butter and banana sandwich, which he can't eat yet) out of the corner of his eye, and we had to detour for a snack for Jamie. He ended up falling asleep a little later in the program as a result, and we walked all the way out to Jones before he was asleep. John and I were tired, and so stopped at the Starbucks nearby, rather than walking another ten minutes back to our local Second Cup. Amusingly, we found one of our usual Second Cup barristas at the Starbucks, but we made a pact not to tell on the other! John and I played Scrabble, and Jamie stayed asleep for an hour and a half.

We were due at John's parents' place for dinner around 5:00, and arrived twenty minutes early to help with dinner. Jamie enjoyed playing with Nobuko and Tomoko, who were also there, and eating their homemade gyoza. He ate a good deal, and wasn't happy about leaving Tomoko to go over to Geoff and Derrick's for Friday Night Scrabble. However, a reminder about the pinball machine and Quentin the Cat helped to win him over to the idea. Jamie had fun playing with Quentin and eating snacks while John and I played two rounds of Scrabble, and spent the last twenty minutes amusing people at our table by reading books out loud and having John and I read to him as well. He was tired by the time we got home, and it took more than the usual amount of coaxing to get him to floss and brush his teeth without howls of outrage. He read two books before turning out the light and falling asleep.

2006-04-15 24:00 (John) Jamie, Tai-Tai and I dropped Kristen off at the Eaton Centre to go shopping on the way to the St. Lawrence Market. Jamie was excited to be going shopping with my mom for the first time in a few months, and the sunny, warm weather added to his energy. He was unusually not interested in going to the Early Years Centre to play with the toys, instead favouring the dry fountain at Front Street and the antics of a busker. He looked very relaxed by the time Wei gave him his lollipop, and I thought he might fall asleep on the way to Loblaws, but he stayed awake until we got him home and into the stroller.

Kristen took him out for his walk, I caught up with them at the Second Cup just as he woke up and took him over to the playground at St. Barnabas' Church. After inspecting the sandboxes, which I had warned him were boring compared to the toy heaven that is the sandbox at Withrow Park, he spent most of his time lugging a wagon trailer (q.v.) up the stairs with all his toddler might, exhorting himself on with cries of "Jamie Gorilla!", so that he could then push it off great heights to watch it fall. Whee.

I made huachinango* tikinchik* at my parents' house tonight, and Jamie ate heroic gorilla quantities. He got to bed a little late, as we've been busy preparing for tomorrow (egg hunt early in the morning, Scrabble gathering in the afternoon, dinner out in the evening), and he may well be excited by the prospect of the egg hunt, which I've explained to him a few times.

2006-04-16 24:00 (John) Kristen hustled a very sleepy Jamie out of bed at 8:30 this morning and outside where four families were ready to start a joint Easter Egg hunt. The weather was not bad for April in Toronto: sunny and 6°C (43°F). Jamie took a few minutes to figure out the deal with the eggs, and was slightly more excited just to be outside with all his neighbourhood friends (Daniel and Ross, Iain and Clare from two doors down, Alexandria from three doors down).

When all the eggs were found, we invited everyone in for our own egg hunt, then a pancake breakfast that Kristen put together, and kids and parents and cats roaming in and out of the house and garden. I'm not sure how many chocolate eggs Jamie had, but it was a large number. Things wound down around 11:30, which gave Kristen and me time to spell each other off for half hour naps before lunch.

Our Scrabble friend Adam Logan and his girlfriend Pat Larash came to visit from Waterloo, as did Craig Rowland and Ron Hoekstra. Adam brought Jamie two great Japanese books: one about monsters in a forest by one of his favourite# authors, the other a Thomas the Tank Engine collection. We ate lunch in our backyard, then Kristen and Pat took Jamie out for a walk while Adam, Craig, Ron and I played three games of Scrabble and one game of consultation Clabbers. To no one's great surprise, Adam went undefeated. (I was 2-2, losing each game where I faced Adam.)

Adam, Pat, Jamie, Kristen and I drove up to Ken and Tami's for dinner. Jamie was starting to get a little overstimulated, but behaved fairly well when (sigh) we let him have his way about everything. We were also all very relieved when his intestines kicked in again and we went through four diapers in about an hour after no action for more than a day.

We played a half game of Ticket To Ride (Adam won), then bundled everyone into the car for a mad dash downtown to get Adam and Pat onto the bus in time. As we were leaving, Jamie melted down because he wanted to go on the bus too, and it was all we could do to get him ready for bed without waking up the whole neighbourhood. I think we will have a Much Quieter Day tomorrow.

2006-04-17 21:32 (Kristen) Jamie woke up around 8:30, and had an apple right away to sublimate any residual desire to nurse he might have been harbouring. He went downstairs cheerfully, and ate a big breakfast while I did dishes and cleaned a bit. He was in a good mood, and came out to help me and John in the backyard around 11:00. (John: Jamie gathered leaves in a bucket, dragged them down to the leaf compost bin, scraped off some soil that had compacted onto the brick walk by the vegetable garden and backfilled a hole that a squirrel had dug in the soil beside the compost bin.) Then it was time to go to Daniel and Ross's for lunch, and out with Ken for a walk. He had one accident first thing, but spent the rest of the day being a star in his "big boy underwear." It's getting harder to get him out of his "big boy underwear" and into a diaper for his walk: I choose to see this as aa good thing.

John went to pick Jamie up from Ken at the Second Cup, and I got a phone call at 4:00 asking me what kind of cheese Jamie liked. Jamie had dragged John into the cheese store, and was bought a nice, creamy havarti, which he ate most of. Then he was supposed to meet me at Browning, but dragged John off to Treasure Island first, where he was greeted by the usual cheery chorus of "Hello Jamie!" One of the clerks wished Jamie a happy Easter, to which Jamie said "Okay!"

A very tired John got Jamie to Browning a bit later, where Jamie and I played a little (he was full of hugs tonight), and then John and I made dinner while Ayami kept Jamie occupied. He was awfully kinetic at dinner, and insisted on John playing the "Hamster Dance" for him on the computer. John managed to get some food into him while Jamie watched, but I'm still not sure how much he actually ate. I came home early to have a shower and to get ready for Jamie's bath, and I hear John and Jamie outside now, putting the garbage to the curb. Jamie sounds happy.

(John) In fact the only way I could get Jamie interested in coming home was to tell him tomorrow was trash day, and that if he left now he could help me take the trash to the curbside. His response: an enthusiastic "Hooray!". Jamie does enthusiasm well. His enthusiasm and helpfulness were rewarded by a visit from Junko, who was out walking (her two-year-old dog) Rusty, and who heard Jamie gleefully pushing the big blue trashcan#.

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

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