Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 0 No. 34

2006-05-30 19:53 (Kristen) Jamie was up a bit before 8 again, and was hot before much of the day had gone past. He drank two full drink boxes (the large size) before lunch, which was unusual enough to remark on its own. We had a playdate with Burhan, and I called ahead to ask if we could move it an hour earlier, as the forecast was for a day in excess of 35°C (95°F). John did some gardening while Jamie and I had breakfast, and confirmed that it was already more than 23° at 9:00 AM, which made me a little nervous. Jamie and Burhan were delighted to play together and had a good time, but Selma and I decided that it was time to leave by 10:30. We all cooled off with popsicles on the way home, but I was exhausted by the time we got home. I fell asleep on the couch while Jamie watched some Spongebob, and John very kindly fed Jamie for me before he went off to his dentist's appointment as I slept.

I woke up soon before John left, and got Jamie ready for his walk with Ken. I got Jamie to use the toilet for a poo, with half success — any degree of success is all I really care about right now. He slept in his stroller for two hours, wearing only a pair of shorts and some underwear — which is much cooler than a diaper. He woke up very groggily, and dehydrated despite spending time in the cool, air-conditioned air of the Second Cup for the last forty-five minutes of his nap. We went to Mocha Mocha for some ice cream, courtesy of Tai Tai, but he was too hot to eat even ice cream. I was somewhat worried, so I took a washcloth and a glass of water, and gently dabbed Jamie down until he was cool, at least on the surface. Then I offered him bits of my fruit bowl (melon, grapes, strawberries, and banana), and he ate them slowly. Finally, he started to perk up, and I got some more liquid into him. I took him to Treasure Island, which was nearby, and they had very nice air conditioning. We stayed for half an hour, then came back home. John was home by then and feeling great after a visit with Dr. Ling, and he offered to let me soak my feet in the nice cool wading pool while he looked after Jamie. I did that while they watched more Spongebob, as well as getting the chance to do some gardening, and get my Mother's Day roses planted. John tells me that Jamie had a pee, then ran around the house naked for a couple of hours, which is the best way, really to deal with this sort of heat. Thank goodness we have an air conditioner on the second floor, and an older house that retains coolness well inside. John got Jamie to snack on a number of things, and Jamie snacked again through dinner, so we think that he got enough food into him to last for a while. John and Jamie are playing with trains as I write, and I'm feeling very lucky in my husband and son at the moment.

2006-05-31 22:53 (Kristen) Jamie woke up around 8:15, and we started to get ready for Hakobune. Jamie was fine when he woke up, but in a terrible mood by the time it was time to go downstairs. He perked up again when we left the house, but the subway was miserable and hot: we had to wait for two buses and then two trains before we got onto each, and then for three streetcars. Jamie wasn't ready to get off the streetcar (he's started waiting until the last possible minute to get off), and was very upset with me when I grabbed him and pulled him off the streetcar (we were the only ones getting off a very crowded streetcar). He didn't want to hold my hand walking along the streetcar stop, but managed to put up with it going across the street. He decided that he was too tired to walk, but I was too burdened down with lunches and bags to be able to pick him up. This led to a complete meltdown that was compounded by the fact that we had to be buzzed in as I had forgotten the Magic Fob that opens the door, and that he had to go up the south stairs instead of the north stairs, as per usual. His crying was heard as we went up the stairs, and both sensei came out to see what was going on. They got us quickly in to the air-conditioned daycare, and Jamie soon calmed down enough to put his sticker in his book, have some juice, and let me leave around 10:25. I worked until noon, then picked Jamie up. He wasn't ready to go, and still a little fragile, but we managed to leave without too much incident and have some lunch. He ate well enough, but was dehydrated still. We made it home much more easily than we left, and John took him out for his afternoon walk.

Jamie slept for two hours, and then played at the playground a bit before coming home. I was nervous about the very ominous thunderclouds that were gathering, and the sounds of distant thunder that were coming rapidly one after another, and took Jamie home. He played around in the back yard, then joyfully played with Ian and Alexandria (John: Jamie said "'andria outside? Yay!") while John and I got the car loaded for Scrabble. He ate a little dinner, but not much, and was fine on the way to the club. The skies chose to open up just as we got there, and Jamie and I, then John as well,all watched a spectacular thunderstorm race across the sky. Jamie was a little nervous at first, particularly when an initial thunderclap was exceptionally loud over our heads, but he soon got into the swing of it. Twenty minutes later it was all over, and Jamie and I read some books and ran around before John took over. They played a little outside, looked at some Scrabble letters, ate some food (at Jamie's request), and did some workbook before I was finished my game. John and I have noticed that Jamie isn't very good at finding one small difference between things (three cats, two blue collars, one red, for example) but he's very good at same and different in larger senses. John finally managed to escape long enough to get some work done, while Jamie and I did puzzles and worked on a maze.

We came home with a very tired boy who insisted that he wasn't going to go to sleep. He flossed and brushed his teeth in record time (while watching 'Spongebob' with Gary and Ayami), had a brief bath, and went to be around 11:00 with no resistance to speak of. Tomorrow, back to Hakobune, but it will be Jamie and Papa going, and not him and me.

(John) Jamie woke up crying for Mio this afternoon, which he hadn't done in a little while. He asks about her once every two or three days now, always when something has reminded him of her, and it was pretty easy for Kristen to figure this one out. Gary gave Jamie a copy of the Tarzan II DVD, which Jamie and Mio used to watch together all the time. So he dreamt about Mio while he was napping and was very sad when he woke up and found it was all a dream.

2006-06-01 17:35 (Kristen) Jamie woke up this morning very warm--quite hot actually--for the second morning in a row. He's been having some trouble with the heat, so I was hoping that he was just overheated again. He wasn't that interested in breakfast, although he did consent to eat some despite the lack of (requested) watermelon. He watched one episode of Spongebob Squarepants (requested), and was very upset when I held him to it. He eventually made it out the door with John after eating some of John's cereal with raspberries and blueberries. John had a 10:00 oral surgeon's appointment, so they drove downtown. John reports that when they got to Hakobune, Jamie didn't want to get out of his lap. Then he threw up in John's lap. Uh oh. I got a phone call saying that Jamie was sick, and we agreed that John should bring him home.

We established that he had a fever above 38°C (I'm having trouble with the thermometer, so I couldn't get a more accurate reading), and set him up with a little juice, a bucket, and some Spongebob. His fever was still high late in the morning, so we put him into the bath with John to try and lower it. He is pretty conditioned when it comes to baths, so he asked to go to bed and to have a story, and was only slightly put out when he realized there was not light to turn off. He slept for close to three hours, and when he woke up, the fever was finally starting to break. We still got him to have some Advil to make sure and let him drink some warm ginger ale, which he has kept down. As of 6:00 this evening, the fever is still gone and he's perkier if not exactly back to normal. I don't think that we'll send him to Hakobune tomorrow, which is a shame, as his friend Christian will be having his birthday party tomorrow. However, it is his father's birthday tomorrow, so I'm sure we'll find some fun somewhere, somehow.

The doorbell rang tonight and it was Mariko, by shiatsu therapist. I called out "Douzo!" ("Come on in!") and Jamie looked up and asked "Tai-Tai?", making the clever inference that the most likely person for me to call in in Japanese was my mom.

2006-06-02 22:06 (Kristen) Last night was a comedy of transit problems; I had gone out to pick up John's birthday present with Gary, and the car battery ran out while Gary was waiting outside the store. I was going to go home by subway, as John was worried about being home alone with a sick Jamie (who had fallen asleep on the couch, watching television around 9:00), but the subway had broken down on the part of the line that I needed, so I didn't get home until Gary's parents arrived and Tami gave me a lift back tohe house. Jamie was getting awfully warm, however, and we found a thermometer that worked to take his temperature. He was running a fever of 39°C (102°F), but we managed to get some Children's Advil into him and that lowered his temperature again until the morning.

We got Jamie in to see Dr. Kennedy at 1:15, and she said that Jamie (whose temperature was back down again) had swollen glands and his left ear was red. This matched a slightly reddened right eye, where he managed to stick some melon earlier in the day. She said that he was probably feeling pretty rotten, with a headache and a sore throat and complimented him on his good manners and demeanor, considering. We're not quite sure what it is, although it looks a little like strep throat, but it's not the stomach flu, or chicken pox, both of which are going around too. Augh*. We took Jamie out for his walk after buying some antibiotics for him (ask me later, Mom, what it is...I forget) (John: amoxicillin) and he fell asleep eventually. He only fell asleep for an hour and 10 minutes, however, as he got a little cold in the air-conditioned Second Cup, and was not Happy when he did. He cried for most of the next half hour as we got him home, with periodic stops so that I could cuddle him and calm him down again, but it was indicative of his general state. We finally got him home, and settled in for the afternoon.

Around dinner time, Jamie had John building elevated tracks out of wooden track and Duplo, and was being somewhat dictatorial in his directions. John was going to go to Browning for Daniel's birthday party, and I was going to stay home with Jamie, as we had cancelled dinner plans at a restaurant with John's parents and aunts as Jamie was completely not up to it. (Food would be brought back, so I was not out.) Jamie was not impressed with this plan, and was asking if he could go, when Tami called and said that we should bring him over anyway. Jamie was so delighted that he jumped up and hugged me, peppered me with kisses, sat down, and repeated himself. We went over, and Jamie ate very little: some fruit salad, and some raspberry cheesecake, and not much else. He enjoyed himself playing with Gary and Ayami, sitting on laps, and helping John blow out a candle on his cake. He also sang a lovely little version of "Happy Birthday" for his dad, which was greatly appreciated. We're home now, and getting ready for the bath and (I hope) a good night.

2006-06-03 20:38 (Kristen) We all slept a good deal last night, and didn't wake up until after 9:00. For the first time in memory, John was up first and was the one that Jamie grabbed to take him downstairs to play. (John: I've been up ahead of Kristen often enough, but Jamie hasn't been interested in playing with me first thing since we got back from Boston.) John says that I feign sleep better than he does, and I laugh at his suggestion. I followed downstairs soon afterwards, and we checked Jamie's temperature and gave him his antibiotics. He still had a slight fever, but was better than yesterday. He was starting to have an appetite again, and ate some fruit salad for breakfast. Yay! He alternated between watching Spongebob and forcing John to be his railway slave. We kept him home from the market, much to the sadness of his usual fans: Nupur, in particular, was disappointed to miss Jamie today.

Jamie ate a good deal of frozen blueberries, and played with me while John did the shopping. Gary and Ayami came upstairs and played with him for an hour before John came home and took him out for his afternoon walk.

(John) I could only keep Jamie asleep for 45 minutes. He tossed and turned and was clearly uncomfortable. I'm guessing from his coughing and swollen neck glands that his throat his quite sore. I had to go to Pearls to show Hans a problem with a downspout while it was raining. Jamie took the opportunity to splash in puddles and mooch food off of Tai-Tai.

(Kristen) He came home full of hugs and kisses, and has been in a fabulous mood all day since. He ate a samosa and some corn tostadas with salsa, and has drunk a good deal of watered-down apple juice. He played more with John and the trains, read a book or two with me, and watched more television. Tomorrow, less television.

(John) His current favourite game is to take two of his old plastic baby letters that can be chained together but will pop apart under enough force, tell me it's our "train coupling" and pull me around the house by it until the coupling snaps and I start rolling back out of control until he catches me.

2006-06-04 22:08 (Kristen) I remember when Jamie started to watch Teletubbies, he watched them obsessively for a few months until the thrill was replaced by Thomas the Tank Engine. He hasn't had a real television obsession for a while, and I had pretty much forgotten the horror of it until the advent of Spongebob. It's been Spongebob almost constantly unless we have Jamie out of the house for the last three days, and I'm getting very very tired of the little yellow guy. The music is going through my head at odd times, and I wake up dreaming it. I really hope that this doesn't last much longer.

Jamie slept well enough last night, but wasn't in a great mood when he went downstairs. In fact, he wasn't in a great mood for a lot of the day, and there were a few meltdowns. He did have a good time digging in the dirt while John and I did some gardening, when we got him outside, and had small but decent meals. He went out for his walk late (around 2:00), after he fell asleep in my arms at the bottom of the stairs. We failed to translate him to the stroller, unfortunately, and he spent the next hour fussing and complaining, and made me come along for the walk too. I dropped John off at the Second Cup when his knee started to hurt too much to walk (he put it out recently, and had it put back in even more recently), and walked Jamie around until he fell asleep (about another half hour). Unfortunately, he woke up crying when I tilted the seat back, and it took another half hour of walking to put him back to sleep (and a very crabby mother I was by the end of it, too). He slept for an hour and a half, which was great, until we went home. Jamie put up with me doing a little gardening while he sat in his stroller eating a krispie*, then needed to go inside to use the bathroom. I came in soon after, and Jamie watched television while John made dinner.

Ian and Clare were playing outside, and so we got Jamie to go outside after eating some dinner to play. Alexandria showed up, and some younger friends of hers, and then Gary and Ayami came out. The party really got going when Daniel and Ross showed up with Tom, and the whole neighbourhood, it seemed, was roaring about with wagons and skateboards and scooters, running around the lawns and having a great time while the adults sat on the porch and watched. Well, I should say while the parents did, with the exception of Tom, as he, Gary, and Ayami were definitely an important part of the fun for the kids as they chased Gary and Tom gave "spinnies" to the younger ones. It was one of the nights that make us very happy to live in this neighbourhood, with these neighbours and kids. Everyone takes care of the other, and they all play together well, regardless of age. Jamie and the rest of the kids finally went inside at 9:30, and it's late to bed tonight. After four days of feeling sick, it was a joy to see Jamie roaring around, having fun, and feeling better again.

2006-06-05 22:10 (Kristen) Jamie woke up at 9:30 or so, after falling asleep around 11:00 last night. He was in a good mood, and very happy to spend time playing with Ayami for an hour or two outside. In fact, he watched very little television all day, and is (as of this writing) watching Spirited Away for a little Japanese language practice before bed. I guess if we offer him enough other things to do, he'll have fun doing those instead.

We saw Dr. Kennedy at lunchtime, just to make sure that the antibiotics were doing their work, and that he was feeling better. She was very pleased, and said that it was like he was a whole new boy. Certainly he was active, and cheerful, cooperative, and polite. He spontaneously thanked her as we were leaving, and got a happy smile out his doctor. Yay! I have a cold, which is haning out in my chest as of today, but she said that I'm ok as long as I don't run a fever, in which case I should come back and see her. Bah. Lowered immune systems suck.

Jamie slept for only an hour this afternoon, which wasn't a surprise given how long he slept in this morning, and dragged John out to the playground at Withrow. By the time I got there, however, he had decided that it was too hot, and that he needed some ice cream, so it was time to go (being tired of waiting for the ice cream truck to come to him). He decided to have a popsicle instead of ice cream, and happily ate it as we walked him to Browning via Tai Tai's. He played with trains, and then in the basement with me, before Gary and Ayami showed up. Then he dumped me unceremoniously, and played with them for the rest of the evening, while I flopped out, feeling kinda gross. Yay Gary and Ayami! We're all home now, and getting ready for bed.

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

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