Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 45

2006-08-15 22:13 (Kristen) Jamie was up at 8:00, but in a much better mood than yesterday. He did indicate that his mouth hurt last night, and that he wanted some medicine for it, however, and the crown of that tooth has almost fully emerged. So, that is likely the reason for yesterday's contremps. I'm glad that he knows to ask for painkillers now: yay for language and self-awareness! He slept well, and we eventually got up out of bed and went downstairs.

We spent the first part of the morning reading books and doing a puzzle that Craig Rowland sent to us from Switzerland: it is of a Swiss commuter train, and while it's 70 pieces (meaning that Jamie and I did it together), he enjoyed it very much. He has a picture of a Swiss freight train in one of his train books, and we had fun comparing the two. He's such a train fanatic. Afterwards, John came downstairs and he shared his breakfast cereal with Jamie. I shared some honey toast with him, and he roared off to say hello to Trifina, and demand his lollipop. Becky took him out to the park with our neighbour, Ian, for an hour before meeting us at Browning for lunch.

Jamie had an appointment to see Dr. Kennedy (just to make sure his eye was fine, which it is) at 12:30, so we finished lunch early and headed out to see the doctor. I also got a phone call from Creative Brains, an online company in the States from which I am trying to get some Brio trains for Jamie (a shinkansen, an ICE, and two sets of buffers). I'm dealing with a great woman in customer service, who should have our order done soon. It's about half the price of buying it in Canada, with twice the delay in reaching us, but it works out and Jamie is going to love these, as he talks constantly about the ICE. Then it was home to have John rest a little and have lunch before he took Jamie out for his walk.

I'm unsure of how much sleep Jamie got (I think it was two hours) (John: two and a half, almost), but John had Becky meet up with him after Jamie woke up to go with him to Treasure Island. Jamie wiped out there and bruised his chin (what is it with this boy's sudden lack of coordination?) but otherwise had a great time. Becky came home with money for me to give to Trifina, and John and Jamie came home with Tai Tai who wanted to spend some time playing with Jamie. So, they played, Alexandria came to play with Becky, and I made dinner while John slept. It worke d out well. John's mom left soon after dinner was ready, and Becky went to play with Alexandria after dinner. John worked in the living room, and Jamie and I played trains and talked about mazes and other things before he watched some Totoro for the first time in a while. He played with Gary and Ayami for half an hour or so when they got back from playing tennis, and John drew the bath. Jamie and John are there now, with much giggling, splashing, and general merriment going on. It's nice to hear.

As you can probably tell, as I'm writing this, there is no baby yet. I'm getting strong Braxton-Hicks, and the baby is low, but otherwise no sign. I'm thinking positive thoughts at the baby, to make up for the screaming and such it heard from its brother on Saturday; I swear the baby rose up in my belly, saying "I'm not coming out there! You hear me? No way!" Sigh. I got one journal out the door today, and hope to have another out the door by Friday. I'm still working on a photo assignment, and have some other work to do, but I'm sanguine about what gets done and what doesn't before the baby comes. I didn't know that everyday I do something that makes John think that I might be ready to have the baby: pull the weeds in the front yard, clean the living room, do laundry...all I know is that I feel tired, and had the hardest time keeping my eyes open today. That burst of energy everyone talks about would be nice.

2006-08-16 22:22 (Kristen) My ability to sleep is starting to be affected, and I now sleep lightly and wake up earlier than usual. Fortunately, Jamie slept in so that I was able to get his breakfast and his stuff for daycare all organized before he woke up. Because he didn't wake up on his terms (I gently nudged him awake), he wanted to spend more time in bed, hanging out, than we had time for. He protested vigorously when I got up, but eventually came down with promises of something or another. I had to feed him breakfast by hand, since he was interested in food but not interested in feeding himself...not a great sign, in retrospect, but it was what needed doing at the time.

Becky, Jamie, and I took the subway to Hakobune, and managed to make all our connections easily, so we were only ten minutes late. Yay! Jamie was happy to be there, and barely registered my presence when I came to pick him up at 1:00. He hadn't eaten much lunch--just half of his apple and some of the cucumber--so I ended up feeding him on the subway on the way home. He went out with John around 2:00, and still wasn't asleep at 3:00, when John called from Withrow Park. He was resting, while Jamie ran around with a bunch of other kids, including Rayna and Maia, Junko's daughters. He found Gary trying to practice his tennis game, and made Gary into his personal slave (see POTD) by having Gary wade for him. I understand, since his spare shorts were wet when he got home, that he did make personal contact with the water eventually.

John staggered home with Jamie around 6:00, utterly dragged out with Jamie's madcap antics, and having chased Jamie around several playgrounds. Jamie was bright-eyed and busy-tailed in a brittle sort of way, indicating a real need for sleep coupled with a determination to Not Sleep At All. He played with Becky and Ayami while I weeded and John tried to rest, before we all trouped over to John's parents' place for dinner.

It was a typical meal with an overly-tired Jamie, with much piling and knocking down of blocks, and a number of activities chosen exactly so Mummy would say "Don't do that, Jamie!" Then it was the long walk home, in which Jamie's stuffed frog, named "Baby Frog," was hurt and had to go to be fixed by the doctor many times. Baby Frog is accident prone. Jamie was explicitly acting out, with Baby Frog, the events of the weekend, which was good as it means that he's working it out and will hopefully not be scarred for life. Yay role-playing. Once home, I gave him abath, and he went to bed around 10:00. We're reading Robert Munsch's book Pigs, which he enjoys very much and thinks is very funny. I don't look forward to waking him tomorrow. As for reasons why he didn't sleep today: topping the list is his tooth, followed by John's theory that he's having a growth spurt, and needs to run off enormous amounts of energy. Whatever it is, I sure hope that he sleeps tomorrow.

2006-08-17 16:30 (John) We went to see Dr. Tai this afternoon, while Gary and Becky took Jamie out for his walk (and got him to sleep, yay!). Kristen is two centimetres dilated, and Dr. Tai said she thinks the baby will be born naturally sometime this weekend.

2006-08-17 21:15 (John) Kristen's friend Heather invited her to the Phoenix Concert Theatre for an Ian Gillan concert. I made dinner (zaru-soba), then saw her off. Jamie was delighted at the prospect of a night in with Becky and Dad. I'm a total basket case worried about Kristen and will be having nightmares about this until the baby comes, at which point I'll switch to having the usual nightmares about horrible things happening to babies.

Earlier today, Kristen and Becky to Jamie to Hakobune by subway, and came home with the words to a song that Jamie has been singing for the last few weeks that we had been having trouble deciphering. The first verse is about two crabs who play rock-scissors-paper but always draw on scissors, the second about two bears who get stuck on rock, and the third about two ducks who keep playing paper.

Becky and Gary managed to get Jamie to sleep on his walk, and he slept a good two and a half hours again. He woke up eventually and said "Jamie and Papa go to the Spongebob store and buy Freezies! Yay!" The "Yay!" at the end is to encourage his flunkies to be of good cheer while they do his bidding. The Spongebob store is the local corner store, whose sign features what looks like a cousin of Spongebob Squarepants. I'll have to take a photo of it the next time I can, to show the likeness. Perhaps as a result of the snacking, he only ate half his dinner, but I was able to get the rest of it into him a few hours later, so I'm hoping he will sleep well tonight.

2006-08-18 14:15 (John) No major news yet. Kristen says her uterus has been feeling very tight since late morning, but has no idea whether this presages labour, as she started last time in her sleep. I suggested then that she should take a nap, but she's gone out for a walk to have coffee with Ruth and Leslie, which sounds like an even better idea. Laraine and Jennifer will be arriving tomorrow, as they are tired of waiting for the call. Rod Matheson has very kindly offered to help Jason look after Anna and Owen in their absence.

2006-08-18 16:15 (John) Still no major news yet. Kristen is having occasional lower back pain, and Braxton-Hicks contractions that feel like about 80% of a real contraction. She and Jamie are on their way home from the Second Cup, where Jamie woke up early from a nap because we forgot to send him to the bathroom before sending him out with Ken in the stroller.

2006-08-18 23:45 (John) Kristen and Jamie spent the latter part of the afternoon visiting with Karen, David and Alexandria in their back yard. Jamie was a little manic, as he often is when he has had too little sleep, and when we tore him away he insisted on playing with Chaerim and Kyop for fifteen minutes on the way over to Browning for dinner. We have managed for a change to get everyone to bed fairly early, in preparation for what we hope will be an eventful weekend. Jamie and I will go to the market earlyish tomorrow, unless we are otherwise preempted.

The cut on Jamie's eyebrow is almost healed, though the stitches haven't fallen out yet. He's therefore quite aware of it, and will happily retell the story to anyone who will listen, explaining that he was hit by a cart at the market.

2006-08-19 10:00 (John) Laraine and Jennifer called to say they're getting ready to leave Ottawa. Kristen had a quiet night, and Jamie woke up a little on the early side. I'm off to the farmer's market with Jamie and Becky in a little while, to revisit the scene of Jamie's accident last week and to stock up on groceries for the week.

2006-08-19 15:00 (John) Jamie was a little tired at the market, which manifested itself in his demands being particularly exacting. I knew what I was in for as I was leaving the house already, as I'd spent half an hour already constructing a track layout to his specifications (a few intersecting loops and a sort of reverse ski jump: a cliff with a Megablox "buffer" at the end that Toby could crash through, then a loop below where the breakdown train could come rescue Toby and haul him off to the water tower for clean-up.

We did the usual. Picked up samosas from Nupur, a hunk of kielbasa, Jamie and Becky played at the Early Years Centre while I dropped the first load of groceries off at the car, picked up jujubes at Domino Foods at Jamie's request after spending several minutes shovelling walnuts, lollipop from Family Foods (Wei wasn't there, but Jamie was exceedingly polite to her replacement), then pizza *and* ice cream. By the time we got to Loblaws Jamie said he needed to sleep, so I'm hoping that he's asleep in the stroller with Kristen by now. Laraine and Jennifer left late and our now due in around 17:00. Kristen spent the day cleaning up the house, either "nesting" or pretending to. We'll see.

2006-08-19 17:30 (John) Grammie (Laraine) and Auntie (Jennifer) have arrived safely from Ottawa. We'll be going to Pearls for dinner shortly, along I think with Laraine's sister Millie. Becky was delighted to be reunited with her family, and while I warned Kristen that her mom and sister had arrived, I hope she was pleasantly surprised when they found her on the Danforth.

2006-08-19 20:45 (John) My mom welcomed Laraine and Jennifer's arrival with one of her fabulous dinners. I always feel glad it takes us five minutes to walk home from her house, as if I didn't get that exercise I'd explode before I went to bed. Jamie and I invented a new game on the way home, called "Grammie Season", which involves zooming the stroller at Grammie and making her jump off the sidewalk, ideally while her clan sings "Kill the Gwammie!" in Elmer Fudd voices.

Kristen seems more relaxed, now that her family is here, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that labour will start soon.

2006-08-20 10:30 (John) Kristen had mild contractions every 20 minutes around 3:00-4:00 this morning, but they stopped after a while. We think there's a reasonable chance they'll start going again soon, now that she's up and walking around.

I noticed a major addition to Jamie's TTTE/Brio track collection: three red TTTE stacking risers. I asked Jamie where they came from, and after a few terse answers not unlike those I might have given — "a box", "a present" — the narrative floodgates let loose and he told me all about how Grammie had given them to him and he had thanked her and she had said you're welcome, and he had hugged her again and told her how happy he was, and thanked her again, and that the whole experience was worth about five candies on his personal scale of happiness.

Jennifer was impressed with how much more Jamie is talking this month than last. We hadn't really noticed living with him day by day, but it's true that in the last few weeks he has started telling stories about his day and making up his own stories about his favourite characters.

2006-08-20 16:30 (John) Jamie came back around 12:15 from a late brunch with Jennifer, Laraine and Becky. He was full of food and sleepy, and lay down in front of the TV to watch some Miyazaki (The Cat Returns) for a bit, and in retrospect he probably would have fallen asleep in his stroller if we'd been able to take him out then. As it was, I took him out for an hour or two without success. I could tell he was exhausted, because he was micromanaging our walk ("No, turn that way here. Walk on that side of the road. I need Baby Frog. Baby Frog needs carrots.") We eventually caught up with Kristen and Laraine at the Second Cup, after they had gone on an equally fruitless brisk walk to wake up the other baby. I'm off in a little while to go to a planning meeting for our Scrabble club. If Kristen goes into labour while I'm out, I'll zip back and we'll reconvene the meeting in two days.

2006-08-20 23:51 (Kristen) Jamie never did go to sleep, and so Mom, Auntie Millie, and I took him (at his demand) to the toy store. He was good, but less inclined to share than usual. Generally, he is happy to share and/or to negotiate train usage, but he was having trouble sharing with a little boy (17 months) named Kevin, who consistently (but by no fault of his own) playing with the Very Train Jamie Needed. Turns out that Kevin's mom speaks Japanese, and when I asked her if she spoke Japanese (in Japanese), we had a lovely bilingual conversation. It turns out that they don't live too far from us, and I told Kevin's mom that we live in the house with all the fuki* in the front. I think that she'll be able to find us that way quite easily.

We headed home, after buying a pie first at Sun Valley to stretch out the meal as I wasn't sure how much ravioli we had. I needn't have worried: two pounds of fresh ravioli was more than enough for six of us (John had already gone out to his Scrabble meeting), along with bread, salad, and pie. Jamie ate all his ravioli with some help, then went and vegged in front of the television for the rest of the evening, watching The Cat Returns in Japanese. He was very difficult to move from the living room to the bed, as he was just exhausted beyond belief (this was around 8:45), but we were bathed and in bed, reading Pigs by Robert Munsch with the little Playmobil boat and man tht he has, and (of course) Baby Frog, who is definitely the favoured stuffed animal lately. He was chatty and wriggly until suddenly he wasn't, and he was crashed asleep, complaining softly from time to time. I hope that he sleeps well tonight. I'm cramping, but not ready to call them contractions quite yet. We'll see: I've been wrong before, recently.

2006-08-20 24:50 (John) They appear to be contractions, every 30-40 minutes apart. The last two were at 00:05 and 00:35.

2006-08-21 08:00 (John) The mild contractions continued through the night. They appeared to be full contractions in that they involved the whole of the uterus; they were mild in that Kristen was able to more or less sleep through them. They're coming roughly ten minutes apart now. We're getting up and getting ready for our day.

2006-08-21 09:00 (John) After having four mild contractions in half an hour, Kristen got up to take a shower, and now there haven't been any contractions in the past half hour. Now she's back to lying down doing New York Times crosswords to see if they help.

2006-08-21 12:00 (John) Kristen had one more full contraction and then they tapered off into Braxton Hicks. Everyone is out having brunch on the Danforth. We're seeing Marlene, our backup midwife in the afternoon.

2006-08-21 14:30 (John) Marlene Sagada, our backup midwife, says that the baby's head is in the pelvis but still bobbing up and down, and that the cervix is still more or less where it was on Thursday: soft and dilated to two centimetres. We're waiting to speak to Dr. Tai, our obstetrician, to talk about induction.

2006-08-21 15:00 (John) We have an appointment to see Dr. Tai, our obstetrician, tomorrow at 12:30. Kristen has had a weak contraction and a stronger one in the last half hour, probably as a result of Marlene's examination, so we're still keeping our fingers crossed for a natural birth soon.

2006-08-21 16:45 (John) Jamie got up around 08:00 when he noticed I was (unusually) eating cereal in the bedroom while timing Kristen's contractions. He then went out with everyone late in the morning for a late brunch, then came back to Browning to be topped up with food prior to going out for a walk with Ken, where he (phew) took his regular two-hour nap. He came straight home from the Second Cup with Grammie, Jennifer and Becky because he wanted to see Kristen. When I told him Kristen was sleeping, he insisted on playing with me, then Gary. He is very much enjoying having his relatives visit, but I think he wanted to make sure that everyone else was still available too.

Jamie has picked up on the Internet buzz about the movie Snakes On A Plane and has taken to shouting "Snakes on a plane!" whenever he wants to attract attention or cause amusement, which is quite often.

2006-08-21 21:30 (John) Kristen has been having intermittent contractions again, at 18:03, 18:18, 19:03, 19:30, 19:45. They seemed to ease off at that point, as Kristen was finishing her dinner (the usual salmon barbecue at Browning) so the two of us went for a long walk around the neighbourhood. Kristen said the baby felt like it was a lot lower at the end of the walk, and sure enough she had another contraction a few minutes after she sat down, at 21:13 and another one just now at 21:29. I'm going to try to put Jamie to bed as quickly as I can now in case Kristen wants to go out for another walk.

2006-08-21 23:30 (John) Kristen came home from walking down to the Danforth and back as Jamie and I were finishing up in the bath. Jamie fell asleep pretty quickly (phew). I noticed today that another reason he has been clumsy the last few weeks is that he is changing his running gait from that of a toddler to that of a boy, and he is just ecstatic at how fast his little legs can now take him from point A to point B.

After that last contraction at 21:29 the next few went 21:39, 21:50, 22:03 (partial), 22:20, 22:51 (mild), 22:58, 23:08 (mild). We're guessing that these are similar to but slightly more regular than the ones she had last night and will try to sleep through them if possible and get a fresh start in the morning with the brisk walks, etc.

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

Back to Vol. 1 No. 44, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 1 No. 46.