Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 66

2007-01-09 22:46 (Kristen) Jamie is very fond of his strollers, and will sleep well in either. This has come in handy when we travel, as he'll be too unsettled to sleep in hotel beds, but will sleep in his stroller. As part of our Mexico preparations, we went to Macklem's today to buy a folding stroller for Liam, so that both boys will have a stroller for napping in (concurrent naps, yay!). We're trying to get Liam to be a stroller baby, like Jamie is. Jamie found a Peg Perego stroller that he liked because it had a cup holder and tray--it was a comfortable-looking stroller, but far too large for our purposes, and I wasn't spending that much on a stroller just for the cup holder and tray. We settled on a red Zooper Hula, which has a wonderful sleeping bag-like insert for cold weather. Not that we plan to encounter cold weather in our travels, but you never know. We also bought Liam a new car seat, as he is just at the outside length for safety in his bucket, and just a little over two pounds away from being too heavy. We got the new Alpha/Omega from Eddie Bauer, which Jamie has and we have had good experiences with. We'll start him in that when we come back from Mexico.

Most of our day was spent getting work done or running errands. Liam slept the afternoon away in the car, and Jamie didn't sleep at all. Jamie has a bit of a sore throat, and his voice gets a little hoarse at times. He's a little off his food, too. Hopefully it will pass quickly. Liam is fussy now, since it's night time, and I hope that he will settle soon, as I have a lot of work to get done tonight. Jamie's bedtime talk was about phonics, and what words start with what sound, which led somehow into a chorus of "Conjunction Junction." Fun..

2007-01-10 21:06 (Kristen) Liam just rolled over onto his stomach from his back successfully, all on his own, for the first time. He's trying to do it again, now that I'm looking. He's almost fully over, but he's trying to get his bottom arm out of the way. He might have done it with speed the first time (of course, I wasn't watching), meaning that he literally throws himself over to his side, and uses momentum to get himself to where he wants to be. You can see the wheels turning as he tries different ways, and thinks about what he is going to do next. Clever boy.

Jamie is having a fragile day. He woke up from his nap badly, crying for Gary when we got into the house and he found that Gary wasn't home. He was in his element at Hakobune, however, and was absolutely delighted to be back after the Christmas break. His friends were happy to see him too, and he didn't seem in a hurry to leave. Jamie is good about making up excuses as to why he can't do things, and they often involve monsters or ghosts. They're awfully funny. Overall it was a good day, and I'm about to get the boys ready for bed while John is out at Scrabble and Gary and Ayami are playing with a delighted Jamie.

2007-01-11 25:45 (Kristen) John took Jamie to Hakobune today, while I took Liam with me to the Second Cup to work. Sweet Liam let me work for two hours before we went to Browning for lunch, and then Ken took Liam for a walk while I worked some more. Jamie stayed as long as he could at Hakobune, reading in the library and eating all his curry before allowing John to drive him home. He slept for an hour and a half, while Liam was awake at the Second Cup, charming passers-by.

It was a quiet evening, as Jamie pounced on Gary and stayed with him for three hours, while John and I kept Liam happy. Liam wasn't happy later, however, as he had a bad attack of gas that lasted until quite recently. I'll be heading off to bed now.

2007-01-12 24:08 (Kristen) I think that I was asleep somewhere around 2:30, but I'm not sure: Liam was up frequently, crying and needing comfort before finally settling down. We all slept in this morning, and left the house a little after 10 to get Jamie to Hakobune by 10:00. Hah. John dropped Liam and me off at Winchester Public School for another Roots of Empathy class (this one, ironically, about crying babies), which went well. Lunch was at Browning, and Ken walked Liam while I worked. John and Jamie did some errands, and Jamie came home looking tired but not sleepy. Apparently he was a mouse when he left Hakobune, leading John to say that he was a cat that was going to eat Jamie Mouse. Jamie Mouse then hit Papa Cat, and said "Mouse punch cat." No victim, our Jamie. He then chased Papa Cat around for a bit.

Jamie never did nap, so we wtched a Doraewmon movie and had dinner at Browning. Then it was home and to bed for Jamie; Liam, of course, is still awake. He is also wide awake and fussy, but nothing like last night. We have way too much stuff to go into our small suitcases. Grrr.

2007-01-13 22:20 (John) Got up reasonably early, did some packing, took Jamie and Liam to the St. Lawrence Market to do a tiny bit of shopping and to get them out of the house. Many oohs and aahs for the kids at the market. "Look, he has two of them today!" "Look, honey, that's what I'll be like next year." "Those are the most beautiful children I've ever seen." Jamie uncharacteristically shy for Nupur (Nupur: "You can't be shy with me. You're made of my food!"), happy to play at the Early Years Centre for the first time in a while, a little keyed up all day knowing we leave for Mexico tomorrow. Back, watched more of the Doraemon movie "Nobita's Dinosaur", his current favourite. Then K took Jamie to the library to fall asleep en route in the stroller, I got Liam to fall asleep and took a nap with him in bed. Packed more, went to get Grammie at the train station, then to Browning for chicken katsu dinner thanks to Tom. Gary came over just to play with Jamie; they will miss each other terribly while we're away, but we're happy to be able to leave the house in good hands. Hope we can all get to bed early tonight.

(Kristen) We are home now, and Jamie has negotiated to play with Gary for "seven or fourteen minutes." Jamie and Liam are very happy to have Grammie here, and Jamie is excited to be leaving for Mexico. He knows that he'll be on a plane, and is looking forward to it. Liam is king of rolling onto his stomach, and is happily exploring his new ability to reach out and grab things at will: tea cups, glasses, and other exciting objects. I made Grammie take her earrings off. He gets very cross if people are eating in front of him, and is really quite overdue for some solid food of his own. I keep promising myself that I'll do that tomorrow, and I really do owe him.

2007-01-14 16:59 (John) We're safely in Buffalo, and will update the blog later tonight.

2007-01-14 23:30 (John) We were all a little too excited about our trip to the Yucatan to function at our best, but as I write this, everyone is safe and sound asleep in our hotel room next to Buffalo Niagara Airport, from whence with any luck we will catch our flight to Cancun tomorrow morning.

I was up first, a little after 8:00, and packed my carry-on bag while waiting for everyone else to get up around 8:45. Then I fed Jamie a light breakfast, helped with the predeparture checklist for the house, and finished packing the car (the trunk was packed last night). Gary, Ayami and Grammie helped keep Jamie and Liam amused and saved us a good hour or two. Around 11:00, only an hour behind schedule, we drove over to Alison and Kurt (and Genya and Toni)'s house for brunch, which as I expected was a fabulous way to start our trip. Jamie stuffed himself full of blueberry pancakes, then went downstairs to play with Genya and Toni without requiring adult supervision. We're still getting used to the idea that we can take to visit friends with children and then leave him to his own devices.

All too soon, we had to hit the road again, and we drove through light rain and sleet to Buffalo, entirely without incident, with both children asleep almost all the way. They woke up as we were unloading our luggage into our room, and both insisted on exploring their environment. Liam is happy, but has to move every five minutes or so, because he's convinced there's something exciting he hasn't seen before just around the corner, which there usually is, even if it's just an elevator or a bellman's cart. Jamie dragged me to the pool a few times to watch me swim, but hasn't worked up the nerve yet to swim himself, delights in being pushed around on the bellman's carts, and has figured out how to operate the keycard locks.

I brought in takeout from Tandoori's on Transit Road. It was fairly good. We had the chicken tikka masala, bhindi masala and saag paneer, and the only problem (aside from the supersized U.S. portions) was that the cook(s) had apparently forgotten that they had salted the okra the first time and re-salted (three anagrams there, Scrabble players) it. Jamie went back for thirds.

Jamie's bath fish became sharks today, emblematic of his fear that there might be sharks in the lagoon in Puerto Morelos. I told him that sharks could be scared off by punching them in the eye, and this certainly seemed to work with the rubber bath sharks I sent after him.

Not surprisingly, it took a little work to get the kids to settle. I came out to the hallway to get better WiFi reception to blog, and heard Liam screaming, so I brought him out to keep me company for a while, then took him back into the room to increase Jamie's comfort/boredom level to the point where he could fall asleep. We have a fairly early morning tomorrow, and a tight connection to make at Dulles; if all goes well, we'll be in Puerto Morelos in time to go for a late afternoon swim, and I'll update the blog in the mid-evening. Hasta luego.

2007-01-15 10:25 (John) Our first flight from BUF (Buffalo Niagara) to IAD (Washington Dulles) is delayed by a major winter storm, and we won't be able to make our connection to Cancun today. We'll be staying at the Fairfield Inn at Dulles tonight, at our own expense, because United will sell you a ticket that can only be used under ideal conditions, and won't take accept liability for delays of their own flights.

2007-01-15 12:00 (John) We got up at 7:00 this morning to make sure we made it to the airport in time for our 10:30 flight. As I write this, we're waiting for our plane to arrive at BUF (Buffalo Niagara) so that we can board it, and it's currently due in at 13:00. We had the complimentary breakfast (Jamie was happy with Raisin Bran, but supplemented it with curry), got to BUF in good time, checked in only as far as IAD and went to sit at our gate. I paid USD 6.95 for wireless so that we could find a hotel near IAD, and given the early hour of our flight tomorrow morning, chose to pay a little extra to stay near the airport, rather than in Fairfax or beyond. Liam is sleeping in his stroller (see photo), Kristen is working at her computer, Grammie is watching Jamie in the play area, where his favourite toy is a red sports car big enough for him to sit in and have us break our backs pushing him around. He's good at steering though, including back-and-forthing to negotiate tight corners around other toys.

2007-01-15 13:50 (John) We left more or less "on time" according to the last announced time for our flight, only three hours after our scheduled departure time. The CRJ-700 was originally booked full, but a few passengers switched to other flights in order to make different connections because of the storm, so we're taking advantage of a few empty seats. Laraine has a pair of seats to her self, Kristen has an empty seat beside her to rest Liam on, and Jamie and I have are sitting in a pair of seats between them.

Jamie was very interested in what was going on, and extremely interrogative. He wanted to know at what precise moment we left the ground, as well of course as what all the sounds and sights were. As soon as the excitement of takeoff was over, he promptly fell asleep mid-pretzel (at around 13:40), and is using my fleece as a pillow as I type this. Liam nursed through takeoff, and is currently climbing all over her as she tries to work on a NYT crossword puzzle.

2007-01-15 16:15 (John) We're safely in a much nicer (and more expensive) room at the Fairfield Inn Dulles, whose free wireless (unlike at the Days Inn) extends into the guest rooms. We're a little tired, except for Jamie, who slept for 45 minutes on the plane and is therefore full of energy and (as he just announced) pee.

2007-01-15 21:45 (John) We'll be up early tomorrow to go to the airport, and with a little luck should be in Cancun tomorrow morning. We had a quiet evening in, Jamie and I went for a little swim (he's really not keen about getting wet still, as he hasn't gone swimming for a while, but I finally coaxed him in by taking his bath fish in with me), and ate Chinese food. Liam is in his usual good mood, and has enjoyed rotating constant attention from the three adults present.

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

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