Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 69

2007-01-30 24:30 (Kristen) We were up early this morning to finish off our packing, in anticipation (although that's really the wrong word) of our departure from Puerto Morelos, and Mexico. While we ran about getting ready, Jamie and Liam hung out in bed. Liam pulled Jamie's hair (Liam is fond of putting hair into his mouth and chewing on it; we don't know why), and Jamie told me, when I came back into the room, that Liam had pulled his hair. I expressed dismay, and explained that Liam was a little baby. Jamie then said, "That's all right. He told me that he was sorry with his eyes." I told him that Liam was very good for apologizing, and that Jamie was a very sensible big brother.

We managed to get packed in time to have a quick half-hour at Mama's, leaving John and Jamie behind to get a last dose of Pink Panther cartoons, before we came back to say our goodbyes to the beach, ocean, and other sights and creatures and pack up the cars. We took Jamie and Liam to the ocean to say goodbye to the beach, and Jamie had fun with John, staying up at the hotel overlooking the beach to make his goodbyes, while I took Liam down to the water's edge for ours. When I came back, Jamie was still having fun saying goodbye to all the Mexican sights until "proxima annos." Our favourite Ojo waiter and Anjelica came to give us hugs and kisses goodbye too. The tenants of John's parents, Laureano and Beatriz, very kindly helped to drive us to the airport, for which we left on time, after Beatriz gave us some lovely gifts (clothes for the boys, a top and blouse for me, and a lovely black embroidered shirt for John).

We checked in at the United Airlines desk, and were less than impressed when we were told that we five (four with seats) were scattered throughout the plane, and that they would only put us together at the front of the plane if we paid extra, on the spot. Seriously unamused, since they knew this would leave our three-year-old sitting on his own. However, they boarded early, and we managed, through the help of a number of generous fellow passengers, to end up all seated together. Thank you United passengers! No thanks, United!

The flight was uneventful, and both boys slept for most of the way. We were in the baby section of the plane, with a little girl just a little younger than Liam and a couple of other families. It's all to the good to be surrounded by people who understand when your baby is having trouble settling. I am writing in O'Hare Aiport in Chicago, where Jamie is running around throwing fireballs (thank you, Daniel) and Liam is trying to fall asleep. We've eaten the wonderful curry that John's mom sent with us, supplemented with an excellent sandwich and a servicable Caesar salad. Liam has just drifted off, and I am thinking that I might get some work done while John and Jamie roam the airport, looking for fun and adventure.

(John) We had a four-hour layover at O'Hare, which was just about enough time. We arrived at Terminal 5 (International Flights). We were told by two United Airlines employees that our departure would be from Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. Laraine figured out that the gate information only matched Terminal 2, so we headed all the way down to gate F14 at the very end of Concourse F. We settled in for a long wait, ate the lovely chicken curry that my mom had packed for us, ran Jamie around, enjoyed the view of the main runway, and chatted with a young woman on her way home from teaching in China. The flight was first moved to a nearby gate (F12, the intervening gate being F12A, not a potentially unlucky F13), then I noticed with 45 minutes left before the flight that the departure screens showed us boarding at gate C1. I asked the agent at F12, who was very surprised but confirmed that the flight was now leaving from a gate at the far end of another concourse at another terminal. We bundled everything and everyone up as quickly as we could (which is fairly quick, given frequent practice) and ran to the interterminal shuttle bus boarding area. To get from there to the actual shuttle bus was a simple matter of carrying two children and two heavily laden strollers down an emergency exit stairwell, out onto the tarmac (through unseasonably cold winter weather in Chicago, dressed for a warm day in the Yucatan) and onto the bus. Jamie was a little confused when he saw me board the bus, and asked "Papa, are you sad?" "No." "Papa, are you cross?" "No." "Then why is there smoke coming out from you?" I guess he's never seen me go for a brisk sprint in T-shirt and shorts in subzero weather before.

(Kristen) It is now 02:12, and we're in our hotel room in Buffalo. Liam fell asleep about fifteen minutes ago, and Jamie fell asleep about twelve minutes ago, and was much more challenging to get down than Liam was. Jamie was beyond tired, and wouldn't even let us take his clothes off because that might lead to Sleep. I finally tired of arguing with him while Liam was crying, and so said that I needed to deal with people going to sleep before I would help Jamie with whatever it was he wanted to do. He flopped down behind me on the bed, and must have made the mistake of blinking, because he fell right asleep. I got his clothes off but woke him up when I eased the shirt off over his head, but got him to go back to sleep by saying that he could keep the shirt on underneath that one. Then I moved him into my mom's bed, where he is sawing twigs to my mom's logs. We will be asleep soon, ourselves.

2007-01-31 20:47 (Kristen) Our Jamie alarm clock woke us up at 9:20, after I went to sleep at three, and John at four. We are not the sharpest knives in the drawer today. However, that's not a bad thing, because our fatigue is blunting the effects of the subzero temperatures we've voluntarily returned to (more fools, us). We had breakfast and packed the car, and headed out to see the sights of Buffalo. We drove past the house that John lived in with his family until he was three, and then to a lovely bookstore that John found on the Internet, called Talking Leaves. As we drove, Liam was chewing fiercely on my finger, and I suddently exclaimed, as I felt the top of a little, sharp tooth come through his gum. Liam's first tooth is the front bottom right. No wonder he was so uncomfortable and unhappy. A new tooth! Yay Liam! John and Jamie left Grammie, Liam, and me at the store while they went back to the hotel to look for John's lost cellphone (in the parking lot and found safely, whew). I picked up a few things for me and for the boys, and John tells me that Jamie repeatedly insisted on going back home. The only thing that saved me from being abandoned in Buffalo, apparently, is that John has no "nurse-nurse."

We drove past Niagara Falls, and Jamie (and we) were impressed by the icy beauty of the falls. Then we drove home after a Starbuck's run, and both boys slept the entire way home. We are here, safely and soundly: Jamie has played with Gary and Ayami, my aunt Millie has visited, and we are blogging, unpacking, and almost tready for bed. Jamie fell asleep quite late, despite only napping for an hour and being extremely tired, at 23:15. Liam was asleep around the same time, but he'd slept for four hours this afternoon, and I wasn't so worried about him. Tomorrow is a Hakobune day, and we resume regularly scheduled programming.

2007-02-01 21:48 (Kristen) This will be short, because a teething Liam is chewing on one of my hands, and I don't dare remove it. Jamie returned to Hakobune, and his teachers enjoyed looking at all ther pictures hat John brought to show. Liam had some rice cereal twice today, with great joy. Jamie slept at 5:00 for an hour, and Mom walked Liam in the freezing cold. We're putting the boys to bed soon, and I hope that the Tempra that I gave to Liam kicks in soon.

We call Liam "This" ("here, hold this"), so Jamie is "That," and John says that if we have another child, that they would be "the Other Thing."

(John) Jamie is happy to be home but needs a few routine days to get settled back in. Last night, as he was about to take a bath, he said that he was worried to be home. I told him that we would not be travelling again for a little while, and he relaxed right away. Today, he was a little tired all day, and I'm glad he eventually took a nap, though it took a lot of effort, bundling him up outside to "help" me shovel the snow to tire him out enough to fall asleep in the line at the Big Carrot. Dinner was a lamb's lettuce salad and teriyaki chicken legs, which were well received.

In Liam's case, we can't really fall back into pre-trip routines, as he's outgrown his car seat, requires more supervision because he learned how to roll, isn't too safe in his bouncy chair anymore, and now sits and eats in his high chair. But he doesn't seem to mind the break from routine at all.

2007-02-02 23:53 (Kristen) We woke up around 8:30 in order to get ready for Hakobune; as Jamie had fallen asleep late, we let him sleep in. I came up around 9:30 to find him in bed, but fully clothed, thanks to his papa. He got up, we had a cuddle, and then it was the usual negotiations to get out the door. My mom was returning to Ottawa by train, and so she came with us on the way to being dropped off at the station. We all dropped Jamie off at Hakobune, where it was Setsubun, the day where you pelt oni* (Japanese demons/evil spirits) with beans in order to purify the house. When John returned to pick Jamie up, they did the ritual in the church gymnasium, with a person dressed up as an oni* to be pelted. John got a kick out of having this traditional Japanese ritual enacted in a Presbyterian church, and I will leave it to him to describe the Setsubun festivities in detail, as he was there and I wasn't.

(John) In order to make the somewhat abstract process of exorcising oni* from the premises more vivid for the children, a young man was recruited to dress up as an oni* with a scary orange mask completely covering his head, armed with a club made from a padded baseball bat. (Normally, you just chant "Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi" (Oni out, good luck in) as you throw beans over your threshold, and imagine the oni* that you are banishing from your house.) I was warned correctly that this would all end in tears, and in fact none of the children present were able to throw bean-substitute balls at the man playing the role of the oni*, prefering in some cases to cower behind adults (like Jamie did), or bawl almost inconsolably (like many others). Still, it gives kids something to talk about afterward, and I'm sure it's good for them to be scared out of their wits once in a while.

(Kristen) Liam and I got dropped off at Winchester Public School, for our next Roots of Empathy class. This class was about diapering, and so we went through our diaper bag, discussed our reasons for the diapers we chose, and I got to gross the kids out with the real explantion for why you always have one change of clothing in the bag ("The poo can go right up their back!" "Really?!! EWWW!!!"). Heh. Afterwards, Liam and I had coffee with our Roots of Empathy instructor, and headed back to the neighbourhood for some shopping and a return home. John and Jamie come home around 2:00 or so (John: checking for oni* all the way), and we had a mellow afternoon before heading out to our friend Libero's for a games night. Jamie enjoyed Libero's pingpong table and remote-controlled cars, but spent most of the evening watching cartoons on John's computer and snacking on the lovely food Libero had left out.

We got home late, and Jamie was quite tired, despite having falling asleep in the car between 6:30 and 7:00 on the way to Libero's. He demanded a bath with John, but ended up just lying on his bed in the blue room (nominally his room, but he's never used it as such). I seized the day (or night, as the case may be) and put a very tired and limp boy into his pajamas, and tucked him in. He just lay there for a while, and eventually closed his eyes and went to sleep in "his" bed. Well knock me over with a neutrino. We'll see if he decides to do this on a regular basis, but I think that I need to get that room organized and looking less like a spare room, and more like a little boy's room, to encourage him to continue to sleep in his own bed on his own volition. Wow. And Liam just fell asleep across my arms as I am writing this in the living room. Wow again.

2007-02-03 16:36 (Kristen) Jamie spent the entire night asleep in the blue room, and didn't wake up until 9:00, when he called me. I went into see him, and he looked up at me and said "I slept in my bed the entire night all by myself." "Yes," I said. He then announced that he was a big boy, and I told him how proud of him I was. He has said that he will sleep in there again tonight, and he just might. Certainly it was a good night sleep in another room, as Liam was up every two hours, screaming his head off with the next tooth that's pushing its way through his gums. I would get up and walk him around, get him to settle and allow the drugs to kick in again, and then it was a repeat of the same two hours later. Poor guy. I finally stopped going to bed with him around 7:00 AM, and I'm a total zombie today.

I did have to have a talk with Jamie, and make sure that his new notion that being a big boy meant that I was to give him no more hugs and kisses (an idea from a SpongeBob episode?) was done in with lots of hugs and kisses.

(John) We all went to the St. Lawrence Market for the first time since our return from Mexico. Liam fell asleep, and stayed with Kristen at the Second Cup while she worked. Jamie accompanied me on the actual shopping. He's still pretty tired, and spent most of the top licking a lollipop. The high point of my outing was getting a free sample of a sea urchin; the first time I'd ever eaten one straight from the shell. We came home, got everything put away, and I took a nap - I'm coming down with a cold that I hope the family doesn't get, though everyone has had the sniffles since our flight home. Jamie spent almost all of his actual at-home time playing with Ayami downstairs, thanks, Ayami!

For dinner we went over to Browning where Tom made us all chicken katsu and everyone marvelled as to how big the kids had gotten in two weeks.

2007-02-04 20:12 (Kristen) We went to bed later than I would have liked last night, but slept in a remarkable amount this morning to make up for it. Jamie woke up me and Liam at 9:45, and John woke up at noon. Jamie slept with us last night, possibly testing our promise that he was still allowed to sleep with us in our bed if her wanted. The weather was bitterly cold outside: -14 C withouth the windchill, and -26 C or so if you included the windchill. John had to go out and referee a math battle (a high school math event), so Jamie, Liam, and I spent the afternoon together.

Because it was so cold, and because Jamie had slept in so late, I didn't see the need to go out and try to have a nap in the stroller (and freeze all three of us). Jamie played with Gary and Ayami for the first part of the afternoon, after lunch, then watched television with me until John got home, around 4:30. Liam was getting progressively more and more upset as the afternoon wore on, despite the dose of Tempra I gave him, and could not be put down at all. I tried a number of times to get him to fall asleep in bed, with no luck at all. I finally had to make macaroni and cheese from a box, rather than the mashed potatoes, sausages, and spinach I had planned, for dinner because Liam screamed so much whenever I put him down. I finally got him to sleep on my shoulder, where he stayed, deeply but restlessly, for about an hour and a half before he woke up again. He's happy on the floor for the first time in close to eight hours, and Jamie is now starting his pre-bed, no-nap silly meltdown. John is in the bath, and I hope that everyone will be in bed and asleep soon. John's cold isn't any better yet, and won't be for the next few days, I imagine. We're holding on, and haven't succumbed to the Ick. Wish us luck.

2007-02-05 22:17 (Kristen) Liam had a rotten night last night, with a ferocious amount of gas. Your guess why is as good as mine, but a few bites of pear and a large poo has put all to rights. It's good when life is that simple.

John got up about 45 minutes before the rest of us, who crawled out of bed a little before nine. It was a quiet morning, hiding from the cold, before going over to Browning for lunch. That was fine, and then John dropped me and Liam off at my opthamologist appointment, while he and Jamie went to do some errands. When I was finished he and Jamie (who was asleep in the back seat) came to get us. Liam was also asleep, and so two boys slept in the back of the car for an hour while JOhn left us in the parking lot to buy groceries, and placated me with a bag of Oreos. Yum. We woke Jamie up at 4:00, after a two-hour nap, and brought both kids inside.

Jamie has been watching a lot of television, including Go, Diego, Go!, a Dora the Explorer spinoff. Our neighbour, Rosemary, gave him a colouring book of Diego, which had a chinchilla in it. The chinchilla had featured in an episode he'd just watched, and so we coloured the chinchilla together, Well, we coloured its face, and then Jamie coloured the rest, with appropriate colurs. I was pleased, as Jamie has resisted colouring at home, but I know that he does it at Hakobune. The evening was spent at Brownign, where Jamie exhausted Gary and Liam entertained everyone with his smiles, and by learning how to clap.

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

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