Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 73

2007-02-27 22:05 (John) How can we all be so tired? The days are getting longer, the weather is back up to freezing again, we're getting plenty of exercise (shovelling snow), eating well and yet we're tired by lunchtime and exhausted by dinner. We were so happy that Nobuko and Tomoko came over with dinner this evening, and that Tomoko helped run the last of Jamie's energy out of him while Nobuko saw how much baby food she could spoon into Liam's mouth (about a jar and a half). Liam was sad to see Nobuko go home, and tried to make a last-minute dive from my arms into hers as she was headed out the door. (Kristen: much like cats that you feed; they want to follow you home)

When Jamie and I set out for what was supposed to be Jamie's nap, we ran into Junko and Rayna along the way, and since they were shovelling snow, Jamie leapt out of the stroller to help. This turned into a very pleasant half hour spent building snowmen, which is not a bad excuse for not taking a nap.

Jamie helped us assemble two IKEA Trofast towers today for his toys (Kristen: well, and Liam's too). Clearly all the time he spends playing with toy tools has been improving his handyman skills. He is also getting good at cutting with scissors, and asked tonight if he could cut my hair in the bath. He's been insisting on "washing" my hair each night, and very big on practising his various adult skills.

(Kristen) When Jamie and John arrived at the Second Cup, and Jamie was wide awake, I kept Jamie occupied while Liam slept. Jamie talks about his "work," taking his cue from me and John, as we work at home a lot, and he sees it. I had brought three of his Kumon workbooks and John had bought him a lovely Staedtler pencil and pencil sharpener, so I offered to let him do his work while John did his. Jamie did about six mazes, learned to write all the numbers from one to ten, and talked with me about the sounds that certain letters make (I think that his hand was a little sore by this point, and he wanted to keep working but rest the hand). He was fabulous: I kept asking him if he wanted to go on, but he was grooving on the praise and the thrill of doing things well and for the first time. He finally stopped because he was, I suspect, right pooped. I was very proud of him, and gave him a high-five for every correctly done page. He liked that too. We'll see if we can do the same thing tomorrow.

Liam is wide awake, despite giving off "I'm tired" signals, which makes me wonder if he's teething or giving new signals. He'll stay happy while I blog if I talk to him; otherwise he gives his new pout and "You must give me the thing that I want or I'll cry" sound. It's getting a little too hard now: must go.

2007-02-28 25:30 (John) I was woken up this morning by Liam, who was happily saying "Hey!" with increasing volume to see what it would take to wake me up. When I opened my eyes, he then chattered happily with me, working through his vocabulary until it was time to get up.

I took Jamie to Hakobune, where he made a Girls' Day "o-hina-sama" ornament for us. He made one last year too, and it's startling how much technically better this one is; almost as startling as the fact that he's been going to Hakobune for more than a year now.

When we got home, Kristen looked after the kids for a bit so I could rest, then Jamie and I set out to go to the bank. We got only as far Iain and Clare's house, where we were diverted to make a snowman and drink hot chocolate. Four snowmen in one week, almost a personal record! When we were done there, we set out again, and Jamie stopped Hans, who was busy chopping ice out of the gutter in front of his house. "Whose ice chopper is that?" he asked. "Your father's." "Why do you have it? It belongs at my house." "He told me I could use it." "I don't *think* so." Good thing Hans has a good sense of humour, and that I had told him he could borrow the ice chopper anytime he wanted.

We met up with Kristen and Liam, walked down to the Danforth, and got both kids to fall asleep at the unusual hour of 17:00. This boded ill for later on, but we took advantage of the situation by wheeling them to the Silk Road Cafe and enjoying a quiet dinner together while the kids continued to nap. They both woke up when we got home, which was fine as it was time to take them to the Scrabble club for the club's 32nd anniversary party.

There, Kristen spent most of the time looking after the kids while I ran the club, but everyone seemed to have a very good time. We were all at least an hour past pumpkin by the time we got home though, and it was rough getting the kids to bed.

2007-03-01 20:43 (Kristen) I let Jamie sleep in this morning after his late night last night, and managed to get him out of the house, along with Liam, to a minimum of stress and bother (from him, anyway: I'm really looking forward to a time when we can leave the house without so much kid stuff: diaper bags, backpacks, lunch bags, you name it. Or at least to when they can carry it themselves). I dropped Jamie off at Hakobune, where he forgot about me before the door even closed. I took Liam off to a coffee shop with me, where he slept and I worked. We went to pick up Jamie at 1:00, and managed to get out of there by 1:30. We walked to the subway (we do that regularly now), and the heavens opened up with snow by the time we got there. Ken called before I went into the subway to offer to walk Liam, and to bring down the big stroller to the Second Cup, where I was going with Jamie, Liam, and the little stroller for a meeting.

John was going to pick up Jamie at the same place, so there was about ten minutes of pure chaos while I got Jamie ready to go out again, Liam transferred, and two stroller with two kids and two men pushing them out the door. I had a lovely meeting, and then Liam came back with Ken around three. I should say that the snowstorm was in full force at this point, and that they came in utterly covered in snow. Liam was awake and crying, unusually, and we think that he might have been cold. He calmed down, but stayed awake for a while. John and Jamie showed up, Jamie asleep in his stroller, and we all hung out, watching the snow, and talking with another mother who has a boy two weeks younger than Liam. Liam was spontaneously laughing when I was, which was pretty funny.

The storm wasn't getting any better, and seemed set to get worse when I decided to go home. I pushed my big-wheeled stroller through the snow until I got too tired, then pushed iton the nearly deserted street, where the snow was more pressed down. I would have been utterly stranded with a small-wheeled stroller. We made it home, swept off the stroller, and then Liam slept in the stroller in the front hall until well after six. John and Jamie staggered home later, and a still tired Jamie has been a dynamo of frenetic energy ever since. We're getting ready for bed now, but I anticipate him taking a long time to wind dowm and sleep tonight despite it.

(John) Kristen was right: Jamie didn't fall asleep until 23:30.

2007-03-02 24:13 (Kristen) We were all feeling quite tired first thing this morning, and out of sorts. Jamie and I had a few pointless fights before he left for Hakobune with John, who was very careful driving on the streets after the storm of yesterday (John: which has made the neighbourhood an interesting maze of flooded sidewalks, felled trees and downed power lines). Liam and I hung about until 12:30, when a tired Liam drove me outside into the slush to walk him around. He fell asleep and I looked at all the fallen tree branches as I pushed the stroller through the melting snow and slushy puddles. He woke up in the Big Carrot, and didn't go back to sleep again. Augh*! I took him on a few errands, and then Ken came along to take him out for a bit (after Liam had an uncharacteristic meltdown). Liam was not himself today; he wouldn't nurse well, didn't eat much food, and kept waking up. Must be teeth, although it could be something else but I don't know what. Jamie and John found me at the Second Cup, and Jamie did some of his work while John did his. Jamie was really too tired to get much done, and wasn't about to nap, so we left to go back home after Ken dropped Liam off. Liam had fallen asleep but woke up again soon after coming into the Second Cup.

He did fall asleep again on the walk home, and stayed outside with John for a bit while I was inside with Jamie. He came in, and we decided that it was time to go over to Browning. Jamie ran off to play with whomever he could find, and I fed Liam some dinner. Tom and Michelle have agreed to look after the boys one evening every two weeks (likely to be Fridays), and so John and I ra off home to play a game of Scrabble nearby. It was a good thing, because as we were doing a post-mortem on the game, we got a phone call. I could hear Liam yelling out of John's cellphone from across the table, so I ran out the door and over to get him. He stopped crying when I got there, but since he usually loves Tom, it was another sign of unsettledness. Jamie was blithering, and we had more pointless yelling and fights on the way home. We bathed the boys, and talked with Jamie again about sleeping in his own bed. Our compromise was for Jamie to fall asleep by himself in our bed. Well, it's a step in some sort of direction. Liam is sleeping lightly, and not particularly deeply, and I 've had to settle him once already. I'm actually surprised that I've managed to type this much without being called back.

2007-03-03 23:07 (Kristen) John was at a Scrabble tournament today (and playing, for once!), so the boys and I were on our own. Jamie woke up owly, but I managed to get him fed and both boys out the door by 11:00 to go to the St. Lawrence Market for a few things. I put Liam into a backpack for the first time, and he thought it was great. So great, in fact, that he fell asleep. We all took the streetcar there, which was fun, and saw Nupur first off because Jamie needed a samosa. Liam woke up and fell asleep off and on, and when he slept, his head slumped forward onto my shoulder. He waas more cute than usual, because he was wearing his coat with the bunny ears. When he was awake, he was all smiles from up above.

Jamie ate his way through the market, and was looking very sleepy when we were done. I walked to Union Station, and Jamie finally fell asleep in the bathroom there when I had to change Liam. Liam fell asleep soon after his change, and both boys slept on the subway ride home. Liam woke up when I took him off my back in the front hall (he was getting heavy), but Jamie slept in the front hall for a total of three hours. And boy did he need it. He was in a much better mood afterwards. Liam, however, started going downhill. He enjoyed the icy chew toys I got for him, and it was pretty clear that his mouth was hurting him a great deal. He hasn't eaten much, and was nursing wth difficulty. He's got a stuffy nose, a ton of drool, and is exhausted, but the Tempra is inly helping a bit, and he is now only sleeping on my shoulder with much patting. Poor guy; another rough night in store.

On a more cheerful note, Jamie loves my iPod shuffle, and loves to take it and dance around to whatever is on (he prefers faster songs). However, the earphones fall out of his ears, so I need to find an old set of headphones that have a headband to keep the phones in place for him. But, it is true, he won't then be able to share the phones with me so easily anymore.

John's brother Ted arrived about the same time as John came home, and Ted is staying with us for a ew days. Tom generously offered to feed us all, so we had a pleasant evening there before coming home to blog and bed.

2007-03-04 22:35 (Kristen) Liam had a terrible night last night. Even after giving him Tempra, he kept waking up every fifteen minutes or so yelling and crying. He didn't actually wake up so I was able to get him to go back to sleep after a few minutes (five minutes most, I think, at one point), but our sleep was rather fractured. He settled down a little more by later morning, but we slept in Jamie's room to give John and Jamie a break.

Jamie was up around 7:45, which wasn't an entirely happy thing for me. He seemed to be in a good enough mood, and after we saw John off to his Scrabble tournament, he spent the morning watching television for a few hours while I made coffee and pulled myself together for the day. Liam was still a little crabby, but he was just tired and fell asleep in his snowsuit on the floor while I was getting him ready to go out. Jamie didn't want to go out, but he really needed the exercise; he was getting bored, and that only spelled trouble with me as tired as I was. I made him walk to the Danforth, with a side trip to John's parents' house to let Trifina in to clean their place. We met up with Peter, Leslie, and Simon at the Detroit Eatery, enjoyed pancakes and their company, and then bought cheese before going back to John's parents' house to pay Trifina.

We all went onto the subway so that Jamie could see Lower Bay Station. The TTC is fixing the roof in part of the tunnel near Bay Station, and so have rerouted the subway trains through an unused station below Bay Station on a set of tracks that go to Museum instead of St. George Station. It is a very rare occurence for trains to actually take this route, and so the line has been very busy with people wanting to see the old station (where many movies have been filmed when subway scenes are needed). Then we headed to the library at Pape, and walked home. Jamie fell asleep, and Liam had been asleep in the backpack for a while, so I took a rest at the Second Cup before heading home.

John's aunts and John's sister Pamela were coming over for dinner with us and Ted, and it was a lovely evening. Jamie had a great time playing with everyone, and it was very nice to see Pamela too, as we hadn't seen her in a while. Liam had some food for the first time in a few days, but is obviously still teething, as the front of his shirt is soaked. No sign of teeth yet, though. We had an iChat video call with Alice, Ian, and Amy, which Liam enjoyed and Jamie mugged for, and the kids are pretty tired now. I am thinking of more radical solutions to Liam's sleep problems, beyond Tempra, because I'm starting to have short term memory loss due to lack of sleep. Poor Liam.

2007-03-05 16:51 (Kristen) Liam had his first good night in almost a week last night, with just the usual fussing and complaining and none of the screaming and crying. Yay! I think that I got a REM cycle: yay! Lessened short-term memory loss for me! I'll do better at Trivia tonight because of it. The boys were up a little later than usual, which meant that the morning seemed to fly by. We had a leisurely breakfast, during which Liam inhaled some rice cereal and pears. It was the most that he's eaten in over two days, so I think everyone is going to feel better. His nose is very stuffy, and I don't know if he has a virus, or if it's the teeth. Either way, it's making nursing a little trying for him, and he snores like a tiny buzzsaw.

Lunch was at Browning, and Jamie had fun but got a little wound up. We're having some difficulty getting him to realize that when he throws things at people, people get hurt. We've had much discussion of "sorry," especially when you feel badly about hurting someone. Ken took Liam for a walk, and I took Jamie, as John was rather exhausted after the tournament on the weekend, and was taking a wife-mandated nap. I had expected Ken to show up with Liam around 2:30, and it was a little after 2:00 when I left Browning with Jamie, so I went straight to the Second Cup. Jamie was wide awake, even though he seemed very tired, so I didn't walk him around as might have been better. We sat and ate snacks, I had coffee, and we did some folding exercises. He also told me that bats are black, but can be brown or grey, and that snakes live in nests. He's getting very interested in the world around him.

Ken dropped Liam off around 3:15. I hadn't realized that he had arranged some extra time with Tami to walk Liam, as we had left Browning late. John had slept for a long time (which was much needed), and had only just woken up, so I decided to wait for him. By the time 4:00 came around, however, Jamie was in the Land of Not Listening Anymore because he was so tired, and John was caught by a last-minute work problem at home. So, I decided to take both boys home. This involved me pushing Jamie's stroller ahead of me with one hand, and pulling Liam's stroller behind me with the other. It was much easier than I thought, and while I wouldn't want to do it every day, it's good to know that I can. By the time I got home, I felt mighty mighty, just like an Amazon Mom. Woot.

(John) Kristen went to her first pub trivia night since Liam was born, and helped her team to crushing victory with an 8/10 score. The kids were fine in her absence, while we had our usual Monday night dinner at Browning, thanks to help from Tom and Ted.

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

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