Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 76

2007-03-20 21:23 (Kristen) My theory is that the change to daylight savings has invested Jamie with a new rush of energy. He's been walking everywhere, and getting more exercise than usual; in fact, he's been needing more exercise than usual. But yet he does not nap. Today was no exception. I took him in the morning to UTP with me to drop off a package, where he and Liam got to visit with my old workmates. Liam rode, Jamie walked. He enjoyed the subway trip, and we made it to Browning a little late, but otherwise fine. We had all woken up late this morning (close to 10), and Jamie wasn't all that hungry at lunch. It was hard to tell if he wasn't hungry, or if he was just refusing to eat because he could. LIfe's been like that lately.

Ken took Liam for a walk, and John took Jamie while I worked for an hour. Then John and I switched, and I sat with Jamie at the Second Cup doing "work" with him. He did pages in his maze book, his phonics book (initial sounds of words), his number book, his letter book, and some connect-the-dots. He also did some cutting practice with scissors. He was very busy, but excited by his successes and willing to do more until he was finally too tired for his juice to provide him with enough energy. Liam had arrived by this time and was happy to look around, but when Jamie was done I thought it was time to go home. John came with us, as the Second Cup was a distracting place today, and we played at home for a bit.

Nobuko and Tomoko made dinner for us tonight, and it was delicious. Jamie had fun, as usual, playing with them, and Liam was utterly ravenous. He kept making his high, keening "I want! I want!" sound, and responded with great vigour to my prompting of "mumma! mumma!" (food food) and accompanying sign. He definitely knows what it means. He hadn't eaten yesterday, and we were wondering why, and it seems that it was because he won't eat cold food. You have to warm it up, and he'll eat jars of it. And he did tonight. There you go. Jamie took many photographs tonight with John's new camera using the self-timer and tripod. The boys are in the bath, calling for me, and that is the end of tonight's missive.

2007-03-21 20:34 (Kristen) We crawled out of bed relatively early; Jamie had crawled into bed with us last night, and forced John to the end of the bed by kicking him in the face repeatedly. It wasn't deliberate, I am sure, but something Has to Be Done. John and Jamie left for Hakobune, and Liam and I hung out. Liam has hardly slept at all today, even in the stroller and in the backpack. I suspect teeth, and will be giving him medicine tonight.

When John brought Jamie back home, Jamie didn't want to go out. We stayed home until his crazy tired behaviour meant that a death would occur if we didn't go out, and I took both boys to the library. Jamie slept for 40 minutes (surprise!) and Liam slept not at all. Liam is crabby beyond belief right now, and it's time to pop both boys into the bath. I hope that I can write more later.

(John) Liam can rapidly roll himself from one end of the living room to the other, and amuses himself sometimes by doing so, then randomly pushing buttons on the stereo, then rolling back. Often, this shuts off the television's audio, which is normally routed through the stereo's speakers. We find out about this when Jamie can't hear his videos, tries cranking the volume up, then complains that the audio is out. It's important to remember to turn the volume back down before switching the audio source!

2007-03-22 21:50 (Kristen) Today was my day to take Jamie to Hakobune, and it was a beautiful spring day for it. Jamie ate his breakfast but Liam, unusually, didn't eat his. I took some rice cereal with us to drop off Jamie, and Liam (unusually, again) stayed awake in the backpack all the way there and for a half-hour walk afterwards. He had a great old time, chattering away and grabbing my hair close to the scalp to get it into his mouth better. When he finally fell asleep, I went and got some work done until he woke up an hour and a half later, and we went to get Jamie.

Jamie has been asking to go to the end of the subway line for a week or two now, and I arranged for today to be the day. On the way, we discussed what you do if someone hits you. After going through the options (run away, tell a grownup), he decided that you run away to get a sword or a shooting gun, and deal with the issue that way. There was much giggling to accompany his theory of aggression management. We also discussed various letter sounds, including the letter "Y." He decided that he wanted to go to the Second Cup after all and do mazes instead of going home, and so we did. Liam had fallen asleep on the way back west, but woke up almost instantly inside the Second Cup. However, he was happy in his backpack, so Jamie and I did his "work." He did some great writing practice and was surprisingly fast with his initial sounds work (W is for walrus, wagon, and watermelon). The only confusion comes in when he doesn't know what the picture represents (i.e., is that a doll or a girl or a toy?) or he hasn't come across the thing before (i.e., moose). We've gotten a lot done over the last week in his workbooks, and we're starting to wonder if there will be much left for him to do at kindergarten other than socialization and crafts. He's really ready to start reading.

John came to get us just as Jamie got tired and Liam needed a change of scenery. We walked home (Jamie walked all the way! Wow!) and settled in for a quiet night. Liam has been a little fussy, and *graphic baby bowel discussion warning* has not pooed today. We suspect too much banana, and will be loading him up on the "p" fruit tomorrow to counter this. He didn't eat dinner, we suspect, because of it, and is spitting up more than usual. More exercise and lots of floor time tomorrow for him! /graphic baby bowel discussion.

2007-03-23 22:06 (Kristen) Liam was having some tummy trouble early this morning, and so I took him into the other room for the rest of the night. Jamie found me there, after nearly having an accident in bed and going to have a solo morning pee. We all got ready to go to Hakobune, and John, Liam, and I went to a Roots of Empathy class afterwards. The subject of the class was, ironically, sleep. John says that it was ironic, because he was too sleep-deprived to enjoy it. I think that we were rather grim about the effects of sleep deprivation on people, their companions, and their kids, but there's no sugar coating some things. It was a good class, and we enjoyed it. Liam had a blast, but we had to close things down when he started to get tired.

We picked up Jamie and headed home. John had misplaced his keys, unfortunately, and had to go back out to get them while Jamie, Liam, and I went to the Second Cup. Jamie walked the whole way, which made it easier to pounce on Daniel, who was returning from the Second Cup with Ken. They pretended to be bulls, and that got them to the Second Cup (Ken went on to pick up Ross). Jamie was very excited and tired but not sleepy, but we managed to calm him down for a little cutting practice and his first hiragana work with John after Daniel went home for his clarinet lesson. Dinner was at Browning, where John made me a perfect cheese souffle, despite never having eaten or seen a souffle before. We also had my special birthday cake, which John also made. Jamie wasn't very hungry, despite his manic activity, so we called it an early night after I opened my presents. Daniel helped me to take the boys home while John carried everything else. The kids fell sleep almost instantly after their bath, but Liam slept restlessly and I ended up falling asleep for the night with them.

(John) I should add that Jamie was a big help in the birthday preparations. He chose and cut all the wrapping paper, and helped with some of the tape. He chose the balloons. He decorated half of the cake. Good boy, Jamie.

2007-03-24 23:23 (Kristen) We all slept in this morning, after crashing out last night. Jamie was a little crusty this morning, as shown in that he yelled at me and broke into tears, saying "Don't call me that!" after I said "Good boy." Yep. Some mornings you can't win for getting up on the wrong side of the bed. He calmed down with a movie and an apple, and I got Liam up and dressed. I eventually got some breakfast into me, some more food into Jamie, and little food into Liam before we went with John to the St. Lawrence Market. We met Nobuko and Tomoko there, and we bought some fish for dinner tomorrow night. Afterwards, John went shopping with Jamie while I sat in the car with a sleeping Liam. Liam woke up just before John and Jamie returned, and we decided to take the boys to Yorkdale Mall to shop and hopefully see my Aunt Millie.

The mall was bustling, and I took Jamie to have his bubble tea. He knows that Yorkdale means bubble tea, and he threw his hands in the air with a "hurray!" when he found out that we were almost there. I did some shopping for kid clothing, and had a blast. I ended up, at John's suggestion, buying the boys matching clothes at The Children's Place: the boys may hate us for this in future, and I never though I'd be doing this, but they're going to look soooo cute!

After a disappointing visit to Indigo (they'd hidden or lost the trains for the train table) we went to visit my aunt Millie, who was working at the Crabtree and Evelyn at Yorkdale. I ended up chatting with her for some time, and John kept Jamie happy by giving him an enormous bag of cheesy popcorn. Liam slept in the backpack. At one point John had been wearing the backpack and Jamie was making him carry him in the front. I was forcefully reminded of the Alligator Dad in a picture book of dads that we have, who carries his two kids fore and aft. We had known that it was bound to happen. We came home, had a slow evening, and now we're all in bed or getting there.

2007-03-25 21:32 (Kristen) Since we didn't have enough of malls yesterday, I decided to take the boys (and John) to Yonge and Bloor, better to shop for new sheets/duvet covers/other boring but essential fabric items. Jamie woke up around sunrise but consented to go back to sleep (note to self: buy/make curtains!) until around 8:30. We three got up, and went downstairs. I cleaned up, made breakfast, and put Liam down for a short nap around 10:15. He sometimes has a short nap if he is up before 9:00. The morning nap sometimes blends into the nighttime sleep, and is somewhat unpredictable, but still there. Jamie was around a year old, I think, when he gave his up. John was up around the time Liam went to sleep, but was moving slowly and in great pain as he threw his back out yesterday. A trip to the chiropractor is definitely in his future.

We all headed out after late breakfasts and early lunches were consumed, depending upon who we are talking about. I had bought fish roe for Jamie yesterday, and he was delighted to have them for breakfast on his ochazuke*, giving them a "yay!" and two arms in the air. When we reached Yonge and Bay, John camped out at the Second Cup with Liam while I took a very tired Jamie with me to look at sheets. I ran him the full length of the underground mall at Yonge and Bloor, which helped to tire him out. I went back to get Liam when he woke up, and took him and Jamie to find a toy store with a train table. The store was closed, however, and I took Jamie and Liam quickly through the Gap before heading back to find John. We took the long, slow way through the mall, which was finally enough to get Jamie to fall asleep (thank goodness). Even though it was 4:15, he was tired enough that it was a Bad Thing for him to be awake. Liam slept too until we got home. Jamie slept until a little after 6:00, when Nobuko and Tomoko arrived to make Sunday dinner (yay!). We had a great time with them, and Ayami has come upstairs to join us.

Liam's smiles are getting more radiant, and more fun. He's also getting faster as he rolls along, and gets great delight out of roaming the living room floor. He grabbed a small plastic bowl and held it in both hands at one point as he rolled the length of the living room. He has also gotten a great deal of pleasure out of his soother today, which he could have lived with or without, whatever, yesterday. I think that he's having a bad teething day, given the amount of drool, and I will be drugging him tonight. Jamie is tired but happy, and has been hugging and playing with Liam lately. Liam looks up at Jamie with utter adoration, and John and I are giving each other high fives at the notion that they might actually entertain each other. This, and Jamie now insists on going to the bathroom by himself; I'm not even allowed on the same floor. I could get used to this.

2007-03-26 23:40 (Kristen) We all slept in late this morning (a little past nine) because the skies were so dark and grey with rain. It felt much earlier. I got up with Liam, and Jamie woke up soon afterwards to watch the thunderstorm moving through the city. The forecast was for 19 °C but those lovely temperatures didn't show up until the afternoon. In the morning, it was still chilly. Jamie did the usual watch television after breakfast, and I did a little work after putting Liam down for his non-negotiable 10:00 nap (a recent thing). Lunch was at Browning, but Ken was sick so Tami headed back home as soon as she could.

This left me with two boys for the afternoon, as I was leaving John home to do some thesis work. I took them to see Nobuko at her atelier, as she and Tomoko had forgotten some things at our place last night. Nobuko was very happy to see us, and we ended up staying for an hour, being fed, and practicing our Japanese. Jamie impressed one of Nobuko's students, a teacher at the Japanese school we're thinking of sending him to on Saturdays, with his ability to count in Japanese. Good job, Jamie! I spoke enough Japanese well enough that she completely overestimated my ability to understand her at full speed, which was nice and bad at the same time. However, I now have a new recipe for onigiri*. Tomoko wasn't there when we arrived, but came over to meet up with us. She walked us to Indigo, where she left us at the train table in the kids' section. While we were there, a woman with two children who looked dual race (she was Caucasian) and I started talking after she identified Liam as partly Japanese. It turns out that she's got a job at the university (comp religion) and understood that we were peaking Japanese. She's a Chinese expert, married to a Korean who is also teaching at the university, and finishing dissertations. We had a lovely chat about that, and I'm hoping that we'll meet again, so that Jamie can play with Sam and Liam can play with Max.

We headed over to Browning around 4:45, and helped John make dinner quickly so that he could run out to Scrabble with the Stars tonight. We ate with Michelle, Daniel and Ross, and with Gary after he arrived too. Jamie played with the kids, Liam played with me and roamed the floor, and I chatted with Michelle. I took the kids home around 8:30, and had Jamie asleep by 9:45. However, he woke up at 11:00, disoriented, crying and shouting, because of a nightmare. We weren't able to calm him down (John was home at this point), and he was so worked up that his sinuses started running and he choked on his post-nasal drip and threw up. Poor Jamie. We got him cleaned up, the bedlinens all changed, and ourselves scrubbed, and Gary and Ayami helped first by looking after a wide-awake but fussy Liam, and then by talking Jamie gently to sleep while John and I finishe dcleaning up. I'll have to talk with Jamie in the morning, to see if he remembers anything about it, because it's easily the worst nightmare he's every had. There was something about trains, tracks, and the blue ball. That's all I know for now.

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

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