Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 88

2007-06-12 23:55 (Kristen) I should realize that when Jamie starts acting out badly, whining, and crying at the drop of a hat about basically nothing so that I want to sell him on eBay with no minimum bid, then he has an ear infection. He was awake at 7:00, telling me that he was hungry. I got him an apple (peeled, because someone did that for him and that's how he eats them now, curse it). My getting back into bed woke Liam up, however, and our day was off to the races. I was thinking of taking the kids to the grocery store, but Jamie was starting to act out and Liam needed a nap, then Trifina showed up, and it was lunchtime. I should add that Jamie's knee was sore and a little stiff when he woke up, but that he soon forgot about it in the middle of his manic play. He did eat his lunch, which was nice, and we took him to see Dr. Kennedy while Ken walked Liam. Dr. Kennedy looked at his knee (bruised) and his ear (red). Jamie's on a new antibiotic, and here's hoping that this one kicks this stubborn virus.

We met Ken back at our house, whereupon Liam woke up. He had only fallen asleep a half hour previously so that was not great news. Jamie proved that there is only so much naptime available between brothers, and fell asleep instead. I took Liam around on some errands, and John stayed home with Jamie asleep in the stroller in the (airconditioned) front hall. I made dinner while John took Jamie to buy some yoghurt at Sobey's, and Liam had a short nap. Jamie ate some of it and Liam hoovered as much of it as I would obligingly put into his mouth. Gary and his friend Siobhan, and Ayami when she got home, came up to visit for the evening, and Jamie was delighted with that. Jamie, I forgot to mention, slept for over three hours, and I was convinced that he was going to sleep at 1:00 AM. Instead he fell asleep around 10:30, which is just short of remarkable. We'll see what time he wakes up tomorrow and how he feels before we decide about Hakobune.

2007-06-13 23:22 (Kristen) Liam had a bad night last night, so John and I did too. I blame his teeth. Grr. When I woke up around 8:00, I just couldn't manage it, and crawled out of bed about fifteen minutes late. By coincidence (not) that's how late we were getting out of the house today on our way to Hakobune. Jamie and I talked about how he's growing, and his legs are a little longer than he thinks they are. He told me that the rest of him was too. We agreed that he should either be a little more careful, or accept that he might fall more often. That seemed to be all right with him. Liam fell asleep for two hours, which gave me some time to hide out in on a shaded patio for some quiet time. That was awfully nice.

I picked up a four cheese and spinach pizza slice for lunch, ate half of it, and saved the other half; presciently, as it turned out. Jamie had eaten some of his lunch, but not all, and so was fascinated with "sharing" my pizza. I so saw that coming. We got on the streetcar and Jamie happily ate the slice until I dropped it getting onto the next streetcar. Jamie was philosophical about it, but I had better buy one for sharing tomorrow. We all went to a Roots of Empathy wrap-up party near the St. Lawrence Market, and Jamie kept himself occupied through the speeches by scarfing as much of the fruit and vegetables laid out as he could comfortably hold. Liam was fascinated by all the other babies his age who were there, and looked very sweet in his Roots of Empathy Teacher t-shirt. Then we finally got on the subway and went to the end of the line (finally, to Jamie), and met up with John at the Second Cup. I needed the coffee, as I was about to fall asleep on my feet. We went home, where everyone's mom seemed to be showing up at the same time, and Jamie played with Tai-Tai for a bit. John went to Scrabble, the kids and I had dinner, and then Jamie played with Gary for an hour or so while I cleaned up with Liam. Everyone went to sleep more or less on time, and all is well with us. Liam's nose is running because of the drool, and he's having a little trouble breathing properly, but I hope that it will resolve itself soon.

2007-06-14 24:09 (Kristen) Jamie continues to fight off his cold gamely, and John continues to fight his version of the Evil Bug of the Century. Liam has already been there and done that, so he has his own new cold to play with. I'm really really tired f this and everyone can be well now, kthxbye*.

I took the boys in to Hakobune, and Jamie reports that he had a great time. I've pretty much established that Liam likes to nap two and a half hours after waking up, so if he's awake at 9, he doesn't fall asleep until 11:45 or so. Ick. Tomorrow, I will wake him up at 8:00, like he did on Wednesday, and he will sleep from 10:30 on. I hope. I had promised Jamie a piece of four cheese and spinach pizza today, and I made good on my promise. After roaring around the church with Sora-kun, I dragged him over to Cora's for pizza and an Orangina. The first Orangina smashed on the pavement when Jamie tried to pick it up himself, but he looked so repentant that I bought another one (which I normally wouldn't do). He ate an enormous amount of pizza, and had a great time feeding the sparrows and one lucky squirrel with the rest. He speculated that if we fed the sparrows enough, they would get bigger and bigger until they turned into pigeons. That was pretty funny, and worth playing with for a while. We finished up, got onto the TTC, and at Jamie's request went to Treasure Island. There we saw Sora-kun again (startling, as he lives with his parents in Brampton), and Jamie had a blast playing with him and showing him the better parts of the store (train table, glow-in-the-dark swords, etc.). The two boys ran from the toy store to the Second Cup, hand in hand (as they must do when they go to the park at daycare), and faster than I have ever seen Jamie traverse that particular stretch of sidewalk. I must partner him with a friend more often! Sora-kun's mom and I agreed that both boys usually grouse about having to walk anywhere because it's *boring*, and it was a treat to see them running and happy. When we got to the Second Cup we parted ways, and Jamie and I read a little (Liam listened in) while we waited for John. John arrived and we hung out a bit before heading back home. Jamie fell asleep in the stroller, and slept for an hour. Woe!

Liam was happy and roamed about while I made dinner and prepared for my book club tonight, which was meeting at our house. When my book club friends arrived, John took over looking after the boys until after the bath [John: Jamie invented ball-tag, where you have to kick a soccer ball at someone to make them it; Liam tried to and succeeded in surreptitiously eating grass clippings], when I helped out by reading to Jamie (Liam had crashed out earlier). I came back in later when Liam woke up and couldn't be soothed, and took him back out with me. When book club was over, John did most of the cleaning up while I settled a very jittery and jangly Jamie down and helped him to fall asleep by 11:00. Liam's cold is making him cough, despite the Dimetapp that I gave to him, and I think that we may have another rough night ahead.

2007-06-15 21:26 (Kristen) Not much of import to relate: Jamie had fun at Hakobune, and is getting better and better at telling us what he did and what he liked. Liam fell asleep around 11:30, after fighting sleep for a Long Long Time, but he only had a short nap. In the afternoon, he was so tired that I was able to get him to sleep in the house for over two hours. Yay! I slept for an hour, myself. Since Liam had had another rought night, double yay!

John looked after Jamie while I looked after Liam, and I don't know much of what they did. We all met up at Browning for dinner, and Jamie played racing cars (San Francisco Rush 2059) for a little too long. He was awfully tired when we got home, and crashed out relatively easily. Liam went down with more work, since his little nose was so stuffed it was hard for him to nurse. I should note that I am 75% sure that Liam knows the sign for "nurse" now, and he definitely knows "up." He is just at the right point to start picking up signs, and I'm going to have to look up a few more that he might find useful.

2007-06-16 24:11 (Kristen) Liam slept badly after a certain point this morning, and I was hot so I didn't sleep so well myself. I think that we were up around 8:30 or so, but can't be sure. Jamie woke up soon after and needed some special hugs and attention, which set the tone for the day. John slept poorly too, and so he slept in, or tried to; Jamie slipped upstairs to pee and ended up chattering John's ears off instead of coming back down to breakfast. Arrgh. We all went out in the head to the St. Lawrence Market, which was full of lovely things to eat. We bought much of it. Jamie told Nupur that samosas make his itai* (pains) go away, and she liked that. Liam is almost old enough for a samosa; it'll be part of his "I'm one! I can eat wheat!" celebration. Liam didn't sleep for very long, and got hungry enough that I had to nurse him while John and Jamie finished the shopping at the market. We headed over to Loblaws, did the rest of our shopping, and came home late in the afternoon.

We ran out to pick up a Father's Day gift for John's dad, and stopped by John's parents' place for some food before heading home to a late dinner. Liam was very fussy throughout the dinner prep time, and I got my dinner a little late as a result. However, all eventually were fed, and the boys were in bed around 9:30. Jamie took a little while to fall asleep, but got his cuddle at the end of the day. He chattered on about dreams, and what kind of dream I was going to have tonight. He was going to have a flying dream, which he thinks is a cool idea. Liam is asleep, and has hardly stirred at all. His evening nap, during our walk to the bookstore, was very disturbed because he kept waking himself up by coughing, but the cold medication seems to be helping him. Fingers crossed.

2007-06-17 22:30 (Kristen) Jamie woke me up around 8:30 this morning by repeatedly poking me and doing other equally annoying things. It turns out that he wanted me to turn on the television for him. We had a talk about what one can wake Mom up for and what one can not, and how that waking should be done. Grr. We had breakfast and I decided that we should maybe cut back on the amount of television watched in a day. Instead, I got him (after initial bitter complaint) to sit and read a book with me. We read two, and his new, post-modern approach to storybooks is to have me read it first front to back, and then back to front. It works better with some than with others. Rolie Polie Olie can be read this way with fun results; The Wildest Brother less so. John had fallen asleep quite late last night, so we all let him sleep in. Liam slept in until 9:30, which wasn't too surprising given how little he slept yesterday, and cheerfully ate his food and hung out with me and Jamie. John came down in time for lunch, and we decided to just walk around our neighbourhood to celebrate Father's Day. I should add that Jamie gave John a new pencil holder in the shape of a Dad that he made at Hakobune as a Father's Day present. John was very happy.

It was blazingly hot, so we kept our ambitions minimal. We walked to John's parents' house, then to the Second Cup. Liam woke up the instant we stepped inside, which was disappointing but unsurprising. He is a very light sleeper at times, which is somewhat frustrating to say the least. He melted down eventually and so we got going outside again and walked to Treasure Island (Jamie's request). I nursed Liam there, and I saw Jamie and John roar by at one point with fireman's hats on. They seemed to have a good time. We left to go home so that John could have a nap before dinner, and Jamie, Liam, and I ended up staying playing with a small boy who Jamie has played with before and who liveds a block away from us. They were playing with soap bubbles, which are like catnip to a Jamie. Their daughter is a few weeks younger than Liam, and their son is a few weeks younger than Jamie. It's funny. Liam enjoyed playing with a baby his age, and we pulled ourselves away around 5:15 to find John. We found him, and walked to the Silk Road Cafe for Father's Day dinner. Jamie was pretty tired at this point and a little combative with me, but was otherwise fine. Liam hoovered as much food as came near him, and was delighted with the highchair he got to sit in. We were home relatively early, and the boys are in bed, asleep.

I forgot to mention that we found some Japanese kid videos on YouTube for Jamie that are just wonderful. They are from a television show titled Pythagoras Switch; very inventive short animated sequences, and lots of elaborate marble runs. I think that Jamie could waste as much time on YouTube as me and John. One segment has a little animated box named Botejin, which says "Bote, Bote, Bote, Botejin" as it flips itself around a track. John says that he couldn't get Jamie's attention at one point today by calling out "Jamie," but could get his attention by calling out "Botejin."

2007-06-18 22:07 (Kristen) Short notes tonight, as my brief work lull has ended and I have to get to work. Liam slept in until 11:00 this morning, after a fairly undisturbed night (a couple of wakings, but he went back to sleep quickly). He and John are in a different time zone from me and Jamie; Jamie and I took advantage of our rising three hours earlier to eat breakfast together, read some books, and to play and talk. We read a book called "Next Stop," which was illustrated by our friend, Ruth Ohi. I told Jamie that Ruth had drawn the pictures, and he said "Oh! We must thank her!" So we are, Ruth, if you read this! Liam is crawling on his hands and knees, rather than swimming across the floor, most of the time and is *fast*. He waved "bye bye" for the first time today, so honouring his father as I took the boys over to visit John's mom. Liam called time on us, and fell asleep for about half an hour before he woke up on the patio at the Second Cup. We three spent some nice time there before heading to the playground on the way home. Jamie played with two very nice older boys named Henry and Emerson, and they said that they hoped Jamie would be there tomorrow. I'll try to make sure that he is. John looked after the boys at Browning while I went to play Trivia, and both boys were still bouncing when I arrived back home around 10:00. They soon settled down, and they are both sleeping now. I wonder what time they will wake up tomorrow?

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

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