Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 91

2007-07-03 24:23 (Kristen) Jamie woke up early again today, and I let him go downstairs without me and watch television for an hour before I got up myself. I felt better, and he was ready for breakfast when I came down. Liam was up soon afterwards. We spent the morning at home, with a detour at Dr. Kennedy's to make sure that Jamie was all right and healing nicely, and went to Browning for lunch. Liam waved "bye-bye" to me when he went for his walk with Ken, and he signed "nurse" to me earlier in the day. He's really got it. Tom thinks that he's made a major intellectual leap in the last week, and he certainly seems to be doing more than the usual number of new things. Yay, Liam!

I took Jamie with me to the library while Ken had Liam, and Jamie fell asleep on the way to get Liam at the Second Cup. Liam, however, woke up after only an hour and cheerfully greeted me when he arrived there himself. He is drooling like a faucet, and I am sure that I would have wrung water out of his shirt like a washcloth if I had tried it earlier tonight. One child asleep out of two is par for the course, and we headed home after picking up groceries. Jamie was asleep for an hour in the end, and we all moved inside to play with balls, chat, and otherwise play. John and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary today, and went to see a movie while Jamie and Liam stayed at Browning. They were, by all reports, well behaved, happy, and had a great time. Gary and Ayami came over to play video games for the last fifteen minutes, and came home with us. Jamie told me that he had a great time at Daniel and Ross's house, and it is such a great thing for us that Jamie and Liam are happy there, and that we have the chance to drop them off and have some time to ourselves once in a while.

Tonight, when we were getting ready for bed, Jamie came in while Liam was nursing himself to sleep. Jamie got into bed quietly, and put on his own clothes by himself for the first time with no help, including that tricky long-sleeved shirt. He was very proud of himself, and I let him know that I was proud of him too.

2007-07-04 20:48 (Kristen) The day started well enough, I suppose. Jamie woke up around 7:30 telling me that he was hungry, but we managed to keep a lid on things until 8:00. Once downstairs, he was listless and didn't eat much of anything, despite being made exactly what he'd asked for. The day really took a turn for the worse when he refused, in an utterly panicked and hysterical way, to take his medicine. He hates the taste, and says that it makes him choke (possibly my fault, because he needs to take it in two stages from an oral syringe). After many a false start and a long wait to help him to calm down, I made him take it and he vomited it back up in a hysterical fit. Liam was melting down for some other reason at the time, and I confess that I joined them for a minute. John came down to take care of Liam, I stripped Jamie down and rinsed his clothes out, got him dressed again, and calmed Liam down on the front porch. Jamie needed to eat again to have something on his stomach with the medicine (which needs to be taken with food), but then we finally made it out the door to Hakobune.

John had called ahead, so they knew we were coming late, and roughly why. Mrs. Sasaki was great, and even told me that Jamie should stay a half hour later than usual so that he'd have a real chance to play, which he really wanted to do. Jamie was calm when we arrived, after much cuddling and kisses on the way there, and Liam and I went off to do this and that before it was time to get Jamie. Liam slept for an hour, and that was fine.

I picked up Jamie and brought him home. We hung out for a bit, and then Ayami and I took the boys to the local Loblaws. They both fell asleep ion the strollers on the way there, and slept until 6:00. (cue gnashing of teeth) We'll see what time they go to bed tonight, but it's hard to keep Jamie from napping when he so obviously feels rotten. Dinner was at John's parents' place, and Jamie ate a reasonable amount of food, as did Liam. Jamie is asking me to play the racing car game with them downstairs now, and I will.

2007-07-05 22:30 (John) I was up at 7:00 this morning to go get some cavities filled. Chatting with Dr. Da Costa's receptionist Vicky about the disaster with Jamie's anitbiotics yesterday, she looked at me as though I were hopeless and told me to just mix the drugs in with his favourite# drink. Duh. I got home even before Kristen was ready to take the kids to Hakobune, so we gave it a try, and sure enough, if you put erythromycin in orange juice, what you get tastes like orange juice. Which makes me wonder why they don't make it taste like orange juice to begin with.

Kristen took the boys on the subway, and I lay twitching in bed listening to everyone in the neighbourhood doing yardwork or operating power tools. They came back and met me at Browning for lunch. Jamie had had an okay morning and looked like he was feeling better than yesterday, but not great yet. Liam is drooling constantly still, and once he saw Ken was very fixated on heading out for their walk. Jamie spent the whole afternoon at Browning, I believe alternately playing San Francisco Rush 2049 with Gary, Daniel and Ross, snacking, and running around the house, which is more or less his idea of an ideal day.

Kristen and Liam spent the latter part of the afternoon in bed listening to neighbourhood power tools, so I tiptoed over to entice Jamie home with some food. It took a little persuading, but it helped that Gary left to get home and do some housework. Kristen and I managed to get a little bit of dinner (mostly my miso gumbo) into Jamie, along with OJ and erythromycin, though Liam was competing strongly with Jamie for the food.

Everyone was very tired by about 20:00, and we managed to get the kids asleep in record time (21:15?). Kristen however has since been violently ill, which leaves the family plans for the rest of the evening and tomorrow in some doubt.

Liam's favourite activity continues to be pointing and having things pointed out to him. Jamie told me last night while we were creating yet another iteration of our bathtub stories that cats go miaow, dogs go woof, pigs snort in a porcine fashion, and fish make kissy noises. I mention this only because this is at odds with what his Uncle Ted said at his age, which is that fish go "fah".

2007-07-06 23:53 (Kristen) I had the stomach flu last night, and wasn't feeling particularly perky when I woke up this morning. John took Jamie to Hakobune for the first time in weeks, and I stayed at home with Liam. Liam was in a lovely mood, despite some diarrhea (the reason he was not in a lovely mood last night, I imagine, and kept waking up crying), and we ended up taking a long nap together around 11:00. I woke up at 1:00, and Liam slept until a quarter to two. John took Jamie to his mother's so that John could nap, and I am told that Jamie ate a heroic amount of food while he was there. John brought Jamie home around 4:30, around which time I had taken Liam out to play on the front lawn because we had exhausted the possibilities indoors. Jamie played soccer with Luke next door, and Liam had fun standing, tearing grass, and watching the bigger kids. Dinner was at Browning, but Liam and I missed the first half by having another long nap together at home. We went over afterwards, and Liam ate a good deal, which is good news. Jamie played video games with Gary, Ross, and Daniel, and was very tired when he came home. He was asleep less than two minutes after his head hit the pillow. Liam, on the other hand, was wide awake until 11:30, thanks to his late nap. He was cheerful, happy, and fun while John and I talked with our weekend guests Pat and Adam. He is asleep now, and I hope to join him in a few minutes.

2007-07-07 23:10 (Kristen) John was at a Scrabble tournament today, and was out of the house early. Jamie was up around 8:30, and Liam stayed in bed until 9:30. Our friend Pat was staying with us while Adam went to the tournament with John, and spent the day with us, playing, entertaining children, and being very helpful and companionable. Yay, Pat! We walked to the Big Carrot late in the morning to buy groceries, and Jamie selected broccoli and a baby bok choy as his desired food items (along with some cookies and dried mangoes). We ate some of the broccoli for lunch, and the bok choy became part of a salad for the evening meal. Pat played trains, "bounce the ball on the stairs," and other fun games with Jamie while Liam slept for an hour and a half this afternoon and I worked on some proofing. Yay!

Liam didn't fall asleep again for the rest of the day, despite two attempts, and was overly tired by the end of the night. Jamie was beyond tired, having been run about playing ball with Pat, and was channelling his overly goofy/let's see what will annoy Mom most side by the time bedtime came around. He was asleep pretty quickly, as was Liam. Now I will be too. Oh: Jamie asked me if I had good nightmares, which are when there are no monsters, and nothing bad happens. They sound nice.

2007-07-08 23:31 (Kristen) As I write, Liam is destroying something new in the living room. He is up, happy, and not in any particular discomfort. Just not sleeping. What gives?

It's not coming from me. I haven't had a coffee since Thursday, so it's not that. He's been somewhat clingy today, making me wonder if he is starting a clingy phase; he's due, I think, developmentally. He has been free standing for longer and longer periods of time, and taking deliberate steps while keeping his balance (one or two steps, but still...credit where credit is due). He enjoys going outside, and we have to spend some time on the lawn at least once a day. I even fed him again, in case he was hungry...no luck with the sleep. Again: wha?

John was at he Scrabble tournament again today, and Pat stayed with us again for a most enjoyable day. The day sucked a bit at the start, when I discovered a yellowjacket nest under the yellow slide in the back yard. I flipped the slide over after taking refuge in the house (three stings later...they hurt) so that the passing thunderstorm would encourage them to stop building (they had only just gottn started with the nest). In the afternoon, yellowjacket engineers were hovering about their sodden wad of nest, thinking about what to do next, and I had to take a hose to them in the evening to destroy the new nest they were constructing. I'm a live and let live person, but they're just too close to my kids. Pat, the kids, and I had fun making pancakes, and running througha thunderstorm to the corner store and back for whipped cream in the rain. Jamie found it scary at first, but decided that it was fun after we arrived safe and sound on our own porch. He spend the afternoon with Gary and Ayami, and the evening after dinner at Browning while I cleaned up from dinner and the departure of our guests. Liam is finally showing signs of fatigue, so I will take him to bed now.

2007-07-09 20:10 (John) I am unwell, and my energy levels are variable but low. On the bright side, Jamie and I got to spend a fair amount of time playing video games together, and played our first game of two-player Gauntlet. I have played the game with other children of various ages, and Jamie was the most well-focussed partner I've had. I'm used to having to say "Follow me! Over here!" to distracted children (only a small portion of the game map shows in the window, and its position is controlled by how both players move); with Jamie it was the opposite: he had to caution me sometimes to slow down so that he could catch up (mainly because he's still working out how to shoot and press two cursor keys simultaneously to move diagonally). Ross adds right now that Jamie is getting quite good at Lego Star Wars.

(Kristen) Ross had show Jamie how to play Lego Star Wars on the PC, and was surprised that Jamie picked it up on the Playstation so quickly. I had always thought that my son would not be obsessed with video games, but that's another illusion knocked into the dust for you! Both boys slept until after 8:30, which was good as Liam didn't fall asleep until 12:30 AM last night (insert foul language here). It was a quiet morning spend hiding inside from the heat. We went to Browning for lunch, and then Jamie and I walked down to the Second Cup to pick up Liam from Ken. Liam had slept for about 45 minutes and then woken up, too hot. He was a little dehydrated today in the heat, and I'm trying to get him interested in drinking from a drink box instead of a bottle, as he's never really gotten the hang of bottles. He's not really into the drink box yet either, but I can at least give him a little drink from it in a way that I can't with a bottle. Later in the afternoon, the boys and I danced and played to Japanese children's tunes before we all went to Browning for dinner. I made dinner all by myself (yay, me!) and the boys had a good time playing with Ross and Gary. Liam can walk five steps on his own, but John would rather that he didn't know that he can walk that much on his own. Once Liam realizes that he can walk without us, it's utterly game over.

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

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