Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 92

2007-07-10 22:10 (John) I'm still feeling pretty lousy, so we didn't go to Wasaga Beach today. There's a reasonable chance that Gary will take Jamie there tomorrow, but that depends on Ross feeling better tomorrow (the stomach flu bug is still going around at Browning). I spent the morning playing Gauntlet with Jamie (he usually calls it Goblin), then the afternoon listening to my phone ring while Kristen took the kids down to the Danforth and back in hot, smoggy weather. They were all very happy to come home and cool off. After dinner, Jamie went downstairs to play with Gary, and Kristen and I took Liam for a walk so that I could get some exercise. I took along a bag of cherries and fed them to Liam along the way, and we both looked like very happy vampires by the end of it.

This morning, Jamie spent some time browsing a Japanese-English visual dictionary we have (ISBN 4-05-300464-0, published by Gakken). We would pick one letter or kana and go through all the entries, quizzing the translations. He's pretty good. During bath playtime, we started off in Japanese as usual (his bath fish are native Japanese speakers, but can get along in English with some difficulty), then started teaching the fish first Spanish and then French. Jamie's got polyglot aspirations: he looked disappointed when I told him that they don't speak Spanish at Wasaga Beach.

2007-07-11 22:15 (Kristen) Jamie went to Wasaga Beach today with the Browning crowd, as John was too sick to drive and there was only room for Jamie. That was fine, as Jamie has been wanting to go to the beach all summer, and he was definitely the person to go. He came back around 9:00, mostly asleep in the car, and murmured to me as Gary carried him in, "Mummy, I had fun at Wasaga Beach." I had given him firm instructions to go and have fun, and to tell me all about it when he came back. Tami said that he had told her that he was "going to miss Mummy" while he was up there. Sweet boy.

Reports are that Jamie did not go swimming because the wind was so strong that it kept blowing sand in his eyes--a major no-no for Jamie. I am not entirely sure what he did do, but it involved lots and lots of Gary, I am told. It was cold too, and I think that we'll try to go to the beach again before the summer is over if a really hot day hits, once John is better.

Liam and I spent the day together. He fell asleep between 11 and 12, and did not fall asleep again until 5:30, and then for only half an hour. He was cheerful again, but definitely has diarrhea of a particularly smelly and liquid kind: one change involved all his clothing and some wiping down of his back and legs. It may be that which kept him from sleeping; who knows? At least he was cheerful, as I said. We spent most of the afternoon out walking about in the neighbourhood doing this and that, in addition to playing in the back yard and visiting with the neighbourhood kids on the front lawn in the early evening. He took two full steps, with long periods of standing in between steps. Doomsday approacheth on little baby feet. But they're really cute feet, and I think that we'll manage.

(John) I dragged myself out of my sickbed to go through Jamie's duffel bag checklist with Kristen: first aid kit, wipes, hat, warm change of clothes, cool change of clothes, socks and underwear, juice boxes, snacks, personal flotation device, sunscreen, sand toys, car toys, car book, towel. Photographic evidence suggests that the duffel bag spent the day in the trunk of the car, but at least it was there in case he needed any of it!

2007-07-12 23:37 (Kristen) Jamie was awake at 7:00, hungry and wanting company. I managed to get downstairs and feed him the right things, in spite of my utter grogginess. Liam woke up at 7:45, when my alarm went off upstairs where I had forgotten it. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise; Liam fell asleep at 10:45 or so, and slept like a rock for three hours. Woot! I actually got some work done today: yay Liam! We picked up Jamie at Hakobune at the usual time, and Sora-kun's mom told me that there was a Japanese storytime this month on Thursdays at the Lillian H. Smith branch of the Toronto Public Library, a 15-minute walk away. So I jumped at the opportunity to take the boys along.

We had a great walk to the library with Sora-kun and his mom, and discovered that we were a half hour still to go before the stories started. The Lillian H. Smith branch has the children's books in it (it is a specialty branch) along with some other special collections, so we happily read books together until it was time. The storyteller is a traditional storyteller with pictures and two sticks on a rope that are clacked together to signal audience participation, the start of a story, and other things. The storyteller got each child to say his or her name and age, and Jamie did so well, if somewhat informally, in Japanese. Liam got introduced by me with his Japanese name, and the storyteller was surprised that he had a Japanese name; Mr. Sasaki, who was there with four or five of the older Hakobune boys, explained the characters to her. Jamie had a great time, and we then went to Treasure Island for a bit to wind down. Liam walked around the train table by himself for the first time, and very much felt himself to be one of the Big Boys.

We had a little dinner when we got home (well, Liam ate a lot), and Jamie went off to play Lego Star Wars with Gary for a bit while John and I took LIam for a walk around the block. We ran into Tom, Ross, and Daniel, and raced a thunderstorm home before getting the boys ready for bed. Jamie and Liam were both tired, but Liam had trouble sleeping at first (stomach pains?) and Jamie was utterly wound up. They're finally asleep now, but it was almost 11:00 when that happened. I may have just jinxed myself thinking it, but I don't thin kthat they're going to be up early tomorrow morning.

(John) This was the first day that Jamie did not eat Nupur's chicken curry for lunch; he broke routine by asking for picnic leftovers from Wasaga Beach (perhaps to stretch out the holiday experience), setting precedent for more lunchtime variety.

2007-07-13 21:44 (Kristen) Liam is currently going through my purse in a systematic fashion, and is fascinated by my little daytimer. I may have to save it soon.

Jamie and Liam were up around 8:00, and it was a relatively smooth morning getting outof the house. It took an extra 20 minutes or so to get to Hakobune anyway, as the transit gods were frowning upon us, but Jamie went in and was happy. Liam and I went for a walk and Liam slept for half an hour only. Sigh. When we went back to Hakobune to pick up Jamie he wasn't really ready to go until he'd finished a toy he'd built for me. After, he and Liam played for a bit and he told me repeatedly that he didn't have time to go anywhere with me because he had to play with Liam. It was the first time that he'd really sought out Liam for company to play with in an active, reciprocal way, and both Liam and I were delighted, as was Jamie in his own way as he sat under a table and insisted that Liam join him in his "house".

Jamie picked the afternoon's activity, which was to go to Yorkdale Mall and have bubble tea and snacks. Over our meal, he told me that he was having a wonderful time, which made me pleased since he's been having a hard time of it lately, and it was good to make him happy. We wandered around the mall for a bit and headed home around 4:30. Liam finally fell asleep just before we got onto the subway, and slept for an hour and a bit. The evening was at Browning, and Jamie was very funny: he was exhausted, and very much interested in having some time with Gary. He wasn't at all interested in sharing Gary with Ross, who is also a big Gary fan, and when it was clear that Gary was playing a game with Ross, Jamie insisted that it was time to go home. I picked up right away what this meant: in Jamie, it meant "take me home where I will have no challengers to your exclusive attention." Gary didn't pick up on this: he thought Jamie meant just that, and said to Ross "OK, we can play now because Jamie's going home." D'oh. Jamie was diverted by Daniel spending some one-on-one time with him, but eventually he did get Gary to take him home and they are in the basement right now, playing something or another. Liam is with me, John is getting ready for bed, and we're all beat. Liam has some sort of post-viral urticaria going on, which I hope means that the diarrhea is over with.

2007-07-14 23:13 (Kristen) I took the boys to the St. Lawrence Market today, since Jamie hadn't been there in a few weeks and neither had I. We had fun picking out vegetables (Jamie specifically requested broccoli), and playing at the Early Years Centre in the North Building. Liam liked the slide; Jamie liked blowing bubbles. We stayed there for a while until we were met by Tai-Tai and Ian, who is in town with his family this weekend. We picked up the rest of our groceries with them, had lunch, and then headed out. It was just starting to pour as we reached the streetcar stop, so we waited under the eaves a bit. The rain lulled Jamie to sleep, and so Liam and I hung out at the Second Cup for an hour while Jamie slept and it rained. When the rain let up, we walked to the subway, Jamie woke up, and Liam fell asleep just as we reached home.

Dinner was Greek food at Pearls, and both boys had a lovely time. I don't think that I've seen Liam pack away so much food (and by himself) ever. We're home and the boys are, once again, in bed late, but given their naps it's probably OK. Jamie has been waking up at 8:00 for the last week, necessitating the nap today: I hope that he sleeps in a little tomorrow so we don't get back into the nap thing. Sigh.

2007-07-15 21:52 (Kristen) When Jamie asked me, as he usually does at breakfast, where we were going today, I was able to give him a great answer: the zoo! We packed up snacks and drinks, sunscreen and trifles, and headed on out around noon with Ted, Alice, Ian, and Amy to the Metro Toronto Zoo. Jamie was very excited, while Liam was sanguine, as he always is, in the face of our plans.

The trip to the zoo was uneventful, and the weather such that everyone else seeme to have the same idea as we did. Once we were there and parked, however, it was a great time. Jamie ran excitedly about, looking at monkeys, Sumatran tigers, and other things on his way to his ultimate goal: the elephants. He was so happy to see them; I think that he could have stayed and watched them all day. When we pulled him away to look at them from another angle, however, he was displeased, and I had to promise to take him back to the elephants before we left. We ate a snack by the zebras, and he was quite grumpy and flat by this point. He had gone to sleep at midnight last night, and woke up at his usual 8:00, so he was a very tired boy by this time. He fell asleep on the way back to the elephants, and stayed asleep through a cloudburst that drove everyone inside, and up to the meercats (about an hour's worth of walking and viewing). Liam was tired of his stroller, and was not all that interested in staying in it. He was very interested in the animals, however, and loved them. He stayed happy in his stroller, pressed up against the glas, as we watched the meercats, and that's when Jamie woke up. We saw a pygmy hippo, a very colourful chameleon, some lion-maned macaques (which made Jamie laugh out loud), and a few other things before heading to the gift shop (a beanie baby polar bear for Jamie; a beanie baby elephant for Liam, thanks to Tai-Tai) and home.Both boys were very tired, but we managed to still have fun at Pearls for dinner with Nobuko and Tomoko also in attendance, and then came home. Jamie swooped downstairs the moment he came in the door--I didn't even see him go--and is playing Lego Star Wars with all his might while Liam tears my books apart. Off to save the books and get Jamie upstairs for the bath.

2007-07-16 23:50 (Kristen) Both kids slept in this morning, which made my day before it even started. They had gone to bed close to midnight again, and I'm tired! Jamie is getting bigger and bigger; he's starting to look more like a lanky boy than a little child. His hair is darkening again, and I wonder how close it will come, in the end, to the reddish auburn that it was when he was born. I'm staring to have nostalgic feelings as I look into the future and see a time when they won't tuck themselves into my arms and will be dashing off, leaving me behind. But not yet: Jamie still giggles madly when I grab him for cuddles and kisses, and Liam is utterly squishable, with round cheeks and a smile that makes you want to do anything for him.

Jamie has been playing lots of Lego Star Wars, a Playstation game, which I am told has different stories and levels that, when you complete them, allow you to unlock a new character. Jamie is obsessed with Darth Maul because he is (in Jamie's words) bad, and has a cool lightsabre, and can jump really high (and therefore works better as a character choice for the game). He and Gary unlocked Darth Maul last night, but didn't have a chance to play the character, and all Jamie could think about today was using that character. He was quite insistent, to the point of tears, and very punky when I finally got him out of the house to go to the Big Carrot. He finally perked up when I offered to get a milkshake and fries with him on the Danforth, and I managed to keep him and Liam happy and occupied all afternoon (not easy!). We talked about what you put on french fries other than salt and ketchup (elephants, stores, skies), played at the toy store, got books from the library, and chasesd many many pigeons. All in all, a good afternoon.

We went to Browning for the evening, and were joined by Jamie's cousin Ian, who is staying with his grandparents at Pearls for the week as he goes to D&D camp. Much romping occurred, and Liam (on his own--it was almost not witnessed) walked six steps on his own, solidly, before ending up on the ground. He was very pleased with himself. Jamie dragged Gary home to play Lego Star Wars, finally, around 8:30 when Gary showed up, and Liam, John, and I followed a bit later. It was a late night again, but maybe they'll sleep in again. Hope hope!

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

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