Back to Vol. 1 No. 98, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 2 No. 0.

2007-08-28 22:09 (Kristen) I am sitting at my desk, typing, while Liam plays with a notebook and a pen. I think that we can thank Becky for his sudden interest in paper and ink. Best of all, it is keeping him mostly happy, which means that the eardrum-shattering screech that he has been employing for the last few days to signify displeasure, pain, frustration, "Over here, large stupid person," and most other desires is temporarily silenced. It's really starting to get to me, this screech--I swear to each and every one of you, whoever you are, that the child could strip paint off of metal at 50 metres. It is really painful, and our neighbour a few nights ago noticed and came to the door to make sure that there wasn't a child in trouble outside; it was just John, walking a crying Liam about as I got the medicine ready to help him go back to sleep. We're desperate to teach him new signs so that he'll use those and leave us with some hearing. Fortunately, he's clever, and should pick up on them quickly. But for me, right now, in this moment, it's just not fast enough!

Jamie was up around 7:30 again, after going to bed around midnight. Liam woke up around 8:30, when I got up. We woke up Becky, who wasn't going to be allowed to sleep in on her last day here, and we all but John went to the Big Carrot for breakfasty* things, and to pick up a few things for Becky's dinner on the bus. After breakfast, we took Jamie to have his next immunization shot, which we were told would be a little hard on his system. I gave him some Advil beforehand, and another dose around 6:30, and he's only had a slight fever this time, which is normal. Jamie was very brave, even though he didn't like it at all, and told us that he was going to cry when it happened. He did, but stopped very quickly, and asked Dr. Kennedy about germs and the fighting power of the vaccine. Five germs, and one vaccine to take them all out: he liked that.

He was somewhat pokey afterwards, and I think that part of it was that he knew Becky was leaving, and didn't want her to go. He was exhibiting a good deal of unsettled behaviour, and I asked him if it was because Becky was leaving. He was sad because of that, he said, and on further questioning, said very firmly that he didn't want her to go. Liam will miss his Becky very much too; Becky was an enormous help with him, and they got to be very close friends. Becky, in fact, gets more kisses from him than I do. They will both be looking forward to when they see her next. Lunchtime over, Daniel and Tom came over (Daniel had talked Tom into taking a little time off) to play one last session of D&D before Becky left for Ottawa. We played frantically, with children underfoot and this and that bit of chaos underway, until it was time for Becky to go. We took her to the bus station, hugs and kisses were had, and we said goodbye until next time. We'll keep her room ready for her visit next summer.

Jamie insisted that I sit between him and Liam in the back seat on the way home, and I fed both boys out of food that John picked up at Yung Sing Bakery. We got home (Jamie didn't fall asleep, much to my surprise), and Daniel came back to get his D&D things and play with the boys for a while. John's mom came over too, and hung out until John left to meet a friend of his from high school at 7:45. Jamie played with Gary for half an hour, and I did some cleaning before bathing both children and putting them to sleep. Jamie fell asleep at 9:30, which is almost two and a half hours early lately, and Liam was asleep around 10:30. John will be taking Jamie to Hakobune tomorrow, and I'll try to keep an increasingly active and curious Liam from killing himself. At the doctor's office, Liam made a beeline for the electrical socket, and I pulled him back, saying "no! no!", and waving my hand about like it hurt. Liam looked at me, smiled, and made the same waving gesture in front of the socket before going off to do something else. He walked over to it later on, waved his hand in front of it, looked at me with a smile for his reward of praise, and moved off again. Funny, smart, infuriating little boy.

2007-08-29 23:48 (Kristen) John took Jamie to Hakobune, and I took Liam with me to the Second Cup so that I could meet up and chat with a friend/work colleague. He was happy and full of beans, so that a good part of our talk consisted of walking Liam in the stroller, so that he'd stop trying to trip people with cups of hot coffee in the Second Cup. He napped, after a rough night and a late wake-up, and was in an overall good mood.

I stalked our elementary school principal (at least, that's how it felt) to remind him that we would like Jamie moved to mornings from afternoons (just like tens of other parents in the neighbourhood) in junior kindergarten. Liam played with his blue stuffed elephant. We headed home to meet up with John and Jamie. I didn't even really see Jamie after he leapt out of the car to give me a a hug; he was downstairs to play video games with Gary faster than you can shake a stick. I didn't even see him go! Later, Gary and Ayami went out, and I coaxed Jamie into reading a book with me. I then talked him into reading another, entitled Fox. We read it together twice, and Jamie read the words "fox," "go," "no," and "sun" whenever they appeared for me. We were utterly delighted with each other. He was quick as a whip, and I think is finally ready to start reading on an emotional level (intellectually, he's known the sounds for all the letters for at least a year; he just wasn't ready to do it). He showed off for his dad at dinner, but I didn't push when he decided he'd had enough. I'm so utterly tickled; we're such avid readers, that we hope that Jamie and Liam will learn to love it like we do.

Jamie also practiced his writing at dinner on the paper placemats at Ichi Riki. He saw Keigo doing his own writing and reading with great enthusiasm when we were camping, and I'm wondering if he's picked up that he'd like to do the same thing from Keigo. As for numbers, Jamie's also blazing along. He can count up to 50 reliably, and loves to count things. He also is getting better at addition. A few days ago, I showed him the trick that there are many different ways to add to 10: 5+5, 6+4, and so on, and he liked the pattern. He also asked me why 5+1 makes 6, and I told him that when you have five bits, and you add one more bit, you have six bits. He nodded sagely, and is now coming up with his own math questions and answers: "What's 4+3?" (holds up 4 fingers, and counts out three: 5,6,7) "7!" He's having a great deal of fun, which isn't surprising given the number of mathematicians, and number of mathematically oriented people in this family.

We went for dinner at Ichi Riki, because it was a miserably hot day and we didn't want to cook, and because it was on the way to the Scrabble club, where I haven't been with the boys in almost a year. Jamie ate some food, and liked what he ate, but said that his stomach was hurting. Liam, on the other hand, hovered enough for two boys. He ate spinach, and edamame, and some yakitori, but the California rolls were the apex of yumminess, as far as he was concerned. He ate four (4!) of them on his own, and most of it ended up in his mouth. Liam doesn't like watermelon, and Jamie has his own likes and dislikes that fade in and out, but both kids enjoy a wide variety of foods, and that's a huge relief for me and John. Jamie never changed, and I hope that Liam doesn't either.

Liam, John, Jamie, and I went to the Scrabble club tonight, and the boys really enjoyed themselves. They played with shuffleboard shovels and pucks (or whatever you call them), ran about, went down a little slide, and in genereal enjoyed themselves immensely. We took home a player named Charlene, who was very helpful as she sat between Jamie, who fell asleep on the way home, and Liam, who needed some extra help as his tooth started to hurt him very much around the same time. Gary and Ayami were arriving hom as we were, and Gary carried Jamie inside and to bed. Liam went to bed soon after, once he'd had some medicine, and is sleeping relatively well. I am about to pass out, and will look forward to the morrow.

Oh...and the stalking seems to have worked. Jamie's principal called at 7:15 to say that Jamie is in the morning session at Jackman. He starts next Thursday. Hooray! We're thrilled, and happy, as it means that Jamie can join the afternoon study group there, and spend time with the older children who are going to Japanese school too. Yay!

2007-08-30 25:00 (Kristen) Jamie went to Hakobune with John this morning, and ate all his onigiri* (rice balls with pickled plum inside), and the rest of his lunch too. He really likes the onigiri*, which is great. Liam was up around 8:00. He didn't fall asleep again, however, until 2:15 in the afternoon; in the meantime, he went to the library with me and Gary, and had lunch at Browning with Gary, Ken, and Tami (the latter two are now back from a long trip). Jamie and John joined us at Browning, and Jamie stole back home with Gary for another marathon of Lego Star Wars. Sigh.

Ken took Liam for a walk, and Liam then slept for two hours or so. John's aunts Nobuko and Tomoko, and John's mom, came over for an hour to open gifts for the boys from Japan (John's aunts just came back from a lengthy trip there). They brought them two battery-operated shinkansen* (bullet trains) that run on Thomas track or by themselves around the living room, causing happy pandemonium. They also brought, from John's cousin Keiko, a little musical book for Liam, a counting book for Liam with little ladybugs, and an Anpanman book with magnets for learning to read hiragana; a fabulous train book for Jamie from his aunts Toshiko and Kimiko, and a musical book. John's aunts also brought Japanese snacks and treats. Yay! These, along with an Anpanman shinkansen* and an Anpanman camera from Keiko's daughter Hibiki, and some Anpanman candy, completed the treats from Japanese relatives. They are all very much appreciated, and in full use already! We had fun building Thomas track for the trains, in particular, and Liam played songs from both books over and over, bobbing in place to each. John and I had ordered some children's books from Japan as well that his aunts brought for us, and we're delighted with those as well.

Jamie dashed downstairs after dinner to play with Gary until bedtime, and Liam hung out upstairs with me. John did some more reading practice with Jamie in the bath with some foam letters, and Jamie wanted very much to read Fox with me again as a bedtime story. He's starting to memorize the book after the third time reading it, but produced "moon," "tree," and "Mama" and "Papa" on his own. He's utterly delighted with himself.

2007-08-31 21:48 (Kristen) I slept in this morning, so it was a good thing that John woke up at 7:30 and was able to look in to see why I didn't get up with the alarm. He helped me get the boys fed and out the door, as it was my turn to take them to Hakobune. We managed to get there on time, and Jamie ran off happily. Liam looked at the children playing with longing (he is also very popular with the little girls in particular), and I don't think that it will be a hardship on him to start leaving him there in March. In fact, I think that he'll be counting the days until then, in his little Liam way.

Liam and I went for a walk, and found me some coffee when he fell asleep at 11:00. He had had a very disturbed night last night, possibly because of that (metaphorically) rotten front tooth, which still is coming in, and is still causing him difficulty. I also had a very disturbed night, so I really needed that coffee! Liam woke up after 40 minutes, and that was that for his napping today, despite a car ride and some effort on my part to nurse him to sleep at one point. The tooth was still hurting, I think, as he didn't have much to eat before I gave him a little painkiller before dinner. Then he inhaled such heroic amounts of food that I was afraid that he was going to burst. He was very delighted, however, and ate with great glee.

I took Liam and Jamie to the Second Cup after Hakobune, and we read some books (both together and me to him). He really likes to read with me (today was words that end in 'uck': duck, stuck, muck), but it's important that I read a book for him afterwards, which I still really love to do too. We did some flashcards, and walked home via Jackman School, where I showed him his classroom through the window. I think that he's getting excited; he asks me lots of questions about what will happen in his English school and in his Japanese school, and talks about it quite a bit. He was full of fun and chatter all day, and Liam chattered away a good deal in his own way. We're learning to anticipate his needs before the shrieks start--the behaviour modification experiment that he's been running is working very well... We ran into a woman with a very small baby outside Jackman, and it turns out that the baby has the same birthday as Liam, and is the son of one of the grade one teachers there. The baby's mom laughed when I told her that her baby and Liam shared a birthday; apparently her hospital was as busy as ours was when Liam was born with babies! Something about the season...

John took the boys, along with Daniel and Ross, to the Coffee Mill for an End of Summer/Start of School dinner (a long-standing tradition). I stayed home and had a blissful hour-long nap. Yay! Daniel looked after Jamie andd John fed Liam his heroic quantities of food. Jamie didn't eat much, and we think that he was just very tired. When everyone came home, Jamie made a beeline for the basement to play with Gary for an hour before dinner. He also got to play video games (endless rounds of Marble Blast) before bed, and Japanese stories from our new stash. Liam fell asleep well enough, but woke up a few times. Jamie was a bit overtired, and so didn't fall asleep until I convinced him to keep his eyes closed: once he did, it took less than two minutes for him to be completely asleep. It was, I think, a good day.

2007-09-01 23:10 (Kristen) Jamie got John up at 6:30, and both of them were crazy tired by the time Liam and I woke up at 9:30 or so. We carted ourselves off to the market, feeling a little raggedy, but found the time for the boys to play at the Early Years Centre (which Jamie, apparently, calls the Toy Store). Liam seemed to particularly like sitting on the little chairs, which were just about his size. Not much is, so I appreciate his pleasure in finding them. Jamie fell asleep at the fish market, and stayed asleep as John put him into the car. Liam, surprisingly, fell asleep soon afterwards, and so John and I decided to do some more grocery shopping before heading home (a more sedate form of carpe diem, I should think). Jamie stayed asleep until we got home, while LIam woke up on the way home. I took the boys outside to play while John slept, and almost went to the park but Liam had a small meltdown and we came back home as he didn't want to stay in the wagon and I wasn't up to pulling the wagon with a Jamie and carrying an upset Liam at the same time.

The kids ate early (Liam stole Jamie's samosa, while Jamie wasn't all that hungry), and John and I took them out for a few errands on the Danforth. I took them home and gave them dinner a little before 8:00 while John stopped off to talk with his mom. Gary made the mistake of returning home while Jamie was awake, and was pounced on for an hour of video games. Liam screamed off and on through the evening--he was also drooling, so it must have been his teeth, but he refused the freezie that I gave him. He really does hate cold things. I drugged him before he went to sleep. In the meantime, Jamie fell asleep not too late, given his long nap, and I do hope that he'll wake up later tomorrow morning. Mind you, he's waking up at good times for being ready for school, so we're not interested in shifting it too much. We're just suffering more than he is with the new schedule.

2007-09-02 22:05 (Kristen) John isn't sure what time Jamie was awake this morning, but does remember getting him an apple in response to Jamie saying he was hungry, and telling him not to wake him up again before 8:00. It was 9:00 when Jamie came up after watching Treehouse and playing video games on his own for who knows how long, and the rest of us were up. Jamie vanished downstairs to play Soulcalibre 3 (Not My Choice of game; I thought that they were still playing Lego Star Wars) with Gary, and only came upstairs at lunchtime. In an effort to either let Jamie sleep or/and to get him out of the house and into the sunshine, we took both boys out to Withrow Park, and ended up spending the afternoon there.

We ran into Kai-kun and his mother and sister, and had a fun time playing with them. First, however, we played in the sandbox and on the swings. Jamie loves the swings, and Liam seemed to enjoy his first time being swung. He didn't scream with glee, like Jamie did, and neither did he cry. He just looked about with his serious face on, and let himself be swung for a good long time. When Kai-kun arrived, water was found and tunnels dug in the sand, and Liam managed to get himself covered in wet sand, necessitating a clothing change. The splash pad was closed, for no reason that we could discern, and the wasps were numerous and drowsy in the shade. We threw away our Second Cup items because we were afraid that a wasp would end up down a straw, or under a juice box handle. Finally, we all broke for home. We had a quick dinner at John's parents' house before heading to our house; Jamie and John went in while Liam commandeered Tom, whom we saw walking to the grocery store. I went with Liam so that he could have some Tom time (he adores Tom), and managed to get him away from Tom at his front door with a minimum of protest, thanks to the interesting grey cat that showed up just around that time. When we arrived at home, Jamie was at the end of a meltdown over Gary's unavailability due to dinner, combined with the news that a new character had been unlocked in Soulcalibre. John was resolutely *not* playing with Jamie, and Jamie was *not* playing with JOhn as they played with the musical caterpillar that Liam got for his birthday. Finally, Jamie could go downstairs, Ayami played a little with LIam, and we got the boys to bed not too late. Liam's teeth are still causing him much grief, which is pretty awful, but he seems to be sleeping well enough so far.

2007-09-03 26:05 (Kristen) Jamie seems to have an established pattern of waking up very early and going downstairs to watch television until someone wakes up. John reports that Jamie was very excited at the idea that Gary might get up sometime soon, and every five minutes John heard the rapid pitter-patter of Jamie feet to Gary's door, the door opening then closing, and the sound of Jamie's feet thudding dispiritedly back to the living room as the light was still out, and Gary was somehow still asleep. We're thinking that we need a new system, like a sign saying "Gary is IN/OUT" on the doorknob, to keep Jamie from winding himself up quite so tightly. We took some pleasure in telling Gary that it was his fault for introducing a new video game. He protests, but we're not listening, la la la.

We had to keep Jamie distracted and entertained to keep him away from Gary and the golden video games, so John took Jamie out for a walk and a play in the playground, while I did a little more organization of the toy room until it was time for Liam's nap. We all met up at the Second Cup, and then went to the playground at St. Barnabas that Jamie likes so much. Liam liked it too (he only slept for an hour), and much fun was had by both. We went home around 3:40, as it was hot, and Jamie was beside himself looking ofr people to play with. He finally settled down in front of the television, and fell asleep for an hour. Not too surprising, really. I wonder how much he'll need to nap when school starts...

Dinner was at Browning, with special guests Leslie and Baby Simon. The boys ran about in their usual fashion, and Jamie finally got some Gary time. He was good about going to bed, as was Liam. There is other stuff, I think, but I'm too tired to remember. Good night.

(John) I cut Liam's hair for the first time tonight, in the bath, with Jamie and Kristen helping to distract him and keep him from grabbing his hair back out of my hand. It's a rough cut, but it will keep his hair out of his eyes, and makes him look a little more like a boy. Liam is currently obsessed with planes, perhaps thanks to the Air Show, and frequently drags his finger along the sky making raspberry noises either pointing out passing planes or hoping another one will pass by.

Jamie has been asking every day if Anna can come back and play. I keep telling him we will visit Ottawa in October, and also take the opportunity to remind him that everyone including Anna is back to school this week, and that he himself will be beginning junior kindergarten on Thursday, but he's still a bit blue.

Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 1 No. 99

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

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