Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 2

2007-09-18 22:30 (John) Jamie had a nightmare last night where I grew to be a thousand years old, my skin wrinkled and cracked, my teeth turned to wood and finally my body exploded into pieces and out flew lots and lots of paper. He talked about it all day.

We took Liam to see Dr. Dann about his supernumerary incisor, and after a brief poke, the dentist said there was nothing that needed or could be done, because the tooth was quite thoroughly fused to its neighbour. It will finish erupting in its own time, and will make way for a normal adult tooth in its own time. We should be extremely careful to keep the joint between the teeth clean, and probably take him in for more frequent cleanings than usual.

(Kristen) Jamie was in a good mood again today, and tired when he got out for lunch. He didn't eat much, which is consistent with his pattern lately (peeing and eating food are two things that he just doesn't want to make time for). I did get him to eat more when I read to him at the table, while Ken chased Liam about. After lunch, and after Liam's dental appointment, where he liked the television and toys enough in the waiting room to strenuously object to leaving, we walked about the Bloor-Yonge area and puttered in a local toystore. We bought Liam a little $2.79 airplane, which he delightedly flew over his head a few times and made plane noises for. We didn't get anything for Jamie, but he understood that Liam had no planes at all at all, and that he needed one and Jamie hadn't really wanted anything until that moment. He found this a logical position to take, and we headed out.

Liam slept for only an hour in total today, in two half-hour installments. There is definitely dental pain. He enjoyed playing with Tom at dinner, when we went to Browning, and delighted in walking to Browning all by himself the long way. We met up with Gary, and at one point, we had Liam between us, walking, with his head thrown back and laughing like the couldn't believe that the universe was such a great place. He stopped to talk with a cat, and was very good: no tail, ear, or whisker pulling. I can only wish he'd be that gentle with Jamie! Jamie had his Gary time, and both boys went to bed quite quickly, considering. Tomorrow is a combined Hakobune/Jackman day, and the start of the harder part of the week.

2007-09-19 24:55 (Kristen) After a late night working and a rough night for Liam, John and Jamie got themselves out the door with minimal input from me. Jamie did give me a kiss goodbye, I think, and John reports that they made it to school three minutes earlier than usual. Yay, them! We all went to pick him up at lunch, and drove en famille to Hakobune to drop him off. I stayed downtown with Liam, who slept for a little less than an hour. He's really not napping well, and I'm a little worried about this, although I confess that he sleeps for a long time at night, and it's more for my own sake that I worry. At any rate, he woke up when we were at the amazing children's library at College and Huron, and so I picked up a bunch of books for the boys before heading out to get Jamie.

Jamie was in a good mood, and we had the usual bubble tea before heading home to spend some time with John before he headed off to Scrabble. Jamie played with Gary, and Liam, John, and I spent time with John's mom outside on the lawn before I went in to make dinner. Liam is getting very good at understanding gestures, and I'm trying to teach him not to throw food off the highchair when he's uninterested in what you've offered, or he's done. It's not that easy, but he's getting it, I think. He's really gotten the idea of going down the stairs on his bum while having his hand held, but doesn't always give you a chance to get yourself together once you take his hand. When you do, one second later, he's in space, expecting you to catch him. I read to Jamie from a book about volcanoes, and he was very interested in it. We'll read more tomorrow.

2007-09-20 22:41 (Kristen) John, in what is turning into a pattern, took Jamie (and a wide-awake Liam too) to school while I, who had been working late into the night, got a few more minutes of shuteye. Bliss. When John and Liam returned, I took over Liam wrangling, and John got his rest. Fair. Liam and I did some grocery shopping, and picked up Jamie at school. He was assigned a "reading buddy," a child from fourth grade, who is to read to him once a week. His reading buddy is David, and they had a lot of fun, Jamie says. Yay! Another happy school experience. However, Jamie started to complain that he didn't want to go to Hakobune, and I finally figured out that he doesn't like the rush from one venue to another. So, I have to figure out a way to make sure Jamie doesn't feel rushed (he wanted to play with his friends in the schoolyard before we left) and get us to Hakobune on time. When winter comes, we may have to rethink the trip a little...

John was already at the church, as he was helping the Sasakis with something, and both boys were delighted to see him. Jamie went in to lunch, happily, and Liam and I went with John for Chinese buns before splitting up. Liam fell asleep a little before one, and stayed asleep until 2:30, thanks to my moving the stroller along every time he stirred. We played until it was time to pick Jamie up, and Liam greatly enjoyed playing in Hakobune while we waited for Jamie to get ready to make another transition. Outside the daycare, Jamie and Liam ran about, playing together, and Jamie actually asked me if he could play with Liam. Receiving said permission, the two ran about and played chase until I was able to convince them to leave. They *both* needed convincing. Jamie had wanted bubble tea, but that is a once-a-week treat, so we stuck to our original plan, which was to go to the library and then to the Second Cup. We met up with John there, after a pit stop at Treasure Island, and also met Ken, to whom Liam decided he was going to cling like a burr. Ken was pretty pleased, and walked Liam around while we got ourselves set up. Jamie finished his Nisshu Gakkuin homework, and Liam shared my pumpkin pie, which Jamie declined (saying first it was for babies, and then the trump card that Papa didn't like it either). More for Liam and me, then!

Walking home, we realized that it was time for Jamie's curriculum night at Jackman, and so stopped and let Jamie play for the 15 minutes before it started. It was nice to see Jamie's class and to hear what their objectives were for the year. Jamie met up with another boy, Dylan, who is easily as social as Jamie is, and the boys hugged before sitting down to read a book together. It was very sweet. Liam was very well behaved too, and drew some admiring comments for his behaviour, as well as for his (obvious) cuteness. We headed home, and John's mom dropped some dinner by for us as it was getting late. Both boys ate well, and Liam was asleep a little before nine. Jamie was asleep alittle after ten, and enjoyed the solo attention from his parents that Liam's early night gave to him.

2007-09-21 23:03 (Kristen) Liam woke me up at 6:30 this morning, and I will remind him of it for years, particularly when he's a teenager and grousing about how I wake him up too early. I was particularly grouchy, because I'd only gone to sleep around 2:30, and four hours was not enough. Mind you, it wasn't so long ago that I was happy to get a REM cycle at all, so there's my reminder that it could be worse. Liam was happy happy happy boy all morning: John took him with Jamie to school and let him play at the school playground before coming back home. He also took Liam to Loblaws, which was a treat. I was conscious, more or less, by that point, and went to pick up Jamie at Jackman to take him to Hakobune. Jamie is still disliking the transitions, and we talked about ways to make it easier (a snack right away, like an apple). It was a long, slow subway ride, but we made it and Jamie ran in to eat with his friends with nary a backward glance after my goodbye.

The Amazing Conscious Liam and I went for a short walk before he finally fell asleep. He stayed asleep for almost three hours, which was also Amazing. I rocked the stroller every time he stirred, and he even woke up once and fell back asleep. He was pooped. I got some work done. Yay! We picked up Jamie, and at his request, went to Browning. We played, we roamed, we had fun. Liam monopolized Tom, while Jamie was content to monopolize Daniel until Gary came along. Liam hoovered back a good deal of pasta and sauce, and even Jamie ate his whole meal at one go for the first time in a while. Much fun was had by all. Gary took Jamie home to play Lego Star Wars, and I came home later with Liam, Ayami, and Tom. Tom carried Liam home, but the little monkey was still mightily displeased to see him go. Jamie was excruciatingly tired, and melted down when Liam went into the bath first, even with acknowledgement and warning. He was just too tired to deal with that, which turned out to be a much bigger thing than I thought it was. Jamie said later, when he finally stopped crying, that it was because he was important if he went into the bath first (I think that I have that right; I may be slightly wrong). We discussed the fact that both our boys are the centre of the universe, and he seemed to be pleased with that. Liam was just his happy self.

(John) Jamie got to school at a record early hour this morning, so he got to spend ten minutes playing with Jake, Charlie and Dylan on the play structure. He also set a different sort of record by wiping his bum for the first time, and we're happy because it's important for him to be able to do that in case he needs to go to the bathroom at school.

2007-09-22 23:30 (John) Kristen, Jamie and Liam fell asleep at around 22:00, and I have been nervously watching the clock since, knowing that if I don't get to sleep soon, I won't have had enough hours of sleep before everyone is up again, so I will keep this brief.

Jamie woke up on his own this morning and asked for cereal. Was he sure that he didn't want the tamago-no-gohan I had planned, or the easy-to-eat-in-the-car old standby honey toast? Quite sure. And would I please pick out all the raisins from his raisin bran, replacing them with wild blueberries, and why was there no Fruit Loops anymore? We made it to Nisshuu Gakuin with several minutes to spare, and without waking up Kristen and Liam on our way out of the house. I dashed to the St. Lawrence Market to do our weekly grocery shopping, because I had to be back at the Japanese Saturday school for 11:00 A.M. for a curriculum meeting.

Again, I made it back with plenty of time to spare, and learned about the importance of building up Jamie's Japanese vocabulary this year and next so that he will not have trouble with reading comprehension when he starts his official Grade 1 textbooks. Then we switched to talking about plans for the next big school event, the Onigiri Day fundraiser on November 3rd (the day I leave for Mumbai), for which we have to figure out as a class how to cook forty cups of rice and turn them into perfect and identical o-nigiri in three hours.

Jamie came bounding out of his classroom on time and proclaimed that he had had fun. We went to play outdoors in the playground, mostly with older kids who were enjoying a pre-lunch recess. When the bell rang to end the recess, we drove home and I passed out for an hour. (I'm having trouble with my medication.) Kristen looked after the kids for the afternoon, and over dinner while I had to go to my parents' house for a tenant interview. I took the boys to the playground after dinner, where Jamie played with two little girls and Liam explored the play structure, mostly concentrating on the smallest of the slides. Liam really likes slides, and when he grows up, he's going to love roller coasters.

I passed out again when I got home (really tired of these drugs), so Kristen bathed the boys and put them to bed, which they didn't seem to mind.

2007-09-23 23:35 (Kristen) Today, we took the boys to see Daniel's armourer, who lives about an hour west of here, and near Daniel's parents' cottage. Daniel came with us for the ride out, and Liam was asleep just as we reached the airport. That was sad, as there were many planes to look at. Liam slept in the car while we went in and picked out a cloth knight costume for Jamie for Halloween. Then Jamie and I went out to rid the front yard of wolves, dragons, and other dangers and meanies. A verie parfait knight, indeed. Daniel, when his turn was over,came out to play with Jamie too, and then Ross and Tom showed up, as they were to take Daniel on to the cottage. Much fun was had by all.

We stopped off for bubble tea at Yorkdale on the way home, and had a quiet evening in. Nothing much to report, other than Liam is suddenly very time intensive, and had been having periods where he absolutely has to have our minute attention. We're finding this a little exhausting.

2007-09-24 32:00 (John) Kristen appears to have passed out late last night without blogging, so here is what I can remember about yesterday in the few minutes that I have before it's time to wake Jamie up for breakfast and school.

The high point of the day for Jamie was definitely in the afternoon when I set up my dad's old "desk lamp" iMac for him in the blue room. My dad had to replace it because it was kernel-panicking daily but unpredictably and not easily reproducibly; if the machine crashes during a video game, Jamie doesn't mind quite so much. He was very excited about the computer though, asking repeatedly if it was his, and for the first time referred to the blue room as his room. "Is it mycomputer, in my blue room?" So much so that Kristen tried to get him to sleep in the blue room last night, but to no avail.

I took the kids shopping at Loblaws; we all enjoy it when they ride together in the two-seater shopping carts, which I usually push backward so that they can ride forward. Whee! They are both quite helpful in taking things off the shelves, and putting them on the checkout conveyor, Jamie in a more directed manner than Liam.

Liam was surprisingly Dad-centered today, crying whenever Mom needed to prise him out of my grip, e.g. when the salmon needed flipping over on the grill. I remember Jamie used to go for weeks at a time favouring one parent over the other, and it's nice to see Liam's long Mom orientation possibly coming to an end.

Kristen is talking about taking Liam to music classes, because he is in an extremely music-oriented phase of his development. Our favourite song right now is the ABC song, with me pointing to the letters as we sing them, then our clapping together to the beat for the last verse, and finally clapping wildly in applause at the end. I think he has a better sense of rhythm than I do, which is not saying much.

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

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