Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 6

2007-10-16 25:58 (Kristen) I'd forgotten that I'd scheduled Jamie's first Jackman playdate for today until just before I went to pick him up at lunch. Fortunately, there was no other conflict, and we agreed to go and play with Jake around 1:00. Jamie had woken up by himself a little before 8:00 and was in a bright and chipper mood, John says. Liam woke up after 10:00, as did I, which was a surprise to me. We picked up a few groceries before heading to pick up Jamie at school, and both kids came with me to Browning. They didn't eat much, but Liam apparently slept for Ken for a little over an hour when he took him for a walk after lunch.

John picked up Liam, and brought him over to Jake's for me. In the meantime, Jake and Jamie had a wonderful time, playing with trains, dinosaurs, and making things go crash. I didn't see much of what they were doing, as they were playing in Jake's room most of the time, but Michelle (Jake's mom) and I coupld hear the occasional kaboom! followed by gales of hysterical boy laughter. The boys played for three hours together with no fighting or disagreement, so I'd call it a roaring success. They seem to share the same goofy sense of humour, which can only be good. Next time, they can do in our house. We walked home, and had o-chazuke* for dinner, which both boys hoovered back. Liam ate his own body weight in food, making up for all the food he'd refused earlier in the day. We puttered until bedtime, and both boys were in bed at close to a reasonable bedtime tonight. Yay!

2007-10-17 24:12 (Kristen) I know that Jamie came to give me a hug before he left for school, but I was pretty groggy then. Liam had a pretty bad night, staying awake and kicking and yelling, as if in pain (I assume that he was, but I don't know the source) until after 3:00 AM. We got up, and Liam enjoyed tofu and yoghurt for breakfast. I spent the morning cleaning, which bored Liam, but John took him out with him to grocery shop and do other fun things. Whew. Saved by the dad.

He slept for about an hour and a half, and woke up as I got into the car to go with him and John to pick up Jamie. We did so, and came back home. Jamie fell asleep as we reached the house, and could not be roused for an hour. Argh! I finally woke him up by telling him to go and play with Gary. I fed him, Liam, and Gary dinner while John went to Scrabble. I rearranged the furniture int hte boys' room, with boys in it, and many stern directives on where to stand if they were going to insist on being there with me. This was followed by a bath, and bed. Liam fell asleep well, but Jamie had a hard time (not surprising). He complained that he didn't like this world because Mrs. Schofield didn't have apple juice at snack. ?! Liam used sign to tell me that he was nursing, but didn't use it to tell me that he wanted to nurse. We're working on it. I forgot to mention that Liam enjoys applause when he does something good, and will clap too.

2007-10-18 23:30 (John) Jamie missed the first part of his kindergarten class this morning to go to a medical specialist. It doesn't look like the problem is too serious, and the worst of it was that the office on the Danforth happened to be in the same building as my old dentist, Dr. Traub, who filled several of my cavities many years ago. He's not my dentist anymore because every one of the teeth he worked on eventually needed a root canal and most of them have been replaced with implants, and I hope my boys don't ever have to go through such an experience.

Jamie was happy to make it to his morning class only an hour late and was in good spirits as Kristen took him to Hakobune with Liam on the subway. When they came home in the afternoon, Jamie played some video games, then did some more Nisshu Gakuin homework (we're almost caught up after a two week absence due to Thanksgiving and our trip to New York; Jamie doesn't care for colouring but likes connecting dots and writing, and knows about half of his hiragana now), had dinner and played downstairs with Gary until bedtime.

Liam has been screechy today, more so than could be explained by his cold, so the leading theory right now is that he's working on his next teeth. He's happy when you play with him, but gets frustrated easily. Part of it is that as with most kids his age his needs are becoming more complicated and have temporarily outstripped his ability to express them.

2007-10-19 24:46 (Kristen) Liam was asleep around midnight last night, which was somewhat taxing. John says that Jamie woke up with him this morning, and was happy going off to school. We picked Jamie up at school en famille, and dropped him off at Hakobune. I went to Chinatown afterwards with Liam, who obliged me by dropping off afterwards. First, however, we went to get buns on Baldwin, and Liam enjoyed playing in the car on his father's lap. With his little stripey shirt and the large steering wheel, we thought he looked like a happy little pirate, with an "Avast!" and a "Yo ho ho!" We stayed a little at Hakobune when we picked up Jamie, and Liam was most put out when it was time to leave. I think that he'll be so happy to have me go and leave him behind when the time comes for him to start there.

It was Harvest Festival at Jamie's school, so we all went out to eat chili and play with mobs of kids. The boys ran around the kindergarten playground, Jamie with a number of his new friends, and Jamie even got to sit in the front seat of a visiting fire engine (easily the biggest attraction). Liam melted down around 8:15, and was put to bed while Jamie had his bath. Liam woke up at 9:15, after Jamie was asleep (he was a very tired Jamie), and didn't go to bed again until close to 11:30, and after John took him for a walk and a drive around. John said that Liam would yawn a little to get John to drive him a little farther, but failed utterly to go to sleep.

2007-10-20 23:10 (Kristen) John and Jamie had left for Nisshu Gakkuin by the time Liam and I woke up. John came home and took Liam to the market afterwards, and I stayed home to work and think about the clutter in the house. When John came home with the boys, Liam had just fallen asleep in the car. Jamie came in and played while John stayed out with Liam. He lost a car under the couch, so I had to move it. As we had thought about moving the living room furniture around anyway, I left it in the middle of the room. When John brought Liam in, I gave Liam a nurse, and then we spent the rest of the afternoon working on rearranging the livving room en famille. It looks pretty good now, and both boys enjoy the extra room and being able to run through the main floor of the house more easily.

We took the boys out for a run in the park, and decided to go out for dinner at the Silk Road with John's parents for dinner. Both boys were very good, and Jamie truck up many conversations with complete strangers while I chatted with Claudia, the wife of Margaret's business partner Lenny. Claudia has two children very close to Jamie and Liam in age, and we had much to bond over. John says that he'll get Lenny out next time for a more balanced perspective. We went home, played a little, and let Jamie hang out with Gary. Liam helped me to put a chair together. All in all, it was a quiet evening, and the boys went to bed with almost no difficulties.

2007-10-21 23:25 (Kristen) John and I have been too tired, really, to remember much of the detail of our days. This morning, for example, John was up at 5:00 AM to do some work for the British National Championships (short physical commute, long temporal commute), and so he spent the rest of the day pretty much shredded. I woke up with Liam around 8:45, but we were both shredded and Liam was in bed with me, napping, after a heavily fractious morning when everything was all wrong, and all minor impediments had to be met with full throated keening and back-arching. After at least one time out on the front porch to watch buses (Liam said "bus" today, and it was almost recognizable to anyone not me or John), he fell asleep, lightly, and I stayed with him for an hour-long nap for myself. He woke up and fell asleep a few times, but ultimately slept for three, much-needed, hours.

Jamie played video games for much of the day, watched a little telvision, and surfed for video mashups of Marble Blast runs on YouTube. He is pretty good a surfing YouTube, and so I'm beginning to see the wisdom in parental controls when he came to the top of the stairs, telling me about a video he saw with blood. Turns out it was an animated short with a flying character with a red contrail, but still. Hmmm. We eventually kicked the whole family out of the house into the beautiful, unseasonably warm October day to go for a hike in the valley. This was the first time that Liam and I had tagged along wih John and Jamie, and it was a good time. Liam loved being up in the backpack and seeing the trees and a woman who was taking her cat for a walk. He did not want to be out of the backpack, which was odd. He even climbed into it later in the vening, when I mentioned buses in his hearing, indicating very clearly that he wanted to see some more. The horrifying screech he has is (also very clearly) a screech of frustration, and we've been trying to respond to him faster and with more words to tell him that we're either working on his problem, or otherwise resonding to him. It seems to be working. He's trying to save his screech for later in the conversations, when other means do not work. He is trying hard, too, to communicate with us. He is starting to make up his own signs for things, which is great, but makes us think on our feet pretty quickly.

We had dinner at the Dairy Queen (yay banana split split four ways for dessert!), then headed home. Jamie played some Katamari Damaci (a very addictive, fun game) with Gary and Ayami, and then with me, and Liam hung out with me and Ayami upstairs. Both boys were well behaved in the bath, and went to sleep relatively quickly.

2007-10-22 23:26 (Kristen) Liam and I were up around 9:45, but didn't stumble out of bed until after 10:00, as we were having too much fun playing. Liam had woken me up with a game of "beep," where he beeps my nose. It seemed a good game to continue for a while. It was a brief morning, then, before it was time to get Jamie from school, and John took Liam while I got ready for the afternoon. I made it to Browning late, and was only somewhat surprised that I made it there before the boys. They came in about five to ten minutes later, and my guess that he had been playing with Jake was borne out. John added that Jamie had fallen from the monkey bars and fallen rather solidly onto his bum, and cried for quite a bit afterwards. Later inspection at bath time showed a bruise on a rather delicate part of him, so I imagine it did hurt quite a bit.

Ken took Liam for a walk, and I took Jamie with me to the Second Cup for some work time. Ken dropped Liam off, and John came to get Jamie while I took Liam to the library and back home. We stayed at home only briefly, as Jamie had been agitating all day to go to Withrow Park, and so we went for a half hour or so before going to Browning. The usual escapades ensued, with the significant difference being that Jamie (who thinks he's a monkey immune to gravity) falling off a bed and giving himself a rather severe bruise mere centimetres away from the site of his last major injury of the day. It was with some relief that he was in bed and asleep by 10:15, cuddling a beanie baby polar bear. Liam is sleeping fitfully, despite a dose of Advil, and his eye teeth look prominent. His teeth come in out of order, so I never know where to loo, or what to expect next.

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

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