Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 12

2007-11-27 10:55 (John) When Jamie got up this morning, he told me that today was Justin's birthday, not his classmate Justin, but our friend Justin's. He continues to be interested in the calendar and numbers in general, can tell you each day what the date is, and is always on the lookout for interesting numbers when we are out.

Liam knows two letters now, A and O. He likes O because it goes round and round, and he'll trace it with his finger while making motor noises. He likes A because he knows it is the start of the alphabet, and he can pronounce it fairly well. His alphabet practice right now is with the Fisher-Price Flash animation of the ABC song, and with our set of foam bathtub letters.

2007-11-27 23:53 (Kristen) I took Liam to the library with me and around the Danforth before lunch, and even with the cold wind blowing about, he enjoyed it much more than being inside. We met up with John and Jamie at the school, where the usual group of frozen parents watched their sons (they're all boys) run around gleefully in utter disregard of the weather. Finally, one grandmother decided she'd had enough, and we finally scattered to our various destinations. We had lunch at Browning, and Jamie ate well while Liam only ate if he was in someone's lap, and utensils were not used. Jamie told me about the scientist who came to talk to his class about bees, and he told me too about the honey that they sampled. Ken took Liam away for a walk, and I took Jamie to Jake's for his Tuesday playdate.

Jake and Jamie played well, as usual, but both boys were tired, and so differed more than usual about activities and sharing. Ken dropped Liam off, and Liam (all snug and cosy in his stroller) stayed asleep, despite the happy noises made by three other children, for another 45 minutes. John came by to pick us all up at 3:45, and we left at 4:00. Jamie really didn't want to go, and there were tears, but we managed it. He watched a new Backyardigans DVD (Super Secret Super Spy) when he got home, and played a little MMR. The kids were more or less occupied, so I made dinner: Chinese steamed buns, bok choy with oyster mushrooms, sticky rice, smoked squid, and some lovely appetizers (persimmon with a prosciutto-like ham, and lobster puffs) that Jake's mom Michelle had left over from a party and kindly shared with us. Of course, the kids ate none of it, and had to be fed other foods. Liam didn't eat much at all, as he was too intent on having things given to him that he wasn't allowed to have, or already had (no, you already have a cup in use, you don't get a new one). I have no idea if letting him choose his place setting would make a different, but will try next time. I was surprised to learn that I'm the only one who likes steamed buns, and the rest of it was just baffling. Maybe too many new foods at once, but that's not been an issue in the past... sigh. I was so hoping that I'd miss the 'picky eater' stage.

The rest of the evening involved much "Don't do that! Stop that! You're hurting me/him/your brother! You're going to hurt yourself! Put that CD down! Put that DVD down!" Ad nauseum. Again. Jamie got so wound up at one point that we had to sit him down with some "work" to calm him down. He did some word searches, and enjoyed them. He was also good at them (CONDUCTOR, SIR TOPPAM, etc.), but claims that he hasn't seen one before. John says that he quickly figured out for himself that the words don't always go left to right, but can go up and down and backwards too. ?!! I have never given him one, and neither has John. After an exhausting evening, we got the boys ready for bed. Because they hadn't eaten much, Jamie needed a big snack before bed. Liam failed to fall asleep at all, and had to be taken downstairs for food twice before he fell asleep around 10:30. Jamie fell asleep, finally, around 10:20. John said to me, as we met in the hallway, worn out and feeling thinner than two dimes, "Today had a lot of hours in it." And how.

2007-11-28 23:44 (Kristen) Liam and I got up very soon after John and Jamie did. Jamie was very groggy when John woke him up, and almost fell asleep again over breakfast before he was dressed by his dad. I got Liam dressed too, and Liam was out the door first before Jamie (with much assistance) was sent out into the cold morning. The morning passed quickly, with the main challenge of the day being to make sure that Liam didn't get bored. He tossed all the toys again, but was otherwise fine. John and Liam went ahead to pick up Jamie at the school while I got ready to go a little behind them. When I arrived at the school, Liam was yelling at his dad to do this and that for him on the play structure, and John mused that the loud voice that Liam was using was actually his quiet voice. A frightening thought.

After we walked John and Jamie to the subway on their trek to Hakobune, I took Liam to the library and to Treasure Island to do some scouting for Christmas. Liam played well for a bit, but started to get screechy and so I took him out to the library. He fell asleep in the library, which was nice, and I dashed to the Second Cup to get some work done before he woke up. When he did, we greeted the barista who calls Liam "Gojira" (Godzilla), and went to Book City and to the Big Carrot on our way home. We walked part of the way with Sam and Ben and their grandmother, which Liam enjoyed. He likes being bundled up, too, in the stroller, and is very calm most of the time that he is in it. Speaking of which, I should find the sleeping bag part for the stroller, now that it's getting cold again. Note to self... After we got home, play ensued, and a late lunch.

Jamie had given me the work that he'd done with the scientist who visited the school about bees; it was very cool, and Jamie seemed to have enjoyed it very much. He talks about school, which is cool. When he got home, we read his library book, watched Backyardigans "International Super Spy" (which has replaced "Samurai Pie" on heavy rotation), and then I got ready for dinner. Gary joined us, John went to Scrabble, and Liam and I hung out. Bathtime was at 8:00, and Jamie was very very tired. I washed the boys' hair, and put them to bed a little before nine. Both boys were very wound up, and flopping and protesting, and otherwise not settling down, and it took a while. What was funny was that both boys fell asleep at almost exactly the same time. Liam has woken up once, but that is all, and within the range of normal.

2007-11-29 19:55 (John) We had our first parent-teacher interview, with Ms. Schofield this evening. She started off by giving us the short version ("He's doing fine."), then spent five minutes going over her evaluation of his work to date. She seemed happiest at the fact that as of the middle of last month he knew the phonetic sounds of most of the letters of the alphabet, and was surprised that he could count to 102. (He's learned a lot more about phonetics since then, his English reading skills are rapidly catching up to his Japanese ones, and he can count up to at least 999 now.) We had Liam with us, who was happy as a clam to be invited along on an outing to Jamie's school, and spent much time exploring the classroom and first floor of the school looking for his favourite letter, O.

2007-11-30 22:55 Today was a TDSB P.A. day, and Jamie miraculously slept in by an hour. Hooray! We took him to school anyway late in the morning to run him around in the playground, and to keep Jake company while his parents had their interview with Ms. Schofield.

(John) On the elevator ride up to Geoff's for Scrabble tonight Jamie introduced himself to a man as "Darth Sidious". We chuckled, and Kristen said that Jamie had earlier introduced his Hakobune classmates to Kathryn at Knox Church, making up increasingly implausible names for them until she twigged and started laughing.

Liam loved Geoff and Derick's apartment because of the number and variety of lights (including the Christmas tree) and the ready availability of potato chips (so much so that only once did I see him trying to start a secret stash). Jamie was there mainly for the pinball.

(Kristen) Liam was largely uninterested in food until around dinnertime, when he consented to eat duck sausages and rice, with some Greek salad thrown in for some vegetable matter. He continues his imperious ways at the table, demanding what he doesn't have, and increasing, non-repeating variety, with a growing crescendo of shrieks. I know it's a stage, but I'm just a leeetle* tired of it...

Jamie made me and John play MMR today, with much imperious direction of his own (Mum! [long-suffering tone] DON'T go off the sides!!). He wanted to do some number work in the car on the way home from Geoff and Derek's, so I started to quiz him on mental math. He was good with X + 2, which surprisedme and John when we started throwing bigger and bigger numbers at him, as he has previously been limited by the number of fingers on one hand (therefore, not going beyond 5+5). He impressed us with 85 + 2, and was quite quick with the numbers, once John explained that X + 2 is just X + 1 + 1. It was cool. Both Liam and Jamie were exhausted when we got home, and barely had their heads hit the pillow than they were asleep.

2007-12-01 21:30 (John) I've been away playing in and helping run Trevor Sealy's annual Oshawa Scrabble Tournament, so Kristen will have to do most of the blogging today. I got Jamie out of bed in the morning and fed him in time for Kristen and Liam to take Jamie to the corner to get a ride to Nisshu Gakuin with Junko, then I saw him next when I got home and he burst into a gratifying happy dance when he saw me. Liam just made me pick him up and feed him, suggesting strongly that Kristen had neglected to do so all day.

Jamie is now in bed grilling Kristen about Santa Claus (a/k/a "The Christmas Man" up until two days ago). Yesterday he asked me the very perceptive question of why Santa Claus delivers presents by night after children are in bed. I explained that it was for reasons of air traffic safety, and Kristen was impressed with my ability to rationalise improvisationally.

(Kristen) I managed to cut my index finger while washing dishes tonight, so this will be an abbreviated blog because I'm a big wuss. I took Liam with me to the St. Lawrence Market by myself today, right after we left Jamie with Junko. We picked up a few hard-to-buy-elsewhere items, and Liam got to chat with Nupur for a minute or two. Once we finished up, I took him to the Early Years Centre, which he enjoyed immensely. I didn't get a chance to have him work with the big figure puzzles, which he'd probably like as he likes shape sorters, although why I'd consider getting him yet another item with lots of small pieces to squirrel away throughout the house is a mystery to my own self. We stayed for an hour, and then I took him by subway to pick Jamie up. Liam loved it when the subway went outside, and was very chatty about all the things he was seeing. He fell asleep just as we left the subway, and slept for about an hour and three-quarters afterwards.

I picked up Jamie, and we (at his request) went to our own Second Cup to have an Italian soda. We ate samosas and carrot cake and drank our drinks before Liam woke up. Jamie was tired and a little wild, so we ran around the playground across the street for ten minutes until I was too cold to stay (it was unusually cold today). We walked home, and played MMR, read books, and had a passably good time. Jamie did a clutch of flash cards and did very well with the two letter words, and not badly with three-letter words. He also helped me read a Thomas the Tank Engine first reader, which made him feel very good about himself. Liam was Disaster Boy, but enjoyed a chance to colour when Jamie decided that he wanted to colour and the materials were laid out. He holds a crayon well, but seems (alas) to be right-handed. No girls, no lefties like me either. I'll have to settle for hair colour for now. By the time John came home, both boys were in overdrive and bedtime was welcome. Liam is sleeping somewhat fitfully, but hopefully he'll settle and have a better night.

2007-12-02 23:21 (Kristen) Both boys were up inhumanly early (OK, 7:45, but that's waaay too early for me), and I was the Grouchy Mom for longer than was, perhaps, good. The heavens had opened up and dumped an unholy load of snow upon us, and the boys were acting housebound before 10:00. I looked outside, listened to descriptions of the weather that sounded like snowy apocalypse, and decided that it was better to brave snowy apocalypse than stay inside with two small boys All Day. I bundled the boys up (that took half an hour), and took them outside while I cleared off the front porch (and the strollers), and shovelled a good deal of snow away from the porch and sidewalk. The car had left a large bare spot on the driveway, so the driveway wasn't much of a big deal(John had left to go to his tournament). When Liam started to complain, I collected Jamie from a snow pile and we left to go to the Royal Ontario Museum (the ROM).

The walk to the bus stop was miserable, with some of the worst stroller weather I've seen in the four years I've been driving one of these things. Even the big wheels weren't helping as much as they should have been. Once on the bus, however, things went smoothly. We made it to the museum, which was Not At All Busy. No line at the coat check, no line at the admission desk: you'd never know it was Sunday. Everyone else had heeded the calls to stay home, and so we benefitted (OK, I exaggerate, but not by a large margin). We set out for the interactive areas, passing first through the reptile area. Jamie was creeped out by the idea of poisonous reptiles. When we made it to the interactive area, it was so quiet that the three staff there were more than happy to pay lots of attention to us. Jamie wasn't that interested in the attention, but enjoyed learning about animal skulls, hissing cockroaches, Vietnamese toads, and fur. We tried on bee and owl costumes (painful missed photo opp was Liam in a bee costume), and coloured. Jamie loved the actual bee hive they have in the area, and we drew a bee together. I asked him what a bee looked like, and eventually I was able to draw a bee based on what he was telling me. He drew Transformers. Sigh. Eventually we got hungry, and headed down to the cafeteria in the basement. First, we went to the wrong basement (there are three), and got caught at the kid store. I made it out with a DK Eye Wonder book on rocks and minerals and a Melissa & Doug dinosaur shape puzzle, and count myself lucky. Jamie really liked the magnetic properties of the big pile of hematite they had, and the (very) bored shop clerk enjoyed showing him that and all sorts of other things. I can recommend the food highly at the ROM cafeteria, which (amongst other yummy things) featured pizza and five different soups (ambitious and good soup: I had the curried yam and squash), and all its utensils and plates are biodegradable. Then it was back into the museum, to look at armour, swords, an enormous black star sapphire, and some Japanese swords before Jamie got too tired and out of control and it was time to go home.

I should mention that Jamie has been introducing himself to everyone who makes eye contact with him, and announcing his age. In the elevator at the ROM, he told the people his name and then, with that little laugh of his, said "I am TOTally four." He is so very totally four.

Liam had fallen asleep about five minutes before we left, and so I wrapped his snowsuit and two blankets around him and we dashed for the subway. We made it home safely, and Jamie vanished into the basement with Gary. Ayami looked after Liam while I washed dishes and made dinner (Christmas sausages with cranberries, cinnamon, nutmeg, and something else. Wow). John came home safely, and played MMR after eating dinner with us. Liam had been ignoring food today, but he happily dove into dinner, and into a pile of grapes that I seeded and chopped up for public consumption. He quickly solved the shape puzzle, but has physical difficulty in manipulating the dinosaurs into their places. Jamie fell asleep instantly, but Liam stayed up until 10:30 or so, for no reason that I can discern. His upper canines and molars are in, but he's drooling again...be afraid.

2007-12-03 23:59 (Kristen) Winter is here again; cold, snowsuits, and arguments about hats are here for the next four months at least. Environment Canada is predicting the coldest winter in 15 years, and I need to buy a pair of warm pants for waiting in schoolyards. Both Jamie and Liam are well outfitted, with snowpants, hats, mitts, and other paraphenalia. I have suspicions about the waterproof nature of Liam's snowsuit, and have been putting his new MEC splashsuit over top of the snowsuit. So far, so good.

Liam was up early early (7:30), and was fully awake and full of glee when Jamie came in for his morning cuddle. I sent Liam with John and Jamie to school, and Liam enjoyed the ride. It was a good morning, with not much food but very little screeching, in retrospect. There wasn't even too much wanton destruction. Hmm. We played a bit, and then he started to get tired a bit before we went to Browning. He ate lunch there (much ketchup with his grilled cheese--his request), and we met up with Jamie and John. Jamie was in a good mood, and told me in excited tones that, at school, he had met Golden Girl (the new letter character: this week must be the letter 'G'). Ken was not feeling well, so we four went to the Danforth for errands and a Second Cup afternoon. Liam ended up sleeping from 2 until 5, and Jamie did some 'work' and hung out with me and John. We read from a Ladybug and a Chirp magazine, and did some of the crafts and things to do. All in all, a satisfactory outing.

We went straight to Browning, and had a lovely dinner that John made on his own, as I was looking after the kids. The kids romped with Gary, Daniel, Ross, and Tom, and had an excellent time. Tom observed that he rarely saw Liam in such a good mood (sleep! rest! no teeth coming in!), and Michelle and I talked about separation anxiety and cognitive leaps (the two are connected). Tom and Michelle both observed that Liam seems to have had a cognitive leap, as he is doing things differently and with more thought and confidence. Jamie has as well, and is starting to relax a bit more. Both boys were very tired when we got home late, and went to bed very easily.

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

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