Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 26

2008-03-04 23:10 (John) Tuesday is the high point of Jamie's weekly calendar, because he has his weekly playdate with Jake. Today, Dr. Kennedy kindly squeezed us in on short notice at lunchtime to confirm that Liam appears to have a viral illness (an enteral virus, likely a coxsackie virus), so Jake's mom kindly took Jamie straight home from school. Jamie was remarkably copacetic, asked sensible questions (where was I going, when would I come back for him), then thanked Jake's mom for driving him because he was "tired of walking".

Liam has a rash over his torso, neck and head, looking like little pimples. His skin appears to be uncomfortable; he often bursts into tears when touched, or if he brushes against something. His appetite and fever come and go, his digestion is poor, his mood is fragile and he is not sleeping well. He likes to have everybody around, in case a sudden whim should strike him, and it often does.

I looked after Jake and Jamie at Jake's house for half an hour when I went to pick up Jamie, so that Jake's mom could run an important errand. They spent the entire time playing a Dora the Explorer video game.

Jamie and I stopped at the Second Cup to get Rice Krispie squares, but they were sold out. He insisted that I buy Kristen a slice of cheesecake, because he recognized a flavour that she liked.

Kristen took Liam to the library for an hour while Jamie and I finished off his Japanese homework for the week and then killed time playing more Karuta. We're up to 20 cards now, and Jamie is still enjoying them immensely.

Dinner was leftover veggies and a roasted risotto (?) dish that Jake's mom gave us. We played together for a little while afterward, then Gary came home and Jamie went to play War of the Monsters with him. Ted came by for a visit while I was bathing the boys. After the bath, Jamie showed him how to play Desktop Tower Defense. Jamie fell asleep a little earlier than usual, at 22:00; I need to work at getting that back to about 21:00.

2008-03-05 23:14 (Kristen) Liam took two hours to fall asleep last night, but woke up well enough this morning. Jamie had a much harder time waking up, and was very grumpy about having to go to school, or do much of anything. He was finally talkied into going by the prospect of gym class. They are doing yoga, and he really enjoys it. Liam and I spent the morning watching the snowstorm, but he really wanted to go out when John left to pick Jamie up at Jackman. So, I bundled him up and let him walk as far as he wanted (not far; he hates the uneven, unstable nature of snowy ground) before taking him to Sushi Delight for lunch. His appetite is still off, but he will eat Japanese food (miso, rice, California rolls) when he won't be in the mood for anything else. Sure enough, he drank two bowls of miso soup, and ate approximately three California rolls and a lot of pickled ginger. Stuffed, he fell asleep around 1:30, and slept for an hour and a half.

He woke up in the front hall of our friend Junko, as I'd gone over for tea after he'd fallen asleepl. He was quite taken with Rusty the dog, and was well behaved. He was also, it should be known, fantastically well behaved at the restaurant. He went with me on a quick errand afterwards before we went home, and wanted to go inside quite badly. He let me do a little shovelling before we did. Jamie and John came home soon after, and John reports that Jamie, once again, did not want to come home. John played with Jamie and some of his friends, and that went over well. John stayed home from Scrabble tonight so that he could spend some family time before going to Texas tomorrow, and Liam in particular loved the extra Papa time. The boys were in bed by 8:30 and 9:30, respectively, and I think Liam wouldn't have minded going to sleep a lot earlier than 8:30. Tomorrow, I get the boys up on my own, and take them around to school and daycare, as John will be gone by the time the boys wake up. I must remember to set my alarm...

2008-03-06 24:11 (Kristen) I was lucky this morning: John brought Jamie in to bed with me before he left for the airport, and I managed to get Jamie up about twenty minutes before Liam woke up. This meant that I was able to get us all ready and out of the house by 8:50. Jamie walked to school with a promise that we'd use the toboggan tomorrow if there was enough snow, but complained that his feet hurt. I have to try to find winter boots that fit him, as the ones he is wearing are too small and are not waterproof enough. I took Liam out to the Second Cup for a snack while we waited for the community centre office at Frankland to open. All the soccer programs were full again, but I did get Jamie into skating. Yay! He'll do that with Jake starting in April.

Jamie walked with Liam and me to the subway after school. Liam was somewhat cross and difficult at home, and so I decided it was a pizza day for Jamie. He loved his Hawai'ian pizza, and Liam ate a good deal of my margharita pizza after we dropped Jamie off. Liam fell asleep soon after for about two hours, and was woken up by the sound of happy kids being chased in Goforth Hall by a Mummy Kaiju* (Japanese monster) at Jamie's request. We ended up staying and playing, eating and chatting for some time, before walking up to Spadina Station and going home. Once home, Jamie was very anxious to play with Gary, and was very upset when he wasn't home to the extent of checking out Gary's apartment every two minutes to see if the light was on, indicating active residency. I made dinner for the boys, which they both hoovered, and they said 'hi' to John by video iChat. They miss their dad. Bedtime was relatively easy, and they were asleep by 9:00. Jamie fell asleep for two minutes at the dinner table at 6:00, and Liam was just snaky by the time we turned out the lights. Both kids are very very tired.

2008-03-07 22:34 (Kristen) We all woke up at 7:43 this morning, two minutes before the alarm went, because Jamie needed to pee. Jamie is resolute in his refusal to use the bathroom on his own, and is getting more reluctant to even be in a room by himself. This happened when John was away the last time, and I chalk it up to missing his dad/not having all his peeps nearby. Nonetheless, I had both kids dressed, fed, and in the wagon by 9:45 or so, and we even had some playtime before Jamie went inside. I took Liam down to the Big Carrot for milk, and decided to walk along the Danforth to the bank. Liam was walking, and insisted on going in the opposite direction. I quickly realized that he was pointing out that there was a Second Cup across the street, and he wanted a breakfast cookie, please. We spent a pleasant 20 minutes doing just that, before we went on to the bank and then home. Liam was delighted that he got to sit on his own chair, just like a big boy.

When we got home, it was apparent that I had forgotten to put Jamie's shoes back into this backpack when I repacked it this morning. I grabbed Liam and the shoes, and ran them over to the school, as Jamie would be wearing his boots and wouldn't like that. Sure enough, Mrs Schofield took them from me at the door, and said that Jamie had been "put out" that his shoes weren't there. Yep. That would sound about right. Liam and I got some chores done and lunches made before we headed out the door again to pick Jamie up for Hakobune. Jamie was very unhappy to leave the schoolyard, even when I had set the alarm, declaring it unfair that he had four minutes instead of three (that he didn't have the exact number somehow invalidated everything and we were supposed to start over...at least, I think that was how it was supposed to go). He calmed down by the time we were halfway to the subway, and it was a very pleasant ride with both boys to Hakobune.

Liam and I had lunch at Cora's, since he'd enjoyed yesterday's pizza so much. He enjoyed today's just as much, and let me know very clearly how happy he was sitting on his own chair, eating his own piece of pizza. He fell asleep soon after we left, and stayed asleep for two and a half hours, I think, before waking up outside the door to Hakobune. Jamie was hyper, and the only way I got him out of Goforth Hall was to remind him that he was owed some bubble tea, and that all the other children in the hall had already gone home. The snow was starting to come down when we walked up to the bubble tea store, and Michelle the owner was delighted to see Jamie. We drank our teas (Jamie ordered taro flavoured tea, on his own initiative, and enjoyed it very much) and then I realized that Gary was working a block away and was about to get off work. We picked up Gary, which delighted Jamie, and they walked along snowbanks and did other snow stuff on the way to Browning for dinner.

The boys had fun at Browning, and ate relatively well given that it was chili night. Jamie and I were talking in the bath about how to deal with monsters, and I enjoyed telling him that the garlic bread he'd eaten at dinner rendered him immune to vampire attack. Tom came home late, and I was taking the kids home early, as Jamie has Nisshu Gakuin tomorrow. Tom offered to keep Liam for a half hour longer, and I was delighted to agree. Gary took Jamie home, and I got things cleaned up and dealt with, and even shovelled the filthy white hellcrap...oops... snow that had fallen over the course of the day. Liam came home just as I was getting Jamie ready for the bath, and only cried when Tom left. He sat in my lap in the bath, hardly moving, and fell asleep in my lap in much the same position while I read Jamie his bedtime story ( The Leaf Men by William Joyce). I can't tell you how unusual this is (it was about 9:30). Jamie was able to ask me thirty million questions about the story, then, which he appreciated very much. Both boys are fast asleep, and I hope that they sleep well.

Yesterday, Jamie was asking me what would happen if John's head came through the computer. I misunderstood, and said that it would hurt John very much. No, he meant if John's head literally came out of our computer screen while we were talking to him via video iChat. I remember wondering this myself about telephones. I also should say that Jamie insists on my speaking Japanese when we're at Hakobune. At first, I thought it was because I do try to speak it and ask that he speak it too. Then I realized, today, that it may also be because my vocabulary is much more limited in what I can tell him to do or not do. His Japanese is much better than mine, and I'm getting him to tell me how to say things in Japanese now. He enjoys that.

2008-03-08 22:54 (Kristen) We knew that a massive snow storm was coming our way, but Jamie's Japanese school remained resolute and open. I was up at 7:50, and a minute or two later, our ride called and said that she wasn't going up for 9:00 this morning after all. This precipitated a mad scramble, as I got both boys up, dressed, and out the door to make it up to Lawrence and Yonge by 9:00. I grabbed food for the bus for Jamie (granola bar, some breakfast cookie) but it really wasn't enough, and I was hoping that the large snack that I'd packed would help to cushion that inadequacy. Jamie was unhappy about the rush, but a real trouper, and we actually made it by 9:05 (and were far from the last people to arrive).

Liam and I went to a local Starbucks for a quick bite, and Liam consented to eat part of my croissant and none of the yoghurt I'd purchased for him. We got on the subway at 10:00, the snow starting to increase, and made it to the St Lawrence Market by 10:45. I chatted with Nupur, who gave Liam pakoras that he happily inhaled, did the rest of the little shopping I needed to do, and walked through the intensifying storm to the subway. I left myself a good deal of time, because the subway ride down was a little slow on the outside bits of the route. That was good, because pushing the stroller through snowy streets and sidewalks was slow going. We made it in time, thank goodness, but not by much. Jamie wanted desperately to play in the snow with his friend Harry (he is having trouble with nother classmate, Kakura-kun, who won't be on Jamie's team, for mysterious reasons. He is sad about this, even though the two were playing well enough yesterday at Hakobune), but Liam decided to have another poo and I had already used the only diaper I'd brought with me on that (I did say we were in a hurry making it out the door, didn't I? So much for appealing to the gods of Liam's colon). That was the deciding factor (that and Harry's parents were totally not into standing in the playground in a driving snowstorm), but Jamie had a meltdown as we went out the door. He was completely ridiculous, and it was clearly because he'd not eaten enough. I detoured to the Golden Griddle nearby, and got some food into both boys. They didn't eat a lot, but it was enough, and while they were a little out of control for them, we got the deed done without too much horror.

Liam fell asleep more or less the instant we got out of the restaurant, and I decided to forego all other options and head home. The storm was dumping a significant amount of snow on the ground by the time we got home, and I read the weather reports which say that 40 cm of snow is expected to fall on us before the storm is gone. The storm originated in Texas, and so I will be having John have a stern talk with the people down there about this. So much for all cold and evil winter weather being the Canadians' fault! Now we know the truth. John's aunts Nobuko and Tomoko arrived by taxi around 3:40, and were left at the corner of Broadview and Fulton by the driver, who wouldn't drive on the side streets. Later, when we tried to get them a cab home, I had to call five cab companies and it took over half an hour to get one to pick them up. When they were ready to go, Ayami and our neighbour had to dig them a path to the cab in the street. Seriously.

Ayami had come upstairs to play with Jamie while Gary was at work, and he was happy to see John's aunts as well. They had brought dinner, which was 'make your own sushi rolls,' and we had great fun with that. Liam was slow to get started in filling his stomach, but loved the udon and hoovered the rolls that I made for him. Jamie stuffed himself too, and pronounced the food as 'very yummy' when we were talking about it at bedtime. We had a very happy party in the middle of the nasty weather, warm and well fed, with good company. I put Liam to bed at 8:00, as he was starting to melt down despite being asleep until 4:15. Jamie played War of the Monsters with Gary, and after watching one of the monster 'origin stories' I think I know the source of at least some of Jamie's nightmares (although Jamie denies it). I was able to spend some quality time with Jamie as we got him ready for bed, and not only read two books with him but answered his twenty million questions too. He fell asleep quickly and we're looking forward to a trip to the ROM tomorrow.

2008-03-09 25:17 (Kristen) I decided to take the boys to the ROM today, and that notion was reinforced by their being full of energy and vigour early in the morning. We slept in until 9:00 or so, daylight savings time, but I was rather tired and not all that much fun, interactively, in the morning. We had lunch, then got on the subway to meet Jake and his family there.

The trip there was tiring but not horrible, despite the snow leftover from yesterday's snowstorm, and Jamie was delighted to see Jake. Liam, according to plan, had fallen asleep on the way there, but only stayed asleep for 40 minutes in total, as I woke him up taking his hat off (it was hot)l. The ROM was full of children but not overwhelmingly so, and the boys ran around and lost their minds doing this and that in the interactive kid area. Jamie enjoyed the "digging for dinosaur bones" interactive display, where you don goggles and grab a paintbrush to "excavate" dinosaur bones on a sand table, like a real paleontologist. He told me it was his favourite thing later in the night. We ran off to see the dinosaurs, which fill two large rooms and make them feel small, and Jamie enjoyed seeing the barasaur. He and Jake were starting to get a little crazy near the end, and I finally figured out that Jamie was hungry (despite lunch). It was around 3:30 when we left, Jake going off to his grandmother's, and us heading home. I had to stop at the bank, and so we ate some french fries with lots of ketchup at the McDonald's near the subway station to fortify us for the walk home from Broadview and Danforth. Liam was cranky from having to stay in the stroller, but was all smiles and glee when he was allowed out for fries, and spent his time flirting with the girls behind the counter when I wasn't looking.

We went home, played for a bit while Trifina finished up, and then headed over to Browning for dinner (it took 40 minutes from "we're going!" to actually getting there...). The boys had a great time, and I enjoyed the much-needed break playing "Dance Dance Revolution" with Daniel and Ross. Jamie and Liam were acting a little tired but I didn't think much of it until Gary showed up to take Jamie home to play, and I said that it was 8:15, he didn't have that much time before we left. Tom said "Uh, I haven't changed that clock yet," and I realized to my horror that it was actually 9:15. We whisked the kids home for bath and bed, and they were overall very well behaved through it. Both boys well asleep quickly, and Jamie was (as usual) full of questions before finally succumbing to sleep.

2008-03-10 24:48 (Kristen) We all woke up, refreshed and in a good mood, around 9:15. Liam and Jamie even played with each other for a few minutes, which was wonderful to see, and made both boys quite happy. We wore our slippers to breakfast, and Jamie and Liam thought that my Marvin the Martian slippers were hilarious (which they were). Jamie likes to put yoghurt onto his cereal, and Liam just makes a mess (he's not much of a breakfast guy, having usually eaten in bed before he ever sees the table). I decided that we were going to have a television-free day, unless someone was really tired, and we managed to keep the day tv-free until 5:00 PM, when our shipment of new Backyardigans DVDs arrived (Hooray Tales of the Mighty Knights!

We went to Browning for lunch, and Ken took Liam for a walk. I took Jamie, after much flopping and protesting, to the Second Cup, where we had a great time for two hours, eating, reading, doing dot-to-dots, and weird math. I showed him how to stack numbers to add them; he quizzed me on my knowledge of extremely improbable numbers. Liam joined us, woke up, and was peaceful as we walked back home. We watched our Backyardigans, then went to Browning to start getting ready for dinner. John came home, and phoned ahead to say that he was at Pottery Road. I told Liam, who pointed to the back door, and then to the front when I explained that John would be coming from the front. He went with me to the door, and was very happy to see his dad, in his quiet Liam way. Jamie, who was playing with Gary at home, greeted his dad with a huge "Papa! I missed you!" and an enormous hug.

Dinner was fun, and the boys had a good time. Liam started to exhibit tired behaviours, and we realized it was after 9:00, so we headed home. Liam fell asleep easily, and Jamie did as well. John had picked up some Calvin and Hobbes cartoons for him in Dallas, and read them to Jamie for a bedtime story. Jamie laughed his full, burbling, "this is the funniest thing I've ever heard" laugh at Calvin thinking his dad was a monster and shooting him with rubber suction darts. John is conducting an experiment: Daniel wasn't exposed to Calvin and Hobbes until he was much older; what is the effect on a much younger child? And so we begin...

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

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