Back to Vol. 2 No. 31, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 2 No. 33.

Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 32

2008-04-15 23:04 (Kristen) Liam has been waking up earlier and earlier, and it's because of the sun. John has wanted blackout curtains in our room for years, but the need has become acute as Liam has been rising before 7:00 and is up and cheerful by 7:20. We are not built for this. Jamie has been getting up a little earlier with the commotion, and while we get ready for school with less hurry, we could use the sleep.

Afterwards, we went to play at Withrow and waited for Liam and Ken. It was colder than we expected, however, so we went back to Jake's house for an hour before we headed home. Sachiko Tatsumi, who stayed with us last summer, came by for some fukinotto*, a Japanese seasonal delicacy in our garden, and stayed to play with the kids for a bit. Gary and Ayami played with Liam and Jamie, and Liam was blitheringly tired by the time bathtime arrived. Both boys fell asleep in record time.

2008-04-16 23:21 (Kristen) Liam woke up around 7:30, and spurred on by this, I took him shopping for curtains today at the Eaton Centre. I left the house around 10:15, after doing this and that, and we were downtown around 10:45. He enjoyed the subway ride immensely, making friends all the way, but was suspiciously quiet around 11:15. I looked down at him to see that he had fallen asleep. Horrors! I quickly made some decisions about curtains that I'd seen, and ran to a local Starbucks (internet connection there, don't you know) to get a little work done. John called around 12:15, and we met up at a local Thai place nearby the Eaton Centre (called, strangely, Salad King). Liam woke up as I went in (at 12:30 or so), and that was that for sleep today. He did not fall asleep after a long walk from the Eaton Centre to Hakobune, despite my letting him play to his heart's content at the train table in Indigo, or with any other encouragements. Even the car trip home didn't do it. Sigh.

Jamie had a good day, reading his phonics book with me at breakfast and otherwise having fun. John reports having a pre- and post-school round of "Papa Monster," which has provided him with exercise for the week. He was in full cry when Liam and I met him at Hakobune, and remained tired but voluble for the trip home, which contained many of Jamie's attempts at writing his own knock-knock jokes. Our local Second Cup had a "sneak peek" party at 5:30 (it opens officially on Friday), and we were invited down. We brought Jamie and Liam, with the idea that we'd have dinner at the Silk Road before John left for Scrabble, but the hors d'oeuvres were very good and the kids were having such a great time that we just let them play. Liam was actually too tired to eat properly, and spilled a large quantity of cranberry juice over himself (christening the new store). Jamie played with Jordan, the son of one of the other regulars, and with Christian, Antonio's son. In fact, Antonio and I are talking about setting up a playdate one Saturday for Christian and Jamie at the park across the street, once both boys finish their second-language Saturday schools.

Liam was completely judgement impaired and suicidal when I brought the boys home, and so I fed them a small dinner. Jamie ate his downstairs with Gary, and I put Liam to bed first, around 8:30. He fell asleep almost instantly. Jamie came up after, and fell asleep very quickly at 9:00.

2008-04-17 22:18 (Kristen) There doesn't seem to be enough time in the morning. John takes the kids to school (Jamie had the sniffles, as do half the kids at Hakobune), and I do laundry and try to eat breakfast and drink my coffee before it gets cold. Then John and Liam are back, happy and flushed with exertion, and I take over. Liam was fine to play beside me with minimal input on my part until close to lunch, when I was roaring about trying to get Jamie's lunch made, essentials packed up, laundry hung, and dishes washed. The mornings vanish very quickly, and I don't know where they go. John took Liam to the school to get Jamie, and I ran out to meet them ten minutes later. Jamie was sitting on the sidewalk in front of his classroom looking very put out when I arrived, but I didn't get the story from him before he left with John for Hakobune. Liam and I went home, got the stuff I'd forgotten the first time, and went to Browning for lunch.

Liam ate his greek salad with great gusto, inhaling the olives even faster than the tomatoes. Jamie told me later, through John, that I'd forgotten the nori* in his lunch, so he didn't have a piece to wrap around his second onigiri* (rice ball). Oops. They are better with the seaweed. Liam was terribly tired when he left with Ken, crying his heart out as he left but asleep soon after. He didn't stay asleep long after Ken dropped him off at Starbucks with me, and so I packed him up and took him to the library to straighten out a problem with his library card. Then we went to Treasure Island to play with the train table, but we had to go back outside first to have a fight about having to wear shoes (I said yes, he said no). I eventually just put them on him, and he realized that this was the better way once I did. He's so very stubborn, and once he flies off the handle, will refuse the very thing that will make him happy. It makes dealing with him very different than with Jamie, who would always listen to me, even when he was upset, at that age. At least, that's how I remember it now that the endorphins have kicked in...

After playing for a bit, we headed home to play outdoors for a while. Liam is utterly fascinated with our neighbours' cat Jasper, and he followed Jasper all over the lawns and into backyards for at least an hour. He signed "cat" vigourously, and had to be stopped from chasing Jasper across the street at least twice (that was not so good). If he managed to get close enough to touch Jasper then he was very gentle, even if he hasn't quite got the hang of "the fur goes *this* way, not that way". I thought that I lost him at one point, and nearly had a fit before I realized that he was in Rosemary's backyard(which adjoins ours) and not lost in the front somewhere. He is *fast*. Luke and his mom Betsy were out too, and we all played until it was time for dinner. John and Jamie were over at John's parents' house, and ate there before they joined us at home.

Jamie and John finished Jamie's Nisshu Gakkuin homework, and we all trooped off to the Jackman playground for one last kick at the can before bedtime. We were joined by Nadine and Zachary, who moved into a house about five away from ours last summer. Zachary is 18-months-old, and he and Liam seem to be hitting it off well. We'll arrange a playdate sometime soon for the two of them. I am realizing that my life will be one big playdate very soon. When I was young, we went outside and swarmed in packs. It was Lord of the Flies, and that was how we liked it! Sigh. Modern parenting. The kids successfully ran off the rest of their energy at the park, and we came home. Jamie decided that he was a kid snake and I was the mummy snake, so there was much hissing. It was fun, and then it was bedtime and lights out. Both boys were out like little lights. I should mention too that Liam was also enraptured by birds today, and kept making the sign for 'bird' as he looked up into the sky, pointing and pointing.

2008-04-18 24:09 (Kristen) It was the usual rush out the door today, compounded by taking both boys to their respective destinations: Jackman for Jamie, Hakobune for Liam. John took the boys to Jackman, and I picked up Liam on the way back to take him to Hakobune. Liam had a great time on the trip, sitting on subway seats and making friends with random passengers. Once we reached the daycare, Liam started to cry when the door opened. To avoid last week's fiasco, I handed him to Sasaki-sensei, kissed Liam, and fled like a coward, feeling like the world's worst mom as I heard him cry from behind the door. He didn't cry for long today (likely because I wasn't there, and there were more interesting things to do), but apparently started crying again five minutes before I arrived. Other moms had arrived first, and he knew that I was about to arrive, and Where Was I?!! He clung to me for a few minutes, but he cheered up enough to say goodbye to the staff, and to pounce on his dad when he showed up a few minutes later.

Jamie was in a great mood when I saw him, and Liam was looking forward to his pizza. He scarfed it down, and fell asleep on the walk over to Aroma. He didn't sleep very soundly, but stayed under (with much rocking back and forth) for about two hours. I ran back to Hakobune with a newly awakened Liam around 3:00 to pick up Jamie. We couldn't play in Goforth Hall because setup for a concert was underway, but I tried to make up for it by taking Jamie for bubble tea for the first time. I didn't think to have him pee before we left, and that made his mood a little more explosive on the way home, but he was happy to see John when we got home. The boys all went to Browning for dinner, while I went off to yoga, but I feel pretty confident in guessing that Jamie played video games and Liam spent a lot of time with Tom.

The boys were sweet and affectionate tonight, and Liam still makes little cooing and burbling sounds when he's happy that I will miss six months from now when he grows out of them. Jamie is very funny, and continues to assault us with made-up knock-knock jokes.

2008-04-19 24:17 (John) The boys were up at dawn this morning, as someone left the blinds open again. Kristen let me pretend to sleep in for a half hour while she got the boys fed. We got them dressed and into the car with a few minutes to spare to get to Nisshu Gakuin for Jamie's Saturday school. Kristen stayed at home to (as we say in our family) nap and eat bonbons (i.e. do housework and paid editing work). I dropped Jamie off at school, explained to Nishinoiri-sensei that we couldn't find the set of 47 yomi-fuda cards from Jamie's hand-made karuta* set, which is going to be a moderate pain in the backside to replace. She said she'd check the other kids' backpacks, but they didn't turn up.

I drove Liam all the way down Yonge Street to Front Street on the way to the market. Usually I take a faster, less populated route, but he was taking such glee in calling out the letters that he knew on the signs we passed (AEIJLOSUW, at least) that I had to maximise the number of large signs we would pass. He continued in an effervescently good mood as we walked from the car to the market, and one passerby couldn't resist and had to tousle his hair. Once we got to the market, he sat in his stroller and ate, and got very sleepy because of his early start. I whizzed through the shopping, then took him to Pearls to drop off Tai-Tai's groceries.

My mom wanted to talk to me, so my dad sat in the car and played with Liam to keep him amused, with much apparent success. Liam and I then went to pick up Mom and then back uptown to pick up Jamie. Everyone played with Hari and his mom, while I went in search of an ATM to get cash to pay Jamie's tuition, because I'd left my chequebook at home. I didn't mind the search, because it consisted of walking to the nearest Starbuck's, then using my iPod Touch to quickly determine that the nearest CIBC ATM was 500 m north.

The boys ate at the local pizzeria as usual, and we said goodbye after inviting Hari for a playdate in two weeks' time. Hari said we should come up to his house (in Barrie, a long drive north of Toronto) so we could go swimming, I said we'd see what hours our local community pool was open, because it used to be open on Saturday afternoons.

Jamie and Liam fell asleep on the car ride home, thanks to the early morning, the exercise and the food. As we were trying to decide what to do, Alison called to say that she was taking her girls, Genya and Toni, to the local pool and did we want to join her. Yes. Both boys had a fabulous time, and had somehow managed to improve their swimming skills significantly even since their last time in the water in Mexico in February. They didn't want to say goodbye, so we walked to the Second Cup, then played at St. Barnabas' Church until dinner.

Kristen made a light dinner for all of us, and we got the boys to bed not too late. I have spent the evening and night working on rescuing data from Kristen's iBook G4, which appears to be suffering some sort of hardware failure that is keeping it from booting.

Three quick linguistic notes: I was telling Jamie yesterday that a woman I used to go to school with had passed away (Jennifer Naiberg, the first of my high school classmates to die, and close to the last I would have wanted to lose). He asked her name, then asked "Was she your mother?" It took me a moment to realise the ambiguity of the phrase "go to school with", and that in Jamie's experience the only people you actually go to school with are your parents.

This morning, Jamie asked why Sunday used to be a store holiday in Toronto. I told him it was because people used to keep Sunday special for praying to God in church. He said "I don't understand that", so I repeated it in Japanese, and he said "Oh, okay", as going to Hakobune has been very good for his Japanese religious terminology, among other things.

Liam continues to add to his vocabulary of syllables, and is very creative at combining gestures and sounds, generalising and inventing signs to communicate. He has a very evocative door-handle turning sign for "go outside". He has generalised the sign for "more" to include not just more of a concrete substance, but also more of an ongoing activity. He has a hilarious sign for "Mercury Meltdown Revolution for the Wii", which involves scowling while saying "Warwarwar". He practises calling out the names of the letters he can pronounce whenever he has the opportunity: A, E, I and O. "A" on its own can either mean that he wants to watch the Fisher-Price ABC flash video, or that he wants to play MarbleBlast, which I think in his mind is a game where you press the right letters ro make the marble move.

2008-04-20 23:28 (Kristen) John didn't get much work done yesterday, as he was trying to diagnose what was wrong with my G4 laptop (my primary machine, and the one that has all my professional work on it). He finally thought that it might be a memory problem, which might involve me having a fried machine and need to buy a new computer. After managing to close the blinds last night, we all slept in until around 8:30 (very pleasant!). I got the kids up, and we did a little of this and that before I took the boys to the Eaton Centre for lunch and a visit to the Apple store.

We made our way there, and both boys enjoyed the subway ride. When we arrived, we went straight to the Apple store to book an appointment with an Apple tech, and then went off to have lunch. Jamie chose lunch from Sushi Q, a little takeaway sushi stand in the food court, which suited me and Liam well. The boys ate sushi and drank miso soup, and Liam in particular attacked the edamame* with gusto. We finished up and cleaned up just as we needed to head back to the Apple store for our appointment, and Jamie nibbled an apple on our way up. He was very amused by the fact that apples weren't allowed in the Apple store.

The fabulous technician who looked at my computer (he *listened* to me! He found the kids fun things to do! He was personable and knowledgable and helpful beyond belief! I love the Apple store!) told me that John had correctly diagnosed the problem with my computer, and that it would easily be $1200 to fix (toasty logicboard). However, he gave the contact info for two places that might take my otherwise happy laptop (5 month old battery! Lovely hard drive! etc.) for trade-in, and so I plotted my next move. I took the boys to Indigo (Liam fell asleep on the way), bought Jamie a new Charlie and Lola book, and then we went to one of the stores mentioned by the Apple tech that was nearby our house. Their technician wasn't in, and Jamie was tired, so we went home.

Once we were home, we puttered about. I got Jamie to tell me some more about Jamieland, and to illustrate what I wrote down in a sketchbook. That was fun. Liam did puzzles, some Pokemon was watched, and we had a good time. Gary and Ayami came up to spend a little time with us before they leave for Japan tomorrow, and Gary walked Jamie to Tom and Michelle's for dinner before they left. Tom had business, and Michelle was asleep, so it was just me, John, Jamie, Liam, Ross, and Daniel for dinner. The boys ate well, much hilarity was had, and we came home well and went to bed well. I should add that Gary and Jamie kept phoning me and John every few minutes so that Jamie could, for some inexplicable reason, yell "OINK!" into the phone. The mysteries of being four.

2008-04-21 37:45 (Kristen) We slept well, all of us, last night, and woke up in a house without Gary and Ayami, who are off to Japan. We were a little late getting out the door because Gary called to stay goodbye from the airport, but that was a good reason. Jamie had a good morning at school, and I walked Liam to the library and back (he looked for birds). We picked up Jamie, along with Jake, Sam, and Parker, who were coming to our house for a lunch/afternoon playdate. The boys were in great moods, and formed a train voluntarily on the way home, shouting out the names of "stops" along the way. Once home, they played for a bit while I made macaroni and cheese and hot dogs for lunch. They ate more than I expected (except for Jake, who was too wound up to eat), and then I threw them outside to run around in the back yard (thank you Spring!).

The only fly in the ointment of the afternoon was when Jamie fell down and scraped his knee, provoking howls and gales of tears. He took a long time to calm down, and was eventually helped by his friend Parker, who discussed past 'boo-boos' with him, and who cried the longest about it. Around that time, it was clear that a snack and drink were needed, and so we came in, ate, and watched a Backyardigans episode. By the time that was over, it was time to go out again, and the boys ran around until their parents came to pick them up. Jamie was a little lost for a moment, but that was corrected by Sam and Ben coming outside. The boys all played gleefully with each other until dinnertime, when John called us in for soba and leftover veggies and fish from Monday night. It was good timing, as the boys were getting wet from random watergun spray.

The boys were exhausted, as Liam had only slept for an hour and a half after much effort on John's part, and all that fresh air and exercise was soporific, in the end. Jamie fell asleep easily, but Liam was so tired that he took a long time to finally settle down and sleep.

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

Back to Vol. 2 No. 31, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 2 No. 33.