Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 53

2008-09-09 21:53 (Kristen) I took Liam to Hakobune this morning, he asked if Jamie was inside waiting for him. I explained that he wasn't, but he'd see his brother afterwards. When I picked him up after lunch, he started asking for John and for Jamie, and didn't really stop except when we were sitting at the front of the subway train, watching the tunnel. Then it was "more! more!" as we stopped at each station. We rode until Pape just to get a little extra subway time in. Jamie was off having lunch at Jake's with Jake, Charlie, Parker, and Sam. The posse is back together, and it sounds like they were having a great time.

Afterwards, we went to Riverdale Farm as I had a package to drop off for a client, and we discovered much to our delight that the farmer's market was in full swing there. We picked up some lovely food, including smoked whitefish from Georgian Bay. Jamie had an ice cream, but the ice cream fell off the cone when he was walking in the farm area. We went back for another, where the man serving us quickly recognized the reason for Jamie's return, and gave us a new cone for free. They're the people who sell ice cream and goat cheese; and they're very very nice! Jamie fed a very fat and happy squirrel some of his muffin too, but that was deliberate. Liam was very excited by the animals at the farm, and can do an excellent cow and pig imitation.

Liam didn't nap this afternoon, so he was a little bearlike as I was trying to make dinner. Jamie has been very tired too, and was not all that co-operative when asked to do anything much. He protested that he was too tired to get ready for the bath, but wasn't too tired to play. Hmmm. He seemed to recognize the fallacy inherent in his argument right away. Liam took about two seconds to fall asleep, but Jamie is still having trouble winding down.

2008-09-10 24:55 (Kristen) Liam and I woke up at 9:15, so my memories of the morning are a little fuzzy. I do know that John woke a protesting Jamie up and took him out of the room, and since I heard nothing otherwise, I assume that all went well. Liam and I went out to get Jamie registered for skating lessons again (more of his posse are coming out this time), and played at Treasure Island (choo choo! choo choo! -- another Chew boy is entranced by their toy table). I bought Liam a Kumon "Let's Color!" book so that he can have some "work" to do when John is doing homework with Jamie. Liam so wants to be part of that, and it makes him happy to have *his* work, just like Jamie did. We got a bagel with cream cheese at Tim Horton's on the way back, and John took Liam with him to Jackman to pick up Jamie just as we arrived back home.

I made Jamie's lunch and brought it to the school, and John took Jamie then and went to the Second Cup for a rice krispie square before going to Hakobune. I kept Liam in the playground until 12:45 or so, and he played around with bikes and made me read The Big Scare (a Maggie and the Ferocious Beast book) a number of times. Other kids, like Sam and Parker, enjoyed the story too. We left to get lunch at the Big Carrot and ate in the Carrot Common (cheese, smoked chicken slices, a bun, juice) before dropping groceries off at home and heading out for a serious naptime walk. He fell asleep at 2, and woke up at 4:30. I am not sure if this is why he didn't fall asleep until 11:20 tonight, but wouldn't put it past him.

John played with the boys while I made dinner. I should add that Liam's first words upon waking up from his nap were "Papa? Mi?" (Dad? Jamie?) He is very very focused on them. I thought that Liam was going to blow a gasket when he had to share John with Jamie over who got to choose the book to be read. John alternated between Liam and Jamie, and Liam was not having it. Everyone liked dinner, and John went to run the Scrabble club while we stayed back to play video games, paint and do puzzles. Jamie played with Gary for half an hour, and everyone seemed happy by the end of the evening. I put the boys to bed at 10:00, and the boys were steadfast in their refusals (or inability) to sleep. John came home at 10:30 and gave them horsie rides while I showered to get their sillies out, but failed spectacularly. He took Jamie, and I took Liam, and we tried again. Jamie fell asleep quickly, but Liam still took until 11:20 to fall asleep. I do not know why.

2008-09-11 22:33 (Kristen) I was watching Liam with Jamie this evening, as he was saying "goodnight" to his older brother, and realized with a pang that Liam adores his brother without any reservations while Jamie accepts it with the casual shrug of older siblings everywhere. In the car on the way home from the grocery store tonight, they were singing out with that "aaaaah!" sound familiar to anyone who ridden a rollercoaster, and were somehow producing harmony. Liam wants everything that Jamie has now, and is constantly shoving Jamie out of the way while crying out, "Mine! Mine!" Whatever it is. Poor Jamie is putting up with it, but I'm being called upon more and more to mediate fights or arguments between the two of them. It had to happen sooner or later, and it could be so much worse.

Last night, Jamie was humming an Eurythmics song made famous again by Marilyn Manson, thanks to YouTube, and said to me, "What's a leed?" "Hunh?" I said. "You know," he said, "sweet dreams are made of leeds. What's a leed?" I told him that it was "THESE," which he laughed at and thought was just ridiculous. "No, really Mom," he responded, "what is a leed?" He then started to riff on the rhyme, and the best one was "Sweet dreams are made of zzzzs," although seeds, bees, and other items were equally fun.

I finally found my cache of underwear for two-year-olds, which takes the pressure off the six pairs we have right now (and, believe me, we can go throught those in a couple of bad days). We have about fifteen or twenty now, which seems about enough. I'm having to put all of the winter clothes in LIam's drawers into boxes and have started to haul out the size 2 clothing. He's now starting to wear clothes that I remember Jamie wearing, but he's fitting them rather well. Well enough that I wonder if he'll need size 3 clothes by the end of the winter. He's a big guy.

Jamie's friend Dylan and his sister Hannah (who is a year older than Dylan) came over today around 3:30, as their older sister, Chelsey, is coming over to learn Japanese with John. She's in high school, and has plans to go to Japan at some point. She's going to take lessons in exhange for babysitting, which John and I think is a Good Idea. Jamie, Hannah, and Dylan had a good time roaring about, and they'll be having regular playdates during Japanese lessons too, I think. That'll be good for everyone. John and I took the boys to T&T (a Chinese supermarket) in the evening, and they enjoyed looking at all the cool food, and eating in the car on the way home. The store is by the lake, and they thought the lake tankers being loaded were very cool. Jamie was in bed late again, and Liam was asleep by 10:15, before his brother.

2008-09-12 24:53 (Kristen) Jamie was plucked from bed by John a little before I got up, which was later than I should have. It was a mad rush to get lunches made, and John watched Liam while I got everything ready and ran out the door 15 minutes later than usual. John and Jamie apparently arrived at school exactly on time. Liam had a great time at daycare, and was happily playing with his brother when John and I arrived to pick him up at 1:00. Despite roaring around Goforth Hall for almost 45 minutes with Kai-kun, he failed to sleep until I was walking back to get Jamie at 3:00. Sigh.

We let Liam sleep for an hour, then let him wake up naturally at 4:00 (with a little help from Jamie, who was just being interesting) so that he wouldn't stay up too late tonight (moderate fail on that score; he was asleep at 11:00 or so, with much "no!" when told to go to sleep). John had come by to come home with us, and we promptly went to Browning for dinner. Jamie liked the chili when I put cheese and sour cream into it, making it less spicy. Liam only nibbled, but that's his pattern lately. He's fighting something, again, which doesn't help. We got home around 9:25, and it was far too late again when the boys went to sleep (10:40 or so). Jamie has his first full day of Nisshu Gakkuin tomorrow, and I'm somewhat worried that he'll be too tired to make it through without incident. Keep your fingers crossed.

2008-09-13 21:58 (Kristen) Part of the fun of everyone being back to school is that we get to sample an impressive smorgasbord of new viruses and bacteria, playtested by Jamie and Liam's helpful friends and daycare co-attendees. Liam's nose has been running all day and he's been intermittently warm, and Jamie has been a little warm too. Mind you, the humidity must be 120% today, thanks to Hurricane Ike (we no like Ike) shoving a huge mass of previously enjoyed and humid air our way from the southern States, and so it has felt much warmer outside than it actually is. Gack.

John took Jamie to Nisshu Gakkuin today, and reported back that he was very impressed with the improvement in Jamie's Japanese. He'd been starting to worry about the decay of Jamie's conversational ability, but two weeks back and Jamie's conversational Japanese has never been better. Jamie was very tired, but managed to complete successfully his first full day of school. The bell rings at 9 and the kids are out at 2:30. It sounded like he got music class today, which was good, as I think that it's his favourite part. John dropped Jamie off in the morning, came and took Liam to the market while I cleaned house a bit, and then dropped Liam off while he went to be lunchroom monitor at Nisshu Gakkuin. I don't know what he did until 2:30, but he then picked up Jamie and let him play for half an hour with his friends before coming back home. Liam hung out at home looking very tired, and after lunch, I took him out for a walk. He fell asleep after some effort, but woke up only half an hour to 45 minutes later, after spending the entire nap coughing in his sleep. We went to Book City, where he plagued me for "choo choo books" until we just came home to our own impressive collection. I made cashew chicken for dinner, which went over moderately well (Liam wasn't all that hungry), and we got the boys into the bath early. Liam was asleep by 9:15, with a dose of cold medicine, and Jamie is still up and winding down by watching Anpanman.

I should note that I fixed the run bike (despite Liam's hiding of our apparently unreplacable dumbbell wrench) so that the seat is low enough for Liam to ride it. We went for a "ride," which was hard on my back so we didn't stay out for long. He can walk with some effort on the bike (his feet are mostly but not fully on the ground when he sits), and made a good start. He was very pleased with himself, I should add. Jamie was a good half inch shorter than Liam at this age, as we got him the bike for his second birthday, and he could only touch the ground with the tips of his toes. Liam is also fitting his two-year-old clothes well, as I think I mentioned earlier. It's interesting to be able to make these comparisons.

2008-09-14 21:58 (John) Kristen let me sleep in this morning, which I needed after a week of getting up to send Jamie to school. The boys of course got up at 8:00, which they never do willingly on a school morning. Jamie still has a bit of a cough, and spent most of the day at home playing video games or watching TV but did get some homework done. Liam has a raging sinus infection and managed an hour's nap, which is an hour more than we were expecting.

We went to Sher-E-Punjab for dinner to celebrate my aunt Nobuko's birthday. She was very impressed at the birthday card that Jamie made for her, where he had without any direct assistance wished her a happy birthday in Japanese. Dinner itself was a little rough though, as the service was atypically slow, and we had trouble keeping starving children busy for 70 minutes with nothing to feed them. Mr. Singh came by to apologize that they had been overwhelmed by simultaneous takeout orders, but we might go elsewhere on a rainy Sunday night.

The best way to keep Jamie busy is to give him pencil and paper and ask him to draw: maps, mazes and robots. The best way to keep Liam busy is to let him explore his environment, naming things.

2008-09-15 23:39 (Kristen) I kept thinking that it was Tuesday today, largely I think because Jake came over for lunch and a playdate this afternoon when he usually does so on Tuesdays. I'm getting to be such a creature of habit. Liam had a quiet morning, and was sad that he didn't get to see Jamie before he left for school in the morning. I imagine that he was happier when John took him to pick up Jamie and Jake at lunch, and had a chance to run around the playground. Jamie and Jake had a ball playing with the Lego in the basement at Browning for about an hour and a half, while Liam slept for close to two hours on his walk with Ken. We went home so that Jake's grandfather could pick him up (much sadness all around), and then Jamie did some reading with me and some Nisshu Gakkuin work with John. This meant that when Jamie wanted to play with Ross later, John was able to tell Ross that Jamie had already done his homework, and was free to do so.

Tom, Ross, and Daniel were due at Tom's parents' place, so they didn't stay for dinner (although Ross did have some rice, salmon, and spinach before they left). Michelle went out too, so we were in the odd position of being at Browning with no Browningites (although Gary did come by, eat, and play Super Mario Galaxy with the boys). We got them into bed at a reasonable hour, after reading some Charlie and Lola, but Liam just wouldn't sleep. He finally fell asleep around 11:30, which was just a little late for me.

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

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