Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 61

2008-11-04 23:44 (Kristen) Today was met with a great deal of joy by both boys as they were finally allowed back into their usual routines, with their usual friends. As John wrote, Jamie was delighted to be with his friends again, and they missed him too. Charlie's mom was telling me that the boys were very concerned about Jamie, and Charlie in particular worried that Jamie wasn't going to be well in time for Hallowe'en. He told his mom, in fact, that if Jamie couldn't trick or treat, that he (Charlie) would give Jamie some of his own candy. Wow. What a great friend. When I met up with Jamie and John at the school, Charlie's mom remarked that Jamie was looking much better, and was still running around on a great big high from being with his friends again. And he was.

Liam was very happy about having a walk over to Browning for lunch, and when he saw Tami come out onto the front porch, looking for us, ran up to her and gave her a big hug. Tami was very happy about that. After picking at lunch in his usual fashion of late (he did eat if he didn't have to sit at the table, the tiny rat), he sat at the table while we talked about the fact that Liam didn't like chocolate. I forget exactly how it came about, but Michelle offered Liam some Rockets, which he *loves*. He patted his chest emphatically to indicate that he, Liam, was to have the Rockets. When she gave them to him, Tami (who was sitting beside Liam) asked if she could have some too. Liam gave her a Look, and said "no." He then drew the Rockets away from her, just in case she was going to press the point. This was so much like Michelle's younger son, Ross, at the same age that we all started to laugh. After he'd gobbled about half, Liam let Tami help him to count how many were left. Then he picked up the rest in his little fist, and pointed at Tami accusingly. Tami protested that she didn't try to take a Rocket. More accusation. Tami protested that she didn't *have* any Rockets. It took a minute or more for the penny to drop that Liam was messing with Tami by accusing her of taking Rockets that he was deliberately hiding. Once we all started to laugh and exclaim, Liam called out, in a "Lassie come home" tone, "Rooockettt!" and touched his index finger to his chin, saying "Hmmm...hmmm..." like he was thinking about where those darn Rockets could be. It was very very funny. He's going to be dangerous, that one.

Liam slept for two and a half hours, and woke up not long before I arrived at the schoolground to spell off John and watch the boys play for a bit. We took a leisurely walk home, meeting up with our friend Lisa Kessler on the way, who kindly shared her pretzels with two small locusts. We went to Browning for dinner, where Jamie was ecstatic to play with Gary for the first time in a week and a half, and where Liam had a Tom all to himself. When it was time to go, Michelle intimated that it was time to go to bed for Liam. Liam then grabbed a comforter and climbed onto the couch, declaring "nene" and lying down with the comforter over himself, ready to "sleep." He's got quite the sense of humour now! John got the boys into the bath, and says that Jamie fell asleep easily while Liam took more convincing. It was a great day, with both boys so clearly and unreservedly happy to be outside, interacting with their friends, and back to their old routines. It was a wonderful day to be with them.

2008-11-04 22:14 (Kristen) I forgot to say that Jamie saw a puppet show yesterday at school, and spent a great deal of time talking about it, detailing plot, characters, and other details. He wanted to make his own puppets afterwards, which was great! We haven't done it yet, but I'm collecting craft supplies. Today was more of our return to routine. John took Liam into Hakobune, and when he picked him up, took him to Loblaws before going home. I went with Jamie to skating, where he did very well. I had a vision of myself in six years, cooling my butt on an arena bench as Jamie is at a 6 am hockey practice, but shook my head quickly. We went back to Jake's house for the usual lunch and play, followed by a playdate at our house, and topped off by a romp through the lovely fall day to the playground at Jackman. I brought the boys home after a good play, and we had a quiet dinner, followed by a quiet evening at home. It was a good day, over all.

2008-11-05 24:00 (John) Wednesdays are often a blur for me, as trying to compress my usual day into the period before I have to leave for the Scrabble Club can be difficult. I know Liam was up early, as was Jamie. Jamie spent five or ten minutes, maybe longer, lying on top of me as I tried to sleep until the alarm went off, but his heart didn't seem to be in it for a change. I got Jamie to school on time, came home, did yardwork and deskwork for the rest of the morning while Kristen kept Liam busy downstairs. Jamie accidentally got Jake's elbow in his nose during a game of Papa the Monster, which provided a convenient excuse to adjourn, but used up quite a bit of Kleenex (thankfully no blood, just tears). While Jamie was at Hakobune, I worked on reformatting my thesis to look like a 20th century manuscript (double-spaced, I'm tempted to set it in Courier), and his release was a little late as rehearsals have started for the Christmas pageant. Jamie was very tired on the way home (I suspect he's fighting some virus), but when I explained how busy I was getting ready to go out, he did his Nisshu Gakuin homework with me right away and with no complaining (I'll complain for him: 25 pages in one week?!). Over the course of the day, I sneaked a few quality minutes in with Liam, helping him get stuff down from the high shelves where Kristen keeps his stuff for some reason, like his Hallowe'en candy, or toys with small pieces, or the Backyardigans DVDs, etc. He was still awake when I came home, so he pretended to want to sleep with me in each of the beds. Ha, ha, what a joke. When he said he was done sleeping for the night and it was time to go watch TV, Kristen stepped in, tears ensued, and I hope soon sleep.

2008-11-06 24:42 (Kristen) Jamie and Liam were up early again, but I know that Liam is getting up early in part because I keep forgetting to close the blinds. It's not a bad thing, because we'd been sleeping in far too late for a while, but it means that if he's not on the road for his nap by 12:45, he melts down something fierce. Today, John offered to have the posse over for a Thursday playdate, which was great, except that Liam melted down early and threw everything into a tizzy until John took him out for a walk at 1:15. Ken Sagara met up with them, and took over so that John could come back and have a nap (he'd stayed up way too late the night before, what with it being Scrabble night). Jamie and the posse had a good time doing the usual, and I went to collect Liam at 2:30, when he was still sleeping. He woke up when I left the Second Cup, around 3:15, which was great, and so he got a little running around time in at the school where John had taken the posse to run off some energy. Jamie raced around on his bike at a speed I've never seen before--he really loves to ride his bike. He's going to miss it over the winter. We came home with Dylan, Jamie's old classmate from last year who is now in Grade 1, as John is tutoring Chelsea, Dylan's older sister, in Japanese. Jamie and Dylan had fun playing Lego Indiana Jones, while Liam killed a few more brain cells watching Backyardigans. To be fair, both boys weren't feeling all that perky, and John and I are a little nervous because a nasty stomach flu (Norwalk) is making its evil way around the school. It may be starting to go around at Browning too, and we may be eating at home tomorrow night as a result. Stay tuned. John brought back dinner from T&T again, and it was a quiet evening for all of us. The boys were acting tired, so we put them to bed early but they did not go to sleep early. Liam, in particular, was not asleep until 10:20. Jamie went through a period when he was about the same age where he took *forever* to fall asleep--sometimes up to two hours. I fear that Liam is about to go through a similar phase, and I'm not looking forward to it At All.

2008-11-07 23:22 (Kristen) The boys have been getting up earlier, now that we're on standard time. Jamie was tired when he got up, and was spoiling for a fight over something. He told me that he didn't like it when John and I weren't in the same room as him (i.e., why were we not in the bedroom with him?) and he laughed and laughed when I told him that he was just like a cat that I grew up with. At least he was willing to be teased out of it. I took Liam to Hakobune, which he enjoyed with his usual enthusiasm, and I met Jamie and John with some pizza when they arrived at Hakobune at noon. Liam was in a good mood but had a good deal of trouble falling asleep, only doing so at 2:30. I let him sleep until 4, when we picked up Jamie. It seemed to be enough.

I had a manuscript to pick up near Riverdale Farm, so the boys went to see what they could at the farm while I did so. Jamie was disappointed that the goats were off at the Royal Winter Fair, but was happy that the horses were out. Liam let me know that there was a "mama neigh," a "baby neigh," and a "papa neigh." He is working very hard on his enunciation, and it's paying off. We went home for dinner, as there is some sort of evil stomach flu at Browning and we'd like to avoid it. Ross came over to play with Jamie for a bit, which was fun, and we had a generally calm evening at home. Both boys were very tired, but took a while to fall asleep, Liam in particular.

2008-11-08 25:14 (Kristen) John took Jamie to Japanese school this morning, and came back to get Liam for a trip to the market before going back to Nisshu Gakkuin to serve as lunchroom monitor. I stayed home and cleaned in preparation for Jamie's party tomorrow. Let us now state, for the record, that this house has too much stuff in it, and that our usual high standards of neatness will not be met this time around. Sigh. Liam actually ate some lunch and slept for a bit over two hours. Jamie was very tired when he got home, and Liam only wanted to watch television. He melts down over tiny things at the drop of a hat, does our Liam, and he's got to be teething again. He's definitely exhibiting that sort of behaviour. At least, I hope that it's because of teething...

Not much else to report about a relatively quiet day. Jamie and John continue to play Super Mario Galaxy with great success, and Liam still enjoys feeding me chocolates (Smarties, mostly). He melted down when I said that I'd had too much chocolate. Both boys asked to be read to before bed tonight, which was really nice. That was a good way to end the day.

2008-11-09 22:55 (Kristen) The kids were up a little before 9, and I heard Jamie's excited voice trying to get an exhausted John out of bed earlier than that. Jamie definitely knew what was going on today: his birthday party with his friends. I spent the morning cleaning, so that the kids could trash a clean house, and the first guests arrived at the crack of 12. We fed the five kids who came (Sam, Parker, Makaiya, Charlie, and Dylan) for lunch, and then went out to the bus stop to take the TTC down to the theatre for the 1:30 showing of Madagascar 2. The bus driver noted the posse with amusement, and said "birthday party?" Yep. The general response to our group was "brave," and directed at me and John. "Brave" is often code for "freaking nuts!" in my parental experience... WE met up with Peter, Leslie, and Simon, who agreed to join our party at the last minute when we had some extra tickets, and we sat down to watch the movie. Liam didn't fall asleep, but did agree to stay within the theatre. He made friends with another child of approximately the same age, and they spent the last 1/3 of the movie climbing up and down the long, steep stairs of the theatre. John watched the other kids, and they were reasonably well behaved: they wriggled, and climbed, but were mostly quiet. There was one memorable popcorn disaster, but we got off pretty easily. We went home as we went out, on the TTC, and once again owned the back of the streetcar. Or, possibly, were relegated to the back of the streetcar, where we did less damage. Hard to tell. We got home around 4, ate a Madagascar-themed cake that John managed to find at a Dairy Queen 25 minutes away, were joined by Jake (who is afraid of movies), and opened presents. Jamie did very well, getting two Transformers (which made him very happy, lots of Lego, and an odd little toy called a Bakugan. There is, of course, a television show to go with it, in the long tradition of Japanese-style toy tie-ins, but his friends have them too, so it's going to be fun for Jamie to play. They've got magnets in them, which Jamie loves, which also makes it cool. The kids were picked up at 5 or so, and we spent a very quiet evening afterwards until we got the kids to bed early. Jamie was very happy with his day, and told me that he loved everything about what happened today. That's pretty much the response we were hoping for, and so John and I are happy too.

2008-11-10 24:00 (John) Jamie and Liam were tired but malleable for most of the day, partly due to ongoing Birthday Week excitement and partly due to whatever (so far mild, touch wood) seasonal virus is currently passing through the family. We're hoping it's not the norovirus that the school sent out warnings about, though Kristen has some evidence to the contrary.

Kristen looked after Liam in the morning while I worked. Liam has a large repertoire of coping skills to compensate for his speech development, which is a little on the slow side but accelerating by leaps and bounds. He came and found me in the bathroom and said "Boo", which I took to mean the rhyming word (with unvoiced initial consonant) for my current activity. He rolled his eyes and pointed at the bath mat, which was *blue* and patiently waited for the cogs to finish whirring in my brain. "You want... something... blue... like maybe... the blue birthday balloon from yesterday?" Bingo. This evening, he made me locate the one Backyardigans DVD whose case has gone missing by making me fetch the big media binder, pointing at the place where the DVD was supposed to be, touching his finger to his chin and tilting his head in mock quizzical bemusement (which he does very well).

I took Jamie and Charlie (whose family *does* have the norovirus) to soccer class while Kristen took Liam to Browning for lunch. Jamie and I then spent a quiet afternoon together alternately working and playing. We got eight pages of homework done, and Jamie made a birthday card for Tai-Tai (front illustration: poppies growing on a Mexican beach; inside: happy birthday message copied out including appropriate use of kanji).

We then drove down to MEC with Tai-Tai to buy a new winter coat for Jamie, a new knapsack for him, and some sandals for me. The boys loved the store, and it brought back happy childhood memories of running through and hiding in department store aisles of outerwear. We met Ho-Ho, Nobuko and Tomoko at Ema-Tei for Tai-Tai's birthday dinner and ate too much. Jamie impressed everyone by writing the kanji for "nezumi" (mouse) from memory. I'd be slightly happier if he could apply the same effort to learning the Grade 1 kanji set, but I guess at this point the fact that he's learning any at all is commendable. The boys got to bed a little late, but not too much; I hope Kristen is feeling better in the morning.

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

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