Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 65

2008-12-02 23:41 (Kristen) Thanks to our friend Justin, who dropped by last night to borrow a bed on his way back to Montreal, I managed to get Jamie to school and back without having to pack up Liam too. Yay! Justin and Liam get along well, and I found them watching Pythagoras Switch when I got back: the perfect show for both of them. I packed up the rest of Liam's lunch, and we all left to go to our respective destinations. Liam had a great time, once again, and runs around the daycare in his bare feet. The moment he can, the socks come off, every time. Jamie had a playdate at Jake's, so I packed Liam up for a walk, and he fell asleep as I was getting off the subway at Pape Station. I did some work at the library, then picked up Jamie around 3:30. We ended up staying a little longer because Liam had woken up and wanted to come in and play, but we ended up missing Chelsea, who had come to our house to babysit at 3:50. I felt quite badly about that. John's mom came over to play with the kids for a bit, and I made dinner (spaghetti and leftover meat sauce from Friday). Liam had woken up early, and he melted down around 8:30 as a result. I put him to sleep, and Jamie came along and was helpful by putting on his pajamas and going to bed beside us. Liam has woken up once, rather badly, and is sleeping lightly again. I suspect teeth.

2008-12-03 22:36 (Kristen) The boys spent most of the night in their own room last night. I don't know when Jamie showed up, but I didn't get up to find a crying Liam until 7:18. Wow. We went back to bed, and he got his morning nurse, but that was largely that. He did have some trouble sleeping yesterday evening, and I'm not sure if it's his tummy (still some diarrhea), his teeth, or if he was woken up by the sound of my mother and I arguing politics over Skype. Possibly all three. I eventually got him settled again, but was glad that he got through the rest of the night all right. Jamie was a little tired and looking to start a fight in the morning, but settled down by the time we got to school.

Another clue that Liam is fighting something (tooth, bug) is that he was right full of beans today, rapid cycling through things that I didn't want him to do and being rather shirty if I told him no. For some reason, I fight Liam head on about most things instead of redirecting him or doing any number of other tricks I'd worked out with Jamie. It is possibly because Liam is a much more direct and assertive personality than Jamie was; Jamie would listen. Liam doesn't. However, I could be fostering a continued cycle, so I should be careful about that, and realize that he will change at some point. Cute Liam story: at Spadina Station, there are three little totem poles. Liam knows that one of them has a wolf at top, and always pats his chest and says "Oooo!" when he sees them. He is Liam Wolf. Today Jamie was Jamie Wolf, and I was Mummy Wolf. He also said that he was Mummy's boy for the first time today, and continues to some after me with Monster Arms waving and making slurping sounds which means that I am delicious and he is going to eat me all up. Heh.

I took Jamie to Hakobune, and hung out with Liam in the area until it was time to take Jamie home. Liam slept for a little over an hour, which was short but convenient as he woke up when he heard Jamie come out of the daycare. We went home, did some reading, and met John's mom when she came over to drop off some takeout food from the Silk Road for us. John got hom around 7:00 or so, armed with the toys he'd bought at the Hasbro Family Shop at the Hasbro game factory in Springfield, Massachusetts. The star present (the only one for now; the others are in reserve) was the purple Mace Windoo lightsabre that lights up (3 AAs), makes noise, and has a spring release action, causing your plastic lightsabre to leap out of the hilt as fast as ... yeah. It's cool. Liam squeed* over it, claiming it first because it was a LIGHT SABRE and PURPLE!! I have video of Liam attacking and killing John with it. Priceless. It is technically for Jamie, but I see Liam having many happy hours with that thing when Jamie isn't around. The boys were completely spun with happiness to have yummy food, a cool new toy, and their father home, not necessarily in that order. Eventually they calmed down enough to have a bath with their dad and to get into bed. Despite his lack of sleep today, Liam still took a little while to fall asleep. I am monitoring the situation.

2008-12-04 20:36 (Kristen) Today we took Liam with us to the funeral of our Scrabble friend Craig's nephew, Werner. What made it even more sad than one would expect a sad event to be was that Werner was only 3 months old; he'd been born with a heart defect, and died before he was old enough or strong enough to operate. Liam was very excited by the new surroundings, and by long hallways, so when he took off out of the room where the service was to take place, I kept him out. His little chirpy voice, beloved to us, might have been distracting to others, I tought, but John told me that there were other kids running in and out of the room at the time. I can't help but think that they would have been quieter than our dear Liam. He ended up playing in a large meeting room (complete with television and Disney tapes) with a little girl about six months older than him named Olivia. They parallel played until I got them both involved in a game in which we made the perfect cup of tea (thank you, Backyardigans). That cut down the number of breaks for freedom considerably. After the service, we drove to the cemetery to see Werner's interment. Liam didn't like the snow that was gently falling on us, and kept sweeping snow off my hair and black coat with equal gentleness. He was curious about the little ornaments and decorations on the graves nearby, which is how I found out that in some cemeteries they inter all the babies in one area. How inutterably sad it was.

Liam fell asleep in the car on the way back to the funeral home for the reception and lunch, so John and I went in separately. It meant, unfortunately, that Liam didn't have lunch himself, and that was not such a good thing when he woke up two hours or so later. We had made it back home and were picking up Jamie when he woke up (Jamie had a very successful playdate at Parker's), but he was very short tempered for the rest of the day. Chelsea came over to look after him while John and I went to our post-report card meeting with Jamie's teacher (more in a moment), and Liam screamed the entire twenty-five minutes we were gone. Sigh. I managed to shovel more food into him, which helped a bit, but an early bedtime will help more.

The bright spot in an otherwise emotionally draining day was our meeting with Jamie's teacher. She showed us his work, which surprised us in a few ways. First, he was praised by his teacher for trying to spell out his ideas without necessarily knowing the words, which means that he's getting over his fear of failure: he's not afraid to try. Wow. He contributes to class, cleans up, and does everything that he is told to do. He's tired by the end of the day, but he's also younger than most of the kids in his class, so she thought that he was doing very very well for a child his age. He also has been experimenting with colour in his drawings, which has surprised and delighted both me and John. We think that Becky had a hand in helping him to think about colour in his artwork. Tonight, he drew a house and some people, used lovely colour, and even told me a story about all the people in the picture. Wow again. All in all, we've very happy with Jamie and all the good work he's doing. John gave Jamie a Transformer that he bought in Springfield as a "well done" gift, and I think that jamie was very pleasantly surprised.

2008-12-05 26:31 (Kristen) Today was a PD day, so Jamie didn't have to wake up for school. Even Liam slept in until 8:30. However, John had a hair appointment for today, and so he took Jamie with him (and a DS, to keep him busy). I took Liam to Hakobune for his usual morning, and for his afternoon walk in the Annex. There was much fighting over the blanket ("No!") and mittens ("No!") and even over the hat, but I finally pulled rank and said that he had to have the plastic shield over him because it was just too cold and windy. Strangely, he was asleep less than ten minutes afterwards. Hmm... We picked up a tired Jamie at Hakobune, then came home to decompress before going to Browning for the evening. Liam is starting to love My Neighbour Totoro, which is lovely, and so we watched a bit of that in between doing "work" and other things. We had dinner, then came back home in a rush because it was the boys' bedtime. Straight to bed, no bath, and Jamie was alseep by 10:00 (in bed at 9:55). Liam, however, took much longer to get to sleep, and I didn't wake up myself until 1:15. Boo.

2008-12-06 35:03 (Kristen) We all woke up relatively early, and got ready to go to our respective destinations. Jamie and John went to Nisshu Gakkuin, where we found out that we'd forgotten that it was pizza day. We'll save Jamie's lunch for some other time. John took Liam to the market and Loblaws, and he was happy to run around for almost the whole time. He melted down when it was time to go home, however, likely because he hadn't eaten enough. That was unusual in and of itself, as he usually eats his way through the market. He melted down again when it was time to go for his walk, but he fell asleep almost instantly when we hit the road. He slept until 4:15, when I woke him up, which may explain why he fell asleep after 11:00 again tonight. John and Jamie were home when we arrived, and we had a pleasant evening at home.

2008-12-07 20:43 (Kristen) Liam fell asleep after 11 PM last night, *again*, and so I fell asleep while playing dead so that he'd get the idea. I woke up in my clothes again, which was amusing when I was in my 20s and sleeping over after parties. Not so much fun now. It was a little before 8, and Liam was waking up because he wanted to pee but settled for a nurse instead. Jamie got up around the same time, and we three puttered around for most of the morning. Liam was showing signs of fatigue by noon, so I fed the boys and got Liam out a little after one. He slept for two and a half hours, and would have slept for more if I hadn't made him get up when I got home at 3:30. I was hoping that he'd sleep earlier tonight, as my work productivity has gone down the tubes with this falling asleep with Liam routine. Both boys played, and did a little of this and that, while I made dinner, and ate relatively well. The evening was more of the same. As it was frigid outside, with a high of -5 or so, and a nasty windchill, no one other than me and Liam ventured outside. Consequently, the boys were both tired and a little wound up by the time bathtime came around. I have no idea how well they'll sleep tonight, but I know that Jamie in particular needed a quiet day doing nothing after a very busy week. I don't think that it'll take very long to fall asleep. Oh: Gary told me that he watched WALL-E withJamie yesterday, and that Jamie was full of questions. Heh. Yeah.

2008-12-08 23:49 (Kristen) John called the daycare to say that Liam wouldn't be in tomorrow, and so they suggested that he come in today. He was delighted to do so, and had a great time. When he came out, he was holding a little angel tree ornament that he'd made himself (and done a very good job on). He was about ready to burst, he was so proud of himself. He then, as he showed it to me, made it clear that it was me. Mother slain by cute, daycare worker made collateral damage. Really.

Liam fell asleep around 2:30, and I let him slep until 4:20 or so. We met Jamie and John at Dr Kennedy's office to confirm that Jamie has a small wart on one of his toes. We'll be using a home kit to take it off. John and Jamie went home and did five pages of homework while Liam (asleep) and I did some errands. We did the usual puttering around when we got home, and then went to Browning for dinner. Our friends Peter, Leslie, and Simon were there, and Liam and Simon got along very well (Simon is about nine months older than Liam). They played trains together, and Liam gave Simon a big hug at one point after a small train ownership dispute was resolved. Wow. More amazing cute. Liam is starting to notice kids who are his age more and more, and I'm enjoying his social flowering immensely. Jamie played MarioKart with Ross and Daniel, and spent a good deal of time smoking both older boys. His reflexes are phenomenal. Home to bed, and Liam was asleep by 10:30. Jamie was asleep much earlier, as he'd been complaining of fatigue all day.

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

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