Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 66

2008-12-09 12:35 (John) Here's a quick update on Liam's dental surgery. We've had to postpone it because he was dehydrated (nil by mouth for eight hours before surgery, go figure) and the anaesthesiologist was unable to find a vein after spending an hour turning Liam's feet into pincushions. The outlook for his extra tooth is still uncertain, and he has decay on eight other teeth (all the front teeth near the gum line, and the chewing surfaces of two molars), so he'll have a lot of work done at his next appointment, as well as having his teeth sealed. The only bright spot today is that my own dental emergency turned out to be minor, just trapped food in a crater-shaped cavity on a molar.

2008-12-09 15:00 (John) Here's another quick update. Because they couldn't get an IV into Liam, they couldn't get fluids, glucose or Gravol into him, so when he woke up he was dehydrated, hypoglycaemic and very nauseous. He alternated vomiting and drinking water of flat ginger ale, and finally fell asleep on Kristen just when I had left the clinic to buy some Gravol. We decided that I would go home, get the car, pick up Jamie from Sam's house and come back and pick up Liam and Kristen, and as I write this I'm waiting for the bus to leave the subway station to take me home. And my dentist called and said I have a second cavity that he just noticed reviewing my X-rays.

2008-12-09 24:54 (Kristen) We got Liam home without giving him the Gravol and without him vomiting again (four times was, apparently, enough). I get very sick when I have a general too, so I knew how he felt. He fell asleep on the couch for an hour after drinking a box of juice, and was more his old self when he woke up around 6. We went to John's parents' house for the traditional Indian takeaway departure meal, and then came home. Liam was still a danger to himself as the evening unfolded, as his balance and recovery time still sucked. He did eat a good deal of dinner, however, as did Jamie. Jamie and Tai Tai spent most of the meal discussing kanji, and Jamie surprised me at how well he could copy what John's mother wrote. Jamie really likes kanji - it appeals to the part of him that likes to create writing systems - so it was an easy way for them to bond. The fun began when we got home, as we've been telling Liam all day that he isn't going to nurse anymore: the milk is gone, he's a big boy now and big boys like his brother don't nurse, that it hurts his teeth to nurse himself to sleep. We even said "bye nurse," but he was dubious. At bedtime, he reacted badly to the change in routine, so I took him for a walk in the dark and rain until he fell asleep, sometime around 11:00. He's still asleep which I hope means that he is down for the night. I expect him to wake up at 7:15 demanding to nurse, which will require me to be awake at an early hour and to take him downstairs immediately for a drink and food. I have a bottle of water by the bed, just in case, but I'm not counting on him accepting it as a substitute. The nurse at the dental clinic was amazed at Liam's levels of feistiness, as he struggled against the sedative and still needed people to hold him down for the gas to be administered (they will give him a higher dose next time, despite the dosage this time being calibrated to his weight and that it normally should work). This is who I get to deal with over the weaning policy. We're in for a bumpy ride.

2008-12-10 22:00 (John) I took Liam to the Scrabble club tonight to try to run him around enough that he might fall asleep on the way home in the car or soon thereafter. The fact that I am writing this in bed with Liam beside me noisily watching Totoro is evidence enough of my abject failure. On the bright side, Liam had a fabulous time at the club, helping out handing out pairings, buying chips from the vending machine, drawing on the back of all my scrap paper, watching Juppon Anime on my laptop, trying to figure out why some words give a Red Stop signal on the word judge computer and others a Green Go, trying to get the drinking fountain to work and repeatedly climbing up and down the toy castle. Oh well, at least he's stopped screaming.

(Kristen) As you can tell, the weaning of Liam limps along. He's so *stubborn*. I told him that the milk is gone, and in another day or two it really will be. Then that really will be that. He woke up at 7:15, just as I predicted, and was not all that happy until I took him downstairs to do this and that. He was hungry, and ate a good breakfast, which didn't surprise me. He's not full of milk anymore, so he has room for regular food. John took Liam with him and Jamie to school and for an errand or two, and Liam was glowing when he got back. He was pretty tired by the time noon rolled around, so he had lunch and then was asleep by a little after 1:00. He slept until 4 on the dot, when we got home after some Christmas shopping. Jamie was off at a birthday party for a classmate (Olivia), and by all accounts had a marvellous time. John took Liam with him to the club before Jamie got home, so Jamie and I had a lovely mom-and-son night. We played MarioKart, ate a late dinner (he'd only eaten one slice of pizza) and then read the first chapter of Charlotte's WEb before turning out the lights. He had some trouble falling asleep with Liam's screaming, but managed well enough when they were in different rooms. Liam is still awake, and I have to decide what to do next with him.

2008-12-11 21:20 (Kristen) Liam fell asleep at 2, and proceeded to wake up every half hour to hour screaming "Nurse nurse nene". He was up at 8, and that was that. Needless to say, everyone but Jamie (who slept through it all) was tired. Liam was pretty crabby until I took him to the Big Carrot with me at 11, and I don't think that it took him more than three minutes to fall asleep. He stayed that way for two hours, even sleeping through Jamie and four of his friends arguing over what video game to play next less than five feet away from him. We had the posse over, and everyone was pretty tired and crabby until they had lunch and had a chance for their glycemic levels to rise. They spent the afternoon doing what they always do. After 3:30, they all left for home, and we had a chance to have some quiet time before our friend Stewart and his son Jasper arrived. Jasper is just about to turn 3, and was very shy for the first hour or so. Then he relaxed enough to play a little ball with me, and eat dinner. Jamie and Liam will enjoy having him around for the next five days. Liam is exhausted, punchy, and very clumsy. We bought him a pacifier today, using the parental "faint hope" clause, and maybe it'll work tonight. John and Jamie are having one last round of MarioKart before bed, and seem to be enjoying themselves.

2008-12-11 23:32 (Kristen) I bought a book for Liam for his birthday called Dinosaur vs Bedtime, a little dinosaur is versus everything: e.g., Dinosaur vs lunch, Dinosaur wins! But he can't win against bedtime. Tonight it was Liam versus Bedtime, Bedtime Wins! It certainly helped that he was beyond exhausted: he'd not napped after his 1:00 wakeup, and so it must have felt like one am again. Curiously, I didn't tell him that he had to sleep, only that he had to be quiet so that other people could sleep. He wasn't all that reasonable, but at least he wasn't having that fight. In the end, he fell asleep around 11, in my arms, as I rocked him to sleep in the bathroom. Yeah, the bathroom, after he got rid of the pee that was keeping him awake. I am guessing that the fact that he wasn't in a bedroom, where he was supposed to sleep, was enough to allow him to give over to the sleep, or at least let it pounce on him from behind. No one can say that my son isn't perverse, stubborn, or a real fighter. I rocked him to sleep on my shoulder, he stirred when he wanted to shift more onto his back from an upright position, and then was out. I maanged to wait long enough for him to be completely asleep so that I could even put him down into bed without him stirring. I won the lottery, I am mighty, roar roar roar. Now I need some sleep.

2008-12-12 48:04 (Kristen) My apologies for the lateness of this post; I fell asleep with Liam again. I've been doing that a lot lately.

Liam's been picking up a lot of new words lately, in English and Japanese. Today, his new word was "bunai!", which is Japanese for dangerous (Abunai). He was pointing at the steep stairs at Knox Church when he said it, which was gratifying, as it means that he knows that he can get quite hurt goofing around on them. We were at the church because it was the day of the Hakobune Christmas concert, and Jamie, as one of the big boys, was one of the Three Wise Men. I should say that he was one of the Three Wise Guys, as he hammed it up, looking all over exaggeratedly through his "telescope" for the star of Bethlehem, and making faces and miming the action of singing to the Hallelujah Chorus. as he stood behind the baby Jesus at the end. However, he was very excited, and very happy, to be part of the play. Liam had, as we'd known, refused to participate in the pageant. He stayed with me for almost the whole time, running around and generally being full of manic energy. However, at one point, the littler children put on little headbands with Totoros on them, and Liam was called over. Liam ran over, put on his headband (which he'd coloured himself, they later told us), went front and centre, and did the dance with all the other kids to the theme song to "My Neighbour Totoro." John and I couldn't believe it: we held hands and had tears in our eyes as we watched Liam take off and be a little star. Then it was over: he took the headband off, and that was the end of his participation in the pageant. We were told later that he always did participated in just this one thing, and John and I laughed as a result as we know now exactly how much he loves that movie. Nobuko and Tomoko kindly came to the pageant too, which was great of them, and saw it all. The pageant was followed by an elaborate snack time, when we discovered that Jamie has the same weakness for Peak Freans with the red jelly centre as I do.

Liam fell asleep in his stroller inside the church (he was *that* tired) and so Jamie, John, and I shared some pizza at Cora's before coming home. Stewart and Jasper were there, having spent a nice day together, and I took Jamie and Liam to play with Jasper and Stewart at the Jackman playground around 4:50. It was cold and got dark quickly, so we picked up a few groceries at the Big Carrot and came home. Ross was sick, so we picked up some garlic bread and spaghetti sauce from Browning, and a Daniel as well, then played some D&D. I was dreading bedtime, but John and Liam had been talking in the bath about how he was going to bed, but not nursing. He seems to have resigned himself, because he didn't fuss or fight, but flopped around a good deal as he tried to find the right position. Then he was asleep. And that was that. I was amazed, and delighted, and shocked.

2008-12-13 24:26 (Kristen) Liam slept through the night, and didn't wake up until after 8:15. Oh My God! He was in a good mood, and I was delighted. I helped John and Jamie get out the door for Nisshu Gakkuin, which was a rougher process than usual for reasons that were beyond control. As a result, I had Liam for the morning, and when John dropped Stewart and Jasper off after a morning at the market, I took Liam out to run errands. Stewart and Jasper came too, and we enjoyed a nice lunch at Wimpy's before we got our serious errands under way. Liam split my hamburger with me, and we were supposed to share a strawberry milkshake but Liam ended up hogging his "pink milk" (a la the Charlie and Lola books). I got to drink it when he wasn't looking. Liam didn't end up falling asleep until after 3, but I woke him up at 4:30 anyway.

Tonight was Jake's parents' annual Christmas bash, and the kids each had a fabulous time. They ate all the yummy finger food that Jake's mom Michelle had made, roared through the house playing Wii games, drawing and cutting, and going through all of Jake and Charlie's toys. A number of times I found Liam by himself, just quietly playing. Jamie ran himself into a stupor, and was almost boneless with fatigue when we left the party a little after 9. Liam was also happy and well run, but he took a good deal longer to fall asleep. He's asking once and a while to nurse, but takes it well when I say no. He is, however, finding it very hard to fall asleep in the same room as Jamie, and so we're back to sleeping with Liam in one room and Jamie in another. I hope that, as Liam gets more used to falling asleep without nursing, that we can switch back. Liam would love to be asleep in the blue room, but he just can't do it yet.

2008-12-14 20:30 (John) Liam has rekindled Jamie's interest in a minor Japanese animation classic, "Juppon Anime", where the eponymous ten sticks morph to tell a story, and as I write this, Jamie is patiently opening each video in turn at Liam's direction.

Actually, in the time it's taken me to write that, Kristen has taken Liam off to try to get him to sleep, and Jamie has settled into my lap to watch a Japanese Pokemon movie. They were both pretty tired, as we spent the afternoon with Stewart and Jasper, and Charlie White, at the Science Centre. It was the first time that I had been to the exhibits there in more than twenty years, but some of my favourites were still there. Better, Jamie and Charlie knew where all their favourites were, so I just had to run along to try to keep up with them.

(Kristen) Liam took forever to fall asleep tonight, despite the fact that he'd not napped today. He tossed, turned, switched bedrooms three times, had a pee, and finally fell asleep after I forced him to take some painkiller (despite his protests that I was killing him by doing so). I think that his teeth are really starting to hurt him, unfortunately, as he kept complaining that his head hurt.

2008-12-15 46:30 (John) We've both been more overloaded with work than usual, so this blog entry is being posted a day late, and the photos will have to go up tomorrow. After dropping Jamie off at school, I spent the morning running errands in the neighbourhood while Liam stayed home to play with Kristen, Stewart and Jasper. After meeting Jamie briefly at school and sending him off with to Charlie's for a playdate, I took Liam to Loblaws for lunch and shopping. Liam had his usual California roll while supervising my shopping and making sure I bought yoghurt. On the way to and from the store, he was very chatty, and has decided that only Liam may refer to colours using the Japanese words, not me. "My ao! My aka!" Jamie came home from Charlie's a little wound up, partly because he hadn't peed in four hours, but no serious harm was done. We worked together at unlocking more Mario Kart Wii characters, did some Japanese homework, then I went to Browning to grill while Kristen manned the stove at home, as Browning has been under quarantine for a few days because Ross has had flulike symptoms.

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

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