Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 70

2009-01-06 12:40 (John) We're at Dr. Dann's again right now, waiting for the results of Jamie's dental surgery. Michelle, Tami and Ken are looking after Liam for us for the day; he barely looked back when Kristen dropped him off. Jamie took the sedative much better than Liam did: it accentuated his goofy, happy side and after 10-15 minutes he looked totally stoned. Each time Liam has been sedated, it has brought out his inner wrath, which goes poorly with lack of muscle control.

2009-01-06 23:15 (John) Jamie's dental operations went without incident. He has three steel crowns, and we'll be tightening our belts for the rest of the year. I dropped Jamie and Kristen off at home, then went to pick up Liam at Browning, wondering if he would leap into my arms with joy, or as it turned out, say "Hi Papa" and then arch backward and scream when I told him it was time to go home. When we finally did make it home, with help from Daniel, he was in fact happy to see Kristen, and spent the evening glued to her, at least until Gary and Ayami finished dinner and came upstairs. We are very fortunate that we have so many friends whose company our sons prefer to our own. At least, it helps if I keep telling myself that. :)

2009-01-07 42:43 (Kristen) We sent Jamie to school, and let him go to Sam's for a playdate, but he really wasn't himself again today. We put him to bed early, which will hopefully do him some good. Liam fell asleep later than usual for his nap, and fell asleep much later than usual at bedtime. We had some Scrabble players over for the usual Wednesday Scrabble night because the community centre where they normally meet is closed until next week. Liam found that too exciting, and didn't agreee to fall asleep until they were all gone. Cute Liam moment: I have been teaching him that a monkey says "Ooo oo, aa aa." Variant: Oook. Eeek. He is good at it. He also did it in his sleep last night, which was hilarious and adorable.

2009-01-08 48:18 (Kristen) I'm posting this entry later than usual as Liam didn't fall asleep until 1:15 am. Yes: That's right. 1:15. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong. He didn't get a lot of exercise, but he ate dinner. He did have to get up to go the bathroom at one point. I did get John to lie down with him for about an hour after I lost patience after an hour and a half of trying to get him to sleep, but then it was back to lying down with a wild, squirming, "I'll sleep when I'm DEAD!" Liam. It was not a good night. He finally passed out when (I suspect) he blinked for a second longer than he should have. I'm working frantically on a few deadlines, so every minute he didn't sleep pushed my own bedtime back an equal minute. Arrrghh.

I don't recall when he was up in the morning, but Jamie was off to school with no difficulty. Liam played quietly, and played with Jamie and his friends when they got back from school at lunch. John took Liam out for a walk while Jamie and his friends negotiated this, that, and the other, and played Wii and "good guys/bad guys" with light sabres and other swords. They're starting to get tired of the "all Wii all the time" routine, and it was nice to see them doing something else. Jamie did his homework with John, and drew an amazing cow. Two, actually: he copied a picture on a postcard of a cartoon cow, but his eye and use of colour took me completely by surprise as he's not done something like that before to my knowledge. He always prefers to draw something from his head. We scanned them, and posted them to Facebook, like the crazy proud parents we are. John went to T&T and brought back dinner, and it was a quiet enough evening until we tried to put Liam to bed. Augh.

2009-01-09 24:27 (Kristen) Liam slept until 9:30, when John woke him up to get ready for Hakobune. It was his first day back since before Christmas, and I was slightly concerned given his lack of sleep, but I shouldn't have been. I fed him breakfast on the subway, as usual, and then he went into the daycare withouth a second glance. He only said "Bye!" because Sensei reminded him, I swear. He was so happy to be back. When John, Jamie, and I arrived at the daycare door at noon, he looked at me and John suspiciously until he saw the pizza bag in my hand and realized that not only was I not taking him out, but I was bringing him pizza. Too good, from his point of view. He was very happy to see Jamie, however, and walked right up to his brother until his nose was about a centimetre from Jamie's chest. I told Jamie, who was oblivious as usual, to say 'hi' to Liam and to give him a hug, which he did. Liam was so serious and happy when Jamie did: little brother adoration is complete and total. I did get him, with some protest, at 1:00, and took him for his walk. He did not, of course, sleep. He cheerfully sat on John's lap in Aroma and ate some raisin cheese roll and complained that John's tea wasn't cooling off fast enough, and watched Totoro on John's laptop while we visited with John's old high school friend Daniella. He was happy to play at Hakobune again when we went to pick up Jamie, and was in a good mood when we arrived at Browning for dinner.

It was a fine evening playing, and he kept Tom there instead of coming back to play D&D with the rest of us. It took Tom and Daniel to convince him to come home. He likes it there. If it wasn't for him clinging to me like a monkey every chance he gets, I'd think that he didn't love me or need me at all. But I'm Mummy Monkey and he's Liam Monkey, so he must love me a little bit. Jamie was full of interesting things to talk about before bed, and fell asleep quickly. Liam's lithium batteries were still going strong, but finally faded at 11:00 or so. I don't get where he finds the energy.

2009-01-10 23:17 (Kristen) Liam woke up at 9, when John was frantically turning the house apart to find Jamie's snowpants so that they could leave for Nisshu Gakkuin. John says that Jamie had a lot of trouble waking up this morning, but I didn't hear much more beyond that about the morning (the snowpants were eventually found). Jamie did the most amazing sketch of a cow on Thursday as part of his Japanese school homework, and I was glad that John scanned it before we had to hand it in to his teacher. Liam eventually calmed down, and we spent a nice, quiet, and productive day together. I did lots of housework, and Liam either did his own thing or helped out. I didn't take him out for his walk because he'd woken up so late, and so he'd not fall asleep before 2, which would push his eventual bedtime beyond 10, and the math in the end didn't work. Jamie came home with John at a little after three, and puttered around with me for a bit before haring off to find Gary. He's really growing up: there's a new level of sophistication to his conversation, and he'd about twice Liam's height now. I'm rather amazed by him on a regular basis.

Tonight, Liam insisted on falling asleep in his room, rather than with John in the main bedroom, which wasn't all that bad in the end. We put him to sleep around 8:30, and he was asleep about 45 minutes later. Whew. He really really doesn't want to sleep. Partly he doesn't want to miss anything, and partly he has some dental pain from a new molar, I'd suspect. Poor muffin. He woke up around 10:30 screaming, and I had to dose him up before he'd go back to sleep. Sigh. I put Jamie to bed at a little before 10, and that was much easier. It was nice to be able to put him to sleep, as I don't get to do that much any more. I think that we both appreciated it.

2009-01-11 19:00 (John) Liam: "Orange pear. Apple. My pear! Yellowish-brown pear?" Mom: "I can make ginger-pear muffins." Liam: "Yes. My eat!" (finds unopened toothbrush) "Papa cut!" (ignored by Papa) "This Mummy!" Mummy: "That's Liam's new toothbrush, with Diego on it." Liam "This MY Diego!". Mummy gives Liam a new sticker book. Liam: "This MY sticker book!". Mummy writes an L in the book for him. Liam: "This MY L sticker book!" More or less typical conversations with Liam; I think his most complicated syntax so far has been along the lines of "Papa no in car go Loblaws; Papa stay home!"

I tested Jamie today; he can very quickly rattle off the names of randomly ordered hiragana, but still needs help remembering how to write five of the 47, though the help can be pretty vague now ("It's the one that looks like a 'ma'", or just drawing the letter quickly with finger on palm.

2009-01-12 24:07 (Kristen) Today was a makeup day at Hakobune for the boys, since they missed days last week due to doctors' appointments, dental surgery, and the like. Liam was delighted to go, and was (as usual) reluctant to leave. His friend Oscar was leaving for his nap (some of the daycare kids nap in another room there) when we were, and Liam wasn't so opposed to napping when he saw Oscar going off, but still said "baby ne-ne?", the idea being that he was not a baby. Good thing Oscar didn't hear him... Liam did settle down for a nap between 1:45 and 3:45, but was very fragile and unhappy when he woke up, needing to be near me (unusually) at all times, preferably in my arms "up up." Jamie's day wasn't all that much better, as he was tired all day and having difficulty accepting rules and limits. He did have fun at soccer, and didn't mind his day at Hakobune either. We went to Browning for dinner, minus Tom, Michelle, Daniel, and Ross, who had other places to be, but we did see Tom, Michelle, and Ross before they left and fed some salmon to Ross. The boys did not want to go home (I suspect because they rightly equate going home with going to bed), and it was a bit of a tussle, but we did get home, they did get a little playtime, and did go to sleep not too late. Liam settled down earlier than in the past, which makes me think that his tooth isn't bothering him much (so far) tonight.

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

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