Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 72

2009-01-20 22:45 (John) Jamie continues to be very wound up today. I'm beginning to think it's not a previral issue, but anticipatory excitement about our upcoming trip to Mexico, especially given his frequent questions and comments about it. Even Liam is starting to go on about it: half the time we go out, he's asking if we're going to the airport to get on a plane to go see Tai-Tai at the beach. Or maybe we're all stir-crazy from the winter weather.

Jamie's English reading skills are improving rapidly, but I noticed again this evening as we were reading "Eric the Math Bear" that he is more myopic than I am, and should probably be wearing glasses already. Based on eyeballing the distance at which we can read the same type, I think he's got about 20/80 vision, or using the empirical formula D=10^(0.5E+1.25) relating Snellen denominator D to refractive error in diopters E, he should be wearing corrective lenses of about -1.4 diopters.

Jamie spent the morning at Jackman and (after a brief visit home to finish playing with Bowser Jr., whom I unlocked at Mario Kart Wii last night, but whom Jamie did not have enough time to experiment with in the morning) at Charlie's in the afternoon. Liam was at Hakobune in the morning, slept too long in the afternoon and is watching WonderPets as I type this. Jamie was asleep about 45 minutes earlier than usual, so I'd better head off to bed to prepare for an early morning tomorrow.

2009-01-21 44:38 (Kristen) John and I started wearing glasses at relatively early ages, so we're somewhat sensitized to the idea that our kids will likely need to wear glasses too. Jamie was acting out in the morning, and John got him to say that he was worried about needing glasses before we went to Mexico. Our opthamologist is booked to July, and so I made an emergency trip to Ratas Optical, our friendly local optician, and asked them to find an optometrist who might be able to see Jamie on shorter notice. We got Jamie in to find out that the boy has much better eyes than either of his parents. He just wants to wear glasses, though, likely because John and I were telling him that he looked like his dad when he wears glasses. Sigh. However, we're delighted that he won't need glasses for a little while yet, if at all.

I took Liam for a walk in the afternoon, and worked for a little while he slept. He's really a lot of fun right now, and is much more engaged with physical objects as toys than his brother. He also pretends to be a dinosaur and eat us up, which is hilarious. I had a friend over today with her small (three-month-old) son, and Liam was very interested in the baby. He talked about him (he was small, he was crying, etc.) and was very concerned about whether or not the baby was happy. It was pretty cool. Liam went to sleep relatively early (before 10:40) but woke up with tooth pain. That molar is still trying to poke through, and is taking its sweet time about it. Poor guy.

2009-01-22 20:45 (Kristen) I've been trying to get a large project out of the house before we leave for Mexico, so I'm not paying as much attention to the kids as I should/ought/want. Jamie has been somewhat tired today, perhaps in part to having the Posse over today (minus Sam, who had a haircutting appointment), and Liam has been a ball of the usual maddening cute as usual. He's really enjoying the idea that you can hide in bed, under the covers, and make people find you. A lot. It's the only time he voluntarily gets into bed... Overall, not much to say other than both boys seem healthy and happy.

2009-01-23 28:38 (Kristen) I forgot to mention a conversation with Jamie yesterday that was very interesting. He piped up in the middle of the bath to announce that, this year, he was the "boss" of his friends. Last year, the boss was Dylan, he said, but somehow Jamie has reached the top of the heap and is now Lord of the Guys. THe girls, he said, upon being questioned, don't have a boss, but then he corrected himself to say that Ms. Mikocza is their boss. Jamie has been a little bossy lately, and this might explain why ("Put your coat here, not here!" etc.)

The day was full of daycare and mad running about. The boys were happy that I found them more Mo Willems books at the library, and we read those. We had friends over in the evening to play some Junta, and the boys were wildly excited by that (I'd told them that Mummy and Papa were having a playdate). John and Tom had a rare evening of playing a board game with friends instead of chasing children, and I watched Liam and Jamie chase each other at terrific volume. I've never heard them that loud for that long, with shrieks and other noises that I think only dogs can hear for sure. However, they played chase and bury yourself under chair cushions for at least an hour, and were completely tuckered out when I put them to bed at 9:30 or so. Yay!

2009-01-24 27:48 (Kristen) I stayed up into the wee hours last night, trying to get a manuscript ready and out the door, so I was a little groggy this morning. John took Jamie to Hakobune, and then came to collect Liam for a morning of errands, shopping, and a visit to the Early Years centre at the St Lawrence Market. That freed up time for me to push through almost to the end of the project. I fed lunch to Liam and took a very tired boy out for a walk to pick up my fixed glasses, buy a few things at the Big Carrot for John's mom, and to pick up my new 12" enamelled cast iron Mario Batali skillet (in chianti). Thank you, Mom!! Liam slept for only an hour, which was surprising, and was up and about just before Jamie came home. Our neighbour Alexandria came over for a math tutorial before her exam on Monday, and in return babysat the boys while John and I ran to drop the manuscript off at the editor's house. Whew! The evening was spent packing frantically; both boys are very wound up, and very much anticipating the trip tomorrow.

2009-01-25 21:45 (John) We woke up at 4:30 this morning, after a half-hour nap for the grownups and six hours' rest for the little ones. Jamie and Liam were bubbling with excitement, which was actually helpful at first, as they were eager to get dressed and get into the car. We left on time at 5:00, drove to the GTAA reduced rate (extended-stay) parking lot, dashed to the monorail in the -20C predawn chill, and got to the gate with relatively little incident, taking turns getting things done and running the boys around to burn off their energy.

Then it turned out that United has forgot to plug in their block heater over night, one engine wouldn't start and let loose an impressive belch of smoke when it eventually did kick over, and one of the toilets was frozen solid and needed a plumber. We left the ground 57 minutes late (including time for deicing), and exited the aircraft at O'Hare with 20 minutes to get from gate C25 to gate B2, with two kids and as much baggage as we could all carry, before we would miss our flight. The good news is that we made the connection with a few minutes to spare, though my knees will never be the same again; the bad news is that our checked baggage, assurances of cabin crew notwithstanding, did not.

When we arrived in Puerto Morelos, meeting our friend Sherrie along the way, the boys were more excited than I have ever seen them, including Christmas and birthdays. They could not stop running around, and it is a miracle that they both eventually fell into bed without serious injury along the way. In the four hours that we had, we ran around on the beach, dipped feet in the ocean, ran around the hotel restaurant, ate at the hotel restaurant, ate at my parents' Pagoda, unpacked, filed an insurance claim for the baggage delay, figured out a new way to connect to the Internet here, walked to the zocalo, ate almost too much ice cream, bought groceries for breakfast and clothes to wear tomorrow. Liam passed out on the way home around 19:00 local time; Jamie stayed up to chat and draw, but was in bed and asleep by 20:30 local time. It's good to be back here again.

2009-01-26 21:45 (John) I wrote at great length about this day, and then accidentally deleted it all. All I remember at this point is that the day ran more or less the way I like to see every day go when we're down here in Puerto Morelos. We had breakfast, went to the beach until lunch, stuffed the boys full of a frightening amount of food at the Ojo de Agua, Liam took a nap in his stroller, I took a nap on the couch, Jamie sketched and played on his DS. When the sun was a little lower, we went back to the beach, took turns swimming and making sandcastles. When Kristen came back from her swim, she was cold, so she sat in the sand chair I made for her, then when I buried her legs in the sand, the boys insisted on being buried in the sand too. I went for a brief snorkel out to the Ojo and back. I made frijoles refritos, platanos fritos and rice for dinner. We walked the boys to the zocalo for ice cream, they played in the playground, walked back home and fell asleep fairly early.

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

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