Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 85

2009-04-21 23:39 (Kristen) Jamie was proud this morning for sleeping the entire night in his own bed and not coming into bed with us. Yay, Jamie! Liam kept waking up in the night, so eventually I slept at the bottom of Jamie's bed so as to be able to settle him without having to wake up very much. It worked to a certain extent. John took Liam to Hakobune while I took Jamie to skating. Jamie wore Jake's old skates, which fit much better despite Jamie's protestations that they were too tight, and caused him some worry at the start that they were "too slippery". He did fall once, but he skated better than he has in months, actually gliding instead of walking on the ice as he normally does. He was down because he fell, but I reminded him that not falling wasn't the mark of success at this point. He seemed pleased. We played at Jake's for an hour then came to our house for an hour with Jake, which the boys enjoyed. Jamie was pretty tired and spent more of the rest of the afternoon watching television. Liam visited all the boxes of toys that I'm packing up and explored each, pulling out this and that to re-examine. Sigh. I spent the evening cleaning up the toy room and the boys played with Gary and Ayami for an hour. Liam came upstairs and did puzzles while Jamie stayed downstairs and did whatever until bedtime. Liam was crazy overtired, as he hadn't napped, and had a great deal of difficulty falling asleep.

2009-04-22 24:55 (Kristen) Liam's got a bit of a cold, so he was restless last night and kept waking pu, crying because he couldn't breathe through his nose. He was in a good enough mood after he woke up, but his appetite wasn't great today. Jamie made it off to school in a great flurry, but otherwise had a good morning. John reported to me, later in the morning, that he'd had quite the conversation with Liam. To wit (Liam was going into the bathroom):

John: Does my son need to poo?

Liam: Sun in sky, over water. Sun hot, sun no poo.

John: You're my son, and Jamie too!

Liam: My no son. My robot.

John: Do robots poo?

Liam: My robot no poo. (thinks) My robot poo. My robot have bum.

A little bit of surrealness thanks to our younger sun...son.

In other news, Liam spent a good part of the day playing with toys rather than watching television, which was nice. When Jamie sat down to do his Japanese homework we had Family Japanese Hour, which included me. We did mazes and played with a Japanese magazine for kids, which had an Anpanman teppanyaki playset (all press-out, folded paper pieces) and a paper house with "candy" (paper lollipops with straws for sticks, etc.) that we made together. Japanese kids magazines, in case it is not obvious, are pure unadulterated awesome. John's mom came over for a little, and then John went off to Scrabble. Liam and I played for the evening while Jamie went downstairs to watch Bolt with Gary. John came home early, and gave the kids a bath; Jamie fell asleep a little after ten, while Liam fell asleep at his favourite time of eleven. Thunk.

2009-04-23 23:44 (Kristen) It was a normal morning getting ready for school. John took Jamie, and came back in time to spend a little time with Liam before he left for the airport. John is off to Providence, RI for the weekend, working at the school Scrabble championship there, and will be back on Sunday. The boys miss him, though. Liam has been asking for him today (usually when I am sucking in some important way), and Jamie has been a little more emotionally fragile than usual. We had lunch at Browning, which was a treat, and then Ken took Liam for a walk while Jamie and I went to get Charlie for an afternoon of outdoor play. The boys were playing Pokemon, so we went to the Second Cup City to rest and recharge at the Cafe Gym (inside jokes for Pokemon afficionadoes) after playing for a bit at Jackman. We picked up Liam, and headed back to drop Charlie off at his house. Charlie gave Jamie some Pokemon cards which were officially because Jamie had won them in a race (bad precedent, I thought, and put the squash on that), but Charlie's mom was all right with it and now the boys can play Pokemon cards together with Charlie's gift. We played more at Jackman after we left Charlie's, mostly with Makaiya, who was there with her dad. We walked home, and had a mostly quiet evening with a very noisy ending, but the boys fell asleep very quickly.

2009-04-24 22:51 (Kristen) For some reason, Jamie was up around 6:15 this morning. He had me up around 6:37, complaining that he didn't feel well and wanted to throw up. Both boys have complained a little of this over the last few days, but nothing has come of it. Jamie insisted on going downstairs to watch television and then on announcing each show as it came on at enormous volume, expecting a response, and I soon gave up trying to sleep as Liam was now also awake. I checked again on Jamie around 8, and didn't think that he was actually sick, but he doesn't malinger either. Finally, I made the decision to let him stay home despite the enormous chaos that it would cause my day, and it was the right decision. Around 9, the fever showed up and that was that. I called the school to say that Jamie wasn't coming, and I called Hakobune to say that Jamie and Liam weren't coming, as I had no one who could look after Jamie while I took Liam there or brought him back, and we stayed home, watching television, all day. I should say that Jamie did most of the watching. I should take a photo of the play room to document what a Liam can do when wanting to play with toys all day. And I did make him clean it up a few times, too. Jamie was feeling better by the end of the afternoon and his fever was gone, and Liam was stir crazy with no nap. We went to Browning for dinner, which was very welcome, and Gary came too despite his cold. My cold is well under way now, and I'm pretty tired too. We came home, went to bed, and the boys were asleep in less than ten minutes.

2009-04-25 24:21 (Kristen) The boys woke up on their own, hungry and feeling much better. I was still struggling a bit with my cold, and just made sure that I had lots of kleenex with me. We were a little bit late reaching the school, but not the last to arrive, which was reassuring. Jamie had a presentation today with his class called the gakushuu happyoukai (English: a study presentation/recital. It's where students show off to parents what they've learned), which we were to be at by 11:15, and I wanted to make sure Liam would be calm for. So, I took him to Starbucks for a yoghurt (and he ended up eating part of my breakfast too), and then we went to the Rogers store to look at Wii game boxes: his idea. Finally, we went to the playground where he climbed up a ladder and went down a slide once a minute for about ten minutes. He was hot and tired by the time we go to the room where the presentation was, and greeted Tai Tai and Ho Ho by asking for food. Jamie did very well in his presentation, but was very wriggly because he had to pee. Liam lay on the floor for a good part of Jamie's presentation, which I was videotaping in my best unsteady Blair Witch Cam fashion (I need some practice moving the camera about without inducing nausea...). Jamie went back with his class and I took Liam out for lunch with the parents of one of Jamie's friends, Hari-kun. The Japanese restaurant was lovely but very slow, and we didn't finish until 2. Despite Liam's obvious fatigue, he didn't sleep and that was that. We picked up Jamie, let him and Liam play with the other kids for an hour or so, and finally extracted them to take them home via ToysRUs. Liam had spent time, in his sleep-deprived state, wandering off when I had my back turned for a moment, and making me panic repeatedly. He also left his shoes off and was walking around in his socks at one point. We went to ToysRUs to buy a Bakugan Dekka for Liam (they're large and less delicate), and Jamie got overwhelmed with all the toys that he could buy there. We made it out with a new bakugan for him too, but he was in a real hurry to spend all his money there on Transformers and complex Lego Star Wars kits... We got home just as a terrific windstorm preceding a cold front hit, which was exciting. It was a quiet evening with two exhausted boys, and Liam utterly melted down at bath time. I got him into bed quickly, and Jamie too, and it was only 9:10 when both boys were asleep. Unusually, it was LIam who fell asleep instantly, while Jamie took longer to calm down after an exciting day.

2009-04-26 24:09 (Kristen) This morning was a little rough. Jamie was up around 6:30, and came into bed with me, but then got up an hour later to watch television or do something. By the time I dragged myself out of bed, around 8:30 or so, he was overly hungry and utterly melting down irrational, yelling and crying even when I was giving him exactly what he wanted. Toast and jam dealt with the problem but it was not an auspicious start to the day. Liam kept dropping to give me a tantrum as I would tell him that he had to put the last toy away before he got the next one out, but Jamie got him to help put toys away as we cleaned the dining room. Jamie needed to directed, but was largely helpful. They enjoyed lunch, which was hot dogs and french fries, and then I slowly got the boys out of hte house to take Jamie to a playdate at Jake's (unusual for a Sunday). Liam didn't fall asleep, and it was too close to 2, so we ended up staying as well. The boys had a good time until it was time to go home and meet John. We went home, and waited, playing with balls in the front yard, until John showed up. He was on the phone with his dad at the time, who was telling John that his mother seemed to be having a heart attack. Poor John didn't have much time to see the children before he had to go off to the hospital to see his mom and help her there. She is doing well now, but we think that she likely had a mild heart attack. We're waiting for the second round of tests to tell us for sure. John came home to put the boys to bed, and has now gone back to the hospital to see the test results. The boys were delighted to see their dad, as they of course missed him very much, They fell asleep very quickly, tired out by their day.

2009-04-27 23:17 (Kristen) John and Jamie headed off to school this morning, prepared to go on the big class trip to the fire hall, and found that the trip was tomorrow. Boo! They were disappointed, but dealt well with it. I took Liam to Hakobune, where he had his usual good time, and picked him up afterwards. It was a beautiful sunny day, and Liam had his usual difficulty falling asleep after a rousing morning at daycare. Meanwhile, Jamie went to his soccer class with John, and brought Charlie home for a playdate. They played very well together with their bakugans, and were startlingly low maintenance. Liam didn't fall asleep in the end, and so he played with the other boys too. Around 5, John took his mom to our family doctor for a follow-up appointment, after doing eight pages of Japanese homework with Jamie in less than half an hour. Jamie, Liam, and I went to the Big Carrot for some groceries and then went to Browning to play and cook dinner. The boys were very happy to be there, and played and played. Liam, however, was very tired after not napping and actually asked to go home and sleep. In the end, he was in bed rather too late, as was Jamie, but fell asleep quickly enough after a few trips to the bathroom.

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

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