Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 89

2009-05-19 72:12 (Kristen) John took Liam to Hakobune, while I took Jamie to skating, as usual. Jamie did a good job at skating, finally starting to trust himself more to stretch out and actually take bigger gliding steps. We only have one class left, and I'll have to make sure that I get a bigger pair of skates for the fall. He's growing so quickly. We went to Jake's, played, and then came home to meet up with John and Liam. When we arrived, John was in the car and I wondered what was going on until I saw that Liam was asleep in the back seat. I can't remember the last time he was tired enough to do that, but the boys were up late last night, and for much of the weekend. I even managed to transfer Liam into the stroller so that we could bring him into the house. Liam woke up around 3:30, and it was a quiet evening afterwards until bedtime.

2009-05-20 48:05 (Kristen) Liam and I had a bit of a Mom and Liam day, while John and Jamie had a Papa and Jamie day. Liam and I hung out at home, doing laundry and talking about plants while watering them, had a walk, and conversed. John took Jamie to school, to Hakobune, and to Scrabble club in the evening. I did take Liam to play with Jamie at school for a little before John picked him up for Hakobune, but Liam had a bit of a rough time with one of Jamie's friend Charlie's little brothers, who decided that he needed to play far too roughly and was excused from the playground by his mom. I was proud of Liam for not retaliating.

When Jamie came back from Scrabble with John, he met up with Liam and me in the green room, where Liam was watching Kiki and I was folding laundry. He told me that he had the best time at Scrabble, where he and his father played fooze ball, played in the playground with a Russian boy of the same age as Jamie, and played ping pong. Jamie actually got a rally (of one!) going, to his immense delight. It was a very good night.

2009-05-21 23:57 (Kristen) John wants me to note that it kills him when Liam pronounces that he knows his "mumbers." I love it that Liam, like Jamie, calls sunscreen "sunscream". Liam also doesn't love me anymore, or so he told me tonight, when he was angry with me for not letting him get up and wander around the bedroom after lights out. Jamie was shocked, but we explained that it meant that he was angry with me, and not that he didn't love me, but it was still not a very nice thing to say.

It was otherwise a good day. The weather was bright and hot, and the boys both in grand moods. Liam ate lunch at Browning and went for a walk with Ken (Liam was very tired, and actually asked to go into his stroller), but was very hot and thirsty when he got up. Jamie had a good time playing over at Jake's, but was very tired when we got home. Liam was dead set on doing his "work" all evening, while Jamie did some homework, and played with Gary. Liam took a little long to fall asleep, but Jamie fell asleep rather quickly.

2009-05-22 46:55 (Kristen) Liam adores his older brother, and desperately wants to be like him. Jamie is a ham, and Liam is picking up on it. Consequently, everything is "very funny," and he is always looking for the funny side of any situation. Sometimes he is very funny, but unintentionally. Today, we walked back to Hakobune after an afternoon running errands on Queen West (and Liam ate half a box of strawberry Pocky while he was at it...), and found Liam's friend Oscar outside the church door, crying. We stopped to try and cheer Oscar up, but it was taking a good deal of work. John and Jamie came out of the church while we did, and Liam ran off to play with Jamie. Then he thought that he'd go back to cheer up Oscar with me, and ran up just as Oscar turned up the volume. Liam stopped, and said "Maybe not," and ran away again to play with Jamie. Later, he and Jamie were having a small disagreement as to whether or not a cabinet door should be closed or open. I sided with Liam that there was no reason not to shut it, and Liam went behind Jamie to throw his hands up in the air, turn in a slow circle, and say "Yesssss!" We are not sure who has taught Liam how to gloat, but he's really taken the lesson to heart.

Jamie's day was largely taken up by the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Jump Rope for Heart day at Jackman. John was helping out, and says that Jamie was more than happy to come up on variations for the various activities offered at various stations. After the kids exhausted the "jump over this pole" option, Jamie decided that they should see how well they could go under it. A rope on the ground at the "Snake" station was more fun, he decided, if an adult (John) made it wriggle as they jumped from one side to the other, and so on. At Hakobune, the assistant, Maki-sensei, told me that next Friday is her last day. She's great, so it's a loss. She reminded me that Jamie will always be special to her because he was the first student at Hakobune to call her by name, which is lovely. We'll definitely miss her.

2009-05-23 23:04 (Kristen) Jamie was late out the door to Nisshu Gakkuin today, which drives John utterly mad and understandably so. John was also hall monitor today, so Liam and I didn't see either John or Jamie again until almost 5. In the meantime, Liam and I did the St Lawrence Market shopping, came home, had lunch, puttered, did some puzzles, cleaned up puzzles, went out for a walk, played with Sam, Harry, and Georgia when we met them by chance at Jackman, went to the Big Carrot, came home, watered plants, and planted some. Liam had enough when he started to pick at flowers he shouldn't pick at, and we went in to find that Jamie and John had been home for an hour. We ate dinner, and were the flat, tired family for the evening, which culminated in an early night for all men in this family.

I forgot ot mention that Jamie and I were talking about moms. Apparently, his Jamieland moms let him watch television all day, don't make him stop what he's doing to have meals, and will make it snow so that he can make snow angels. He'll tell me more tomorrow about what they do, if I ask, he says. His real world mom, he says, is just fine.

2009-05-24 21:43 (Kristen) Our big outing was to the Malta Bakery Cafe to have Maltese pastries with Peter, Leslie, and Simon. Toronto, multicultural city that it is, even has a Little Malta, and we all enjoyed trying out Maltese food. The boys had a great time, drawing, running about, and stuffing their faces. Liam and Simon had a bonding moment over airplanes, which they both agreed were wonderful to play with. Afterwards, it was 2:00 and we couldn't think of what to do. Jamie wanted to go to the park, while Liam got it into his head that he wanted to go to the museum. Eventually we compromised on the Science Centre, so that John could work while the kids ran about, but ended up going to Moorevale Park, and having the kids run around while John worked in the car. I think that I pushed the boys on the swings for over 20 minutes, running to one boy, pushing three times, and then running to the other for the same purpose. After an hour or so we headed home, but Jamie later told me that the day had been So Much Fun, because he'd played at that park. He'd seen it on Wednesday night while coming home from Scrabble with John, and had a craving to play there. Dinner was a trial, as Liam was too tired and too hungry to make it to dinner time, and so had a half-hour meltdown while I tried to get dinner on the table. Eventually, he ate while I held him on my lap and fed him with my fingers from his bowl. That got his blood sugar to a decent level, but it was time for bed soon afterward.

2009-05-25 46:40 (Kristen) It was back to school today, with John taking Jamie to his last soccer class before the summer at lunch. I took Liam to Hakobune, where he had his usual fine time. Sam, Harry, and Charlie came over after soccer, and had their usual great time playing with toys and playing with Jamie's DS (Charlie). Liam didn't fall asleep, so he had fun playing with the big boys. Dinner was at Browning, and John looked after the boys while I went to play pub trivia. When I got hom a little after 10, both boys were asleep. They'd played with their favourite people, had a bath with their loving father, and settled down for him to sleep. Liam had a little trouble until he "hid" under the covers, and fell asleep while doing that.

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

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