Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 2 No. 90

2009-05-26 22:46 (Kristen) Jamie was very grumpy today, and had some difficulty figuring out why. I think it's because he was tired, as he seemed to be up earlier than usual this morning. Liam sure was, as he was disturbing my sleep by being Really Chatty by 6:45 am. That, at least, was when I cracked open an eyelid to see what time it was when I couldn't shush him anymore. John took Liam to Hakobune, while I took Jamie to skating. It was his last day, and he was awfully grumpy for a good part of it. In the end, I asked him if he wanted to go to skating again, and he surprised me by saying "yes." His feet hurt him at the end of the class, and I think that the loaner skates that we've worn for the last couple of weeks are also too small now. Jamie's growing really quickly, so I'm not surprised. He went to Jake's for an hour while I went to get Liam, and then Jake and Jamie came to our house. John got home from his appointment, and so I took Liam out for a walk. He fell asleep pretty quickly, and slept until 3:40, when I woke him up. He wasn't happy with me, and I felt like I was breaking the cardinal Mummy Rule (Don't Wake the Baby) but wasn't willing to stay up until midnight as I would have if he'd kept sleeping. The evening was quiet, with the boys and me watching Meet the Robinsons, and then time for bed.

2009-05-27 47:44 (Kristen) We'd intended to take the boys up to the Scrabble club tonight but decided not to as the weather was truly dreadful. It rained for large parts of the day, so I kept Liam in for most of it. He was a little stir crazy, so we went outside for a little while to clean up the back porch and to put a plant or two into the ground. It must have done the trick, however, as he got more and more obstreperous as the afternoon wore on, and I turned around at one point during a snack period to find Liam asleep on his kitchen chair, passed out with a cracker in his hand. Needless to say, I was surprised. Jamie come home from Hakobune soon afterwards, with John, and we were quiet for a bit until I woke Liam up after he'd been asleep for half an hour. He spent the next half hour crying and being very unhappy, but adjusted. Homework was done, dinner was eaten, and bed was attained.

2009-05-28 23:54 (Kristen) Liam proved, again, to be somewhat obstreperous today. I am not entirely sure what got into him, but everything had to be climbed upon that should not have been climbed on, all maternal requests were to be denied, and only enough food to maintain life was ingested. Jamie was better, but was picking up on Liam's mood by the end of the day. Liam did go for a nap this afternoon with Ken, which was great, while Jamie played over at Charlie's house. He had his usual good time, but Liam was put out that he wasn't allowed to go in and play too when we picked up Jamie. I think that it is going to be a good thing for Liam to be at daycare tomorrow. He's of an age where he's starting to notice that his brother is doing things that he isn't. A good game of "bury your brother under as many couch cushions as you can" seemed to make everyone feel better, however.

2009-05-29 23:57 (Kristen) The usual rush around made more exciting by the fact that John was working at a Scrabble tournament for seniors, which made me primary mover of children from here to there. John did drop Jamie off at school, while I took Liam to Hakobune. It was Maki-sensei's last day, as her visa has expired and she has to return to Japan. She was a very lively, fun person, and I know that the boys will miss her. Apparently Jamie was the first child to call her by her full name and title at Hakobune when she arrived, which was a special thing for her, so we made sure that we said our goodbyes. First, however, I went back to get Jamie and bring him to Hakobune. We enjoyed our subway ride together, which was fun as usual, and I dropped him off. I'd picked up two lovely spinach quiches at the Harbord Bakery for their lunches, and both boys disliked it enough to not eat their quiches. Grrr! Liam, then, was hungry when I picked him up, and so I got him some vegetarian sushi and dried mangoes at the Big Carrot (I was back in the area because I needed to get my glasses fixed). We got back on the subway, picked up Jamie and said goodbye to Maki-sensei, then headed home after getting our bubble teas.

Evening dinner was at Browning, and it was an early bedtime. Liam had trouble sleeping, however, and had an attack of the night terrors around 12:30. It took about fifteen minutes to calm him down enough that he'd stop screaming like he was being stuck with pins, and that we could negotiate with him in his sleep. He didn't want to be somewhere and wanted to go home, but we convinced him, eventually, that he was home. Poor us. Poor neighbours, who could hear him screaming through the wall. Poor him!

2009-05-30 00:05 (Kristen) It was a very busy day that started slowly enough for me and Liam. Unusually, both of us slept in until almost 10, while Jamie and John got their stuff together and headed up to Nisshu Gakkuin and John to the St. Lawrence Market afterwards. John came home to rest and to pick up me and Liam to take us to the Nisshu Gakkuin bazaar, which is a combination fun fair and fundraiser. Jamie wanted to try out all the games, as the children who get enough stamps on their cards at the games could trade them in for prizes. We arrived a little to late to get anything good, and Jamie was disappointed that he didn't have enough stamps for an enormous red car. In the meantime, the kids bowled, jumped in the bouncy house, fished, and did other fun things in the sunny but increasingly cloudy and windy afternoon. I picked up some used Japanese magazines, and we all ate fun Japanese food (and hot dogs, which seem universal). When it was over, we drove home to plant flowers, herbs, and veggies in the garden. In the evening, we went to Tom and Michelle's 20th anniversary party, which was lovely fun until about 8:30, when Liam broke a glass bowl by accident in the kitchen and gave himself a powerful scare. He wasn't hurt, but the bowl shattered about four inches from my feet, showering them in glass dust and shards. Michelle, then John, held a screaming Liam while I washed my feet off in the sink (which was, fortunately, just beside me). He was very upset that he wasn't allowed to run to me and be comforted, and all the adults were using their *serious* voices around him, which was just bad too. In this case, as his little feet would have been covered with glass if he had run to me, it was just as well as running to me would have Been Bad. As he'd not napped, and (as I realized later) was still very hungry, he just wailed until I took him home to bed, at his request. John and Jamie stayed behind while Liam and I went home (he had, of course, changed his mind about that) and I put him to bed. I realized, however, that he was not sleeping because he was hungry: his little tummy was growling as I lay beside him. Downstairs for some emergency yoghurt, and back up to bed. By the time he was asleep, it was 10, Jamie was asleep too, and that was the night.

2009-05-31 00:38 (Kristen) Jamie was wondering what we were going to do today, and it was hard to decide. In the end, he spent the afternoon playing with Gary while I went shopping for clothes for a job interview with Michelle, and Liam watched videos after refusing to nap. I did spend some time outside with the boys as they rode their bikes (I gave Liam a lesson on how to steer to the right), and we investigated aspects of the insect kingdom. There had been a huge storm the night before, and a wasp's nest got blown down and (I assume) blown apart. from our neighbours eaves. The very top was still intact, and I got to show the boys the perfect honeycomb pattern, and the wasp larvae, in different stages of development, inside. There was also some golden stuff, which looked like amber and was, I assume, some sort of jelly with which they fed the larvae. We also disturbed an ant colony near the end of the driveway in my garden (I pulled out some weeds between two rocks, and boom! ants), and got to watch them move eggs and other things down between the rocks and into the earth. Very educational. I went out soon after, and came home to big hugs from Liam, Jamie still being downstairs. Dinner was at Browning, as we had scallops to eat and too many to eat by ourselves. The boys had a great time playing and Liam even ate enough to sustain life. But not by much. That boy's eating habits are driving me crazy. Then it was home to bed, with much playing and giggling. For once it was Liam who fell asleep right away and Jamie who had trouble sleeping: unsure why.

2009-06-01 22:54 (Kristen) I don't know when Liam came into bed with me last night, but Jamie has stayed in his own bed all night for three nights in a row. Interesting. John and Jamie were on their ways out the door when I woke up this morning, and Liam slept until almost 9:40 as I got his bag, lunch, and clothes together for a day at Hakobune. I managed to get him mostly undressed and dressed before he woke up. I brought his breakfast for eating on the train as a change, and he ate half of a bowl of tamago* no gohan* before drinking a good deal of water and declaring himself full. He was happy, as usual, to be dropped off at Hakobuhe, and I went off to work. John took Jamie to his last soccer lesson, and Jamie went off to play at Charlie's. I picked up Liam and took him shoe shopping, as his shoes are worn out and too small. We bought new sneakers for him and I bought a new pair for Jamie, not understanding that Jamie would want to wear them right away, rather than when his feet get one size larger. Hmm. I picked up some clothes at The Children's Place to finish buying clothes for the kids courtesy of my mom, and went back to our neighbourhood to pick up a cake for John and to find Jamie at Charlie's. Liam was a little crazy from being trapped in the stroller for so long, but my counterargument was that if you don't want to wear shoes, you don't get to walk around. So there. We had a birthday celebration with cake and candles for John and Daniel, whose birthdays are tomorrow and Wednesday, respectively, and much play. Liam had difficulty with the idea that dinner must be eaten (he's really not into food right now), and more difficulty with the idea that you have to wait until people finish eating before they'll play with you and bend to your various whims. He otherwise had a good time. Both boys fell asleep quickly.

(John) Linguistic update: Liam's can speak clearly to us (but not necessarily strangers) in sentences in English and words in Japanese. He's learning Japanese verb suffixes first for some reason, so especially for unfamiliar or long verbs he will say "-te" rather than "tabete", or frequently "-masu!" for "Ittekimasu!" (much to Maki-sensei's amusement). In English, he's assimilating and dissimilating: my favourites are "mumber" for "number" and "ma-yee" for "Mommy", which we hear all day long. (Kristen: my favourite is "kebbitch" for "ketchup.") Jamie knows almost all of his katakana now, and the kanji for the days of the week and the numbers up to ten. He speaks fluently in both, but will whisper questions to me when he can't remember a word in the language he's supposed to be using.

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

Back to Vol. 2 No. 89, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 2 No. 91.