Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 3 No. 3

2009-08-25 22:49 (Kristen) Both boys were up early, and played together for a bit before I got up. The morning was a little rocky as both boys, unusually, complained about breakfast and that they didn't want to go out. They've been so busy, I think, that a day at home seemed like not a bad idea. It was a Hakobune day, however, so I took them there, and both boys were excited to play with their own DSes on the subway. When I picked them up, they were pretty wound up. We went home by transit, which was a little tiring for me as both boys were prety loud and excited. When we got in, we watched a little television but mostly stayed away from the tv until later in the afternoon, when we were all tired and the boys were having trouble entertaining themselves. I made dinner, they ate, and the evening was also full of boys tired and having trouble listening or playing without assistance. I was somewhat tired, as much work needs to be done around the house, and John was sick in bed for most of the day. Liam fell asleep very quickly, while Jamie was playing with Gary after the bath, and then Jamie came in to sleep just after Liam fell asleep. Jamie had trouble falling asleep, once again, and wasn't asleep until almost 10:15.

2009-08-26 24:59 (Kristen) Not a lot happened out of the ordinary today. It rained in the morning, so there was no playground excursion with Waka. The boys went to Loblaws with John in the late afternoon and ate a great deal that never made it back to the house. They like going to Loblaws with their dad.

2009-08-27 24:59 (Kristen) Liam had his friend party today for his birthday, and it was a Pirate Party. We bought pirate balloons, and a special pirate hat with feathers for Liam and there were swords and hats for his friends too. And pirate decorations. Liam was the Dread Pirate Liam, and his friends the Dread Pirate Jack and the Dread Pirate Simon had a great time with sword fights and pirate-themed videos. Charlie came with his little brother Jack to keep Jamie company, and we also had Daniel and Ross. It was a great time, and everyone was very happy. Liam liked his presents, and it was most heart-warming when Jack hugged Liam after Liam said thak you for his present. Mass parental melt. The earlier part of the day was spent preparing for the pirate party; the rest of it was spent recovering, although not too much as it was fun but not crazy. Arrrr!!! John will be taking over the reins for the next few days, as I will be off in Boston on my first ever trip away from the kids. I'm not sure hwo is more anxious about it: me or them.

2009-08-28 23:45 (John) We made it through the first day without Kristen without unexpected glitches. Liam fell off the sofa while watching me play Mercury Meltdown Revolution, hitting his head on the padded arm of the sofa. He does this practically every day, and always insists on personal attention from Kristen (Mah-Yee). This time, I reminded him that Mom was away on a plane, and he grumbled but calmed down. Then at bedtime, Liam got as far as insisting that he was going to go to the airport and find a plane to chase Mommy down, but I managed to pull him back at the bedroom door. Liam passed out at 10:25, almost an hour after lights out, and about five minutes into a story. Jamie succumbed about ten minutes later, letting me join the rest of the gang (Tom, Jeff, Bruce, Andy and Reid) downstairs playing Battestar Galactica.

The rest of the day was uneventful. We got to Hakobune only five minutes late. The boys insisted that I staywith them until clean-up time, which was fine with me. At pickup, we said goodbye to Yutaka, which turned into my letting each child in the room climb up my chest and back flip back to the floor, three times. At home, we played video games, finished lunch, did homework (Liam worked on a Kumon book introducing him to hiragana, and is trying to learn the difference between a shi and a ku). Tom made us ribs at Browning. As I predicted, Liam dug right in with glee and Jamie initially refused but was willing to eat them if I deboned them and told him they tasted just like sausage. Of course, by that time Tom had made hamburgers, so the boys split one of those. We were a little late getting home after a long and goofy Skype session with Mom, went straight to the bath, brushed teeth, watched Anpanman and got to work getting to sleep.

2009-08-29 23:40 (John) In principle, Saturday without Mom ought not to be too different from Saturday with Mom, as I usually take the boys to the St. Lawrence Market while Kristen stays at home and does housework. This one was a tiny bit more challenging though, as I had had only five hours' sleep for the second night in a row, and the boys had had only nine hours. The each melted down once over the course of the day, which is once more than usual, but not too bad, all things considered.

The boys ate half a samosa each at the market, before I noticed that one of the consequences of a mistaken Indian food delivery I'd been warned about was that the samosas were about four chillis on a Thai scale. No wonder they both finished their water bottles. They finished off their lunch with pizza and ice cream, and afternoon snack was leftover pizza. For dinner I wokked broccoli, sole and then broccoli-sole-fried rice, fed to the kids as quickly as it came out off the heat. My parents, who had come along to the market, dropped by and had dinner too, while the kids ate wild blueberry pie a la mode for dinner, trying not to be too goofy Skyping mom.

The boys were extremely compliant about bathtime at 20:30, were in bed by 21:15, and after fifteen minutes of Anpanman and fifteen minutes of a bedtime story from me, they both nodded off at about 21:45. I've finished a couple of hours of work now, and I'm beat, so I'm off to bed.

2009-08-30 23:00 (John) Jamie woke up at 6:30, stressed out over Mom's absence; Liam slept in until about 8:30. I had planned on taking us to the JCCC Bazaar today, but Jamie was adamant that he was too tired to go, and preferred to spend Sundays quietly at home, and I couldn't argue with that. I made waffles, sausages and eggs for breakfast. We tidied, played video games and vegged out until lunch time. Ayami made us sushi. We did our homework, with Jamie again a little resistant due to stress, and Liam a little overeager due to so much paternal attention. Jamie did his scheduled five pages; Liam did six pages of hiragana (he's up to shi, ku and tsu now), four pages of mazes, then about a half hour of colouring. Kristen texted to say she had managed to catch an earlier flight, so I left Jamie with Gary and Ayami (he felt he would get carsick on the way to the airport) and walked with Liam to my parents' to pick up the car, then drove to the airport to pick up Kristen. Liam was quietly thrilled to see her back; Jamie was much less quietly so. We got the boys to bed a little early, and they fell asleep again around 21:30.

2009-08-31 23:41 (Kristen) I was feeling a little groggy when I got up, but managed to do it. The boys were already up, and I managed to time breakfast so that they were actually hungry and ready to eat it, and not past hunger and into low blood sugar territory. There lies madness, or at least lot of yelling. We made it to Hakobune on time, and I left Liam there and took Jamie to Starbucks to see Sadaru. Unfortunately, Sadaru and his mom weren't able to come, as Sadaru's little brother was having a bad reaction to a mosquito bite and they were taking him to the doctor to make sure everything was all right. Jamie ended up playing with me for the morning, by and large, which killed my productivity. Truthfully, my productivity was shot with the cold I'm fighting, which is kicking my butt. We had some pizza and picked up Liam, who needed to pee before we got home. We stopped off at a place on Broadview, and walked the rest of the way home. The afternoon was spent playing with Gary or lounging around on the couch, and the evening was spent at Browning withouth the Browningites, who left on a short trip. Gary and Ayami were there, as were Simon and Leslie, and a good, if tired, time was had by all. Simon and Liam were playing together (not parallel playing), and it was so nice to see the two of them being happy and friends together. They really do like each other. Bed was welcome, and tomorrow we have big things to plan.

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

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