Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 3 No. 9

2009-10-06 23:25 (Kristen) Today was better than yesterday, when I woke up annoyed that John had left the clock alarm on on a Sunday. D'oh. Jamie and Liam also woke up well, but I let John sleep in by accident, so he was late getting Liam to Hakobune. It was quiet until they got back, and then I hauled Liam out to get Jamie, over his protests that Kirby was going to be lonely. Or something like that. (Kirby is the main character in the DS game that Liam is obsessed with. The DS stayed home.) He and Jamie played for a bit in the schoolyard, then I got them to come to the Big Carrot with me for some groceries before coming home. It's easier when I have the two of them, because they keep each other amused and cared for. I saw Liam hit his head (lightly) out of the corner of my eye, and then Jamie give him a gentle hug and a light rub on the head before making sure that Liam found me for his Mom hug. I'm so glad that they have each other. They also chased each other home for a good section of the walk. Also very handy. Dinner was simple but the boys ate well, and the evening was full of homework and video games. Liam was put out that he was the spectator for a "no-fail" family game of Rock Band, but got over it.

2009-10-07 22:45 (Kristen) Life, I think, needs a reboot. Jamie was up around 7:30, and seemed all right at first. However, he was pretty tired and it began to show when it was time to go to school. Liam, in the meantime, woke up just as I was getting Jamie dressed and out the door, and was sleepy enough not to protest when I left him behind to take Jamie to school (John was at home, btw). Liam and I had a quiet morning, punctuated with some numbers and the ABC song, before John brought Jamie home for lunch. The kids ate well, and were all right, and there was only pro forma grumbling from Jamie when it was time to go back to school and leave his DS behind. Liam and John did some DS before it was time for us to go to skating (which I had spaced, d'oh). Liam did much better this week than last week. This week he cried while hanging on to a glider, instead of lying on the ice and crying. Progress... I had prepped Liam with talks about what was going to happen when he was on the ice: to shuffle, not walk normally; that he was going to fall, but everyone did and that was OK; that he was going to have a glider, and he should hang on to that. He certainly hung on to his glider. Eventually, he did get the hang of it enough that he skated, slowly, from the blue line to the door, crying, but with only 15 minutes left in the lesson when he came off the ice. Yay! Progress! I was happy about that, and Liam was very cheerful, while telling me "I cried." We got a ride back to the school, grabbed Jamie, then headed home as the weather was cold and windy and overcast. Brr. Jamie was pretty good about doing his homework when we got home, but we didn't get to his reading until after dinner. This is never good, because Jamie is just shredded after dinner and it's always hard going then. He had picked out another difficult book, and was utterly unengaged from the process. Eventually, after distraction/interruption number 15, I lost my temper and snapped. The exercise lost its fun, and we eventually had to abandon it and agree to complete it tomorrow. Jamie was upset too, and told me that he didn't like reading at all because it was "boring." There was nothing that he liked to read, and it was just a stab through the heart. I was a bad mother; I was pushing him too hard, he was pushing himself too hard; it was my fault for letting him watch too much television and play too many video games; and it went on from there in my inner monologue. However, I reminded myself that he was wickedly tired, and so was I, so we wrapped up the evening with a game of Ladybirds (Jamie's suggestion), and went to bed early. The boys were in bed at 8:50, and we read Jellaby, which both boys enjoyed. So, Jamie still enjoys being read *to*, at least. Lights out at 9:15, and Jamie was asleep by 9:30. Liam held out for another 15 minutes, flipping, flopping, and keeping up a sotto voce running commentary before finally being overwhelmed by sleep.

2009-10-08 23:23 (Kristen) Jamie slept until 8, when I woke him up. He woke up well, did everything that he had to do, and went to school with no mucking about and no whining/complaining/fuss. Wow! This sleep thing is really rather amazing. John took Liam to Hakobune, and I cleaned up the house for my dad's visit with his wife, Liz. They're staying with us until the weekend, and the house needed to be cleaner than it was. Everyone arrived here around 2:30 or so, and my dad came with Liam and me to pick up Jamie at school. Jamie was very upset because his adored Mr. Kat (his gym teacher) had been unhappy with the class for some goofing around at the end of class, and Jamie was in complete tears about it. Mr. Kat reassured him that he was doing great, but I think that Jamie just needed to decompress. Sensitive boy. Mr. Kat told me that Jamie tells him "Still like gym!" every time he sees him in the hallways. Mr. Kat is a very nice man.

We needed to get back home so that I could finish making dinner (a roast chicken, which needed stuffing), and the boys hung out and Jamie did his homework before it was time to eat. We ate early, because tonight was Curriculum Night at Jamie's school, and we needed to be there for Ms. Kidd's presentation at 6:30. We made it, and Jamie was very excited and proud to show us his classroom, his work, and his school. It was very interesting for us, and I think that I'm even more impressed with his school than I was before. Once home again, the boys hung out and Jamie did a little reading for me before bedtime. Bedtime was 9:40, which was about half an hour later than I'd hoped for, but I'm still pretty happy that it wasn't later.

2009-10-09 23:15 (Kristen) Jamie was a star again this morning, getting up and getting dressed, and putting his games down without fussing, and getting to school on time and cheerfully. Wow! He is really trying hard to be good and helpful, and I'm just as happy as can be about not having to fight him. More importantly, I'm really enjoying having a pleasant morning with my boy, and he seems to be doing the same. I dropped Jamie off, came back to see how Liam was going, and found hi in John's lap in the living room, having woken up ten minutes earlier. John went back to bed, and I got Liam ready for Hakobune. We said goodbye to Grandpa and Liz, then went off. When John and I picked Liam up after daycare, I went up to get him while John stayed in the car. Liam showed me his newest book, with another group of female Japanese superheroes in it. My son really doesn't care about traditional gender divisions, which is really rather cool. What, I'm going to stop him from reading about strong women and enjoying it?

Liam and I stayed home while John went to get Jamie in the rain, and we waited for Grandpa and Liz to come back so that we could go out for dinner. The boys alternately walked down to the Silk Road or rode on John's shoulders to "Keep Papa's head dry in the rain." There is a photo of Liam, complete with umbrella, riding on John's shoulders that is to die for. Dinner was very nice, and we all ate a good deal and had a good time. Jamie helped to serve the ice cream, as usual, and Liam protested that his mango ice cream was touching his lichee ice cream. Then, after a few bites of lichee, he wanted the mango ice cream back. It is, indeed, fortunate that I foresaw this and kept most of the scoop of mango ice cream in my bowl for safe keeping.

John reminds me that, yesterday, Liam was trying to get John to read to him when John was in the middle of helping Jamie do his homework. Liam then tried to read the book himself, and burst into tears after a few minutes because merely willing himself to be able to read wasn't working. Poor boy. We're starting to teach him to recognize a few words, if he's willing, because he seems to want it so much. We'll report back on whether or not it works.

2009-10-10 22:31 (Kristen) It was a rare Saturday with Jamie home, so it was a rare family outing to the St. Lawrence Market. My dad and Liz followed us down to the market, then parted ways with us as they went on to the next stop on their trip. Jamie was asking about them later in the day, and was visibly disappointed to learn that they had left. I think that Jamie was enjoying getting to know his grandfather, and Liz too. We bought a metric tonne of food at the market, and ran around picking up turkeys and other foodstuffs in our neighbourhood. Jamie was flat bored by the end, but managed to hold it together until we got home. I wish that I knew more about what they did for the rest of the day, but I was running around getting the house and food ready for Thanksgiving dinner. Jamie did spent 90 minutes with Gary, which they both enjoyed as Gary has been fighting an evil cold and so hasn't been around to play much.

2009-10-11 22:40 (Kristen) Jamie was up around 7:30, and came into bed with me and John until 8. Liam was up around 8:30, and came in with me and John until around 8:45, when I gave up and got up. Today was all about Thanksgiving dinner, and the boys were helpful in their own ways. They helped John buy a folding table at Canadian Tire to give us extra space for guests to eat at, and kept out of my way during food prep. When Ian and Amy arrived with Ted and Alice, Jamie and Liam were delighted. They brought a cool birthday present for Jamie, whose birthday is in a month, and Liam is looking forward to playing with the building system too. Dinner was a success, and both Liam and Jamie ate about half of the sushi that John's aunts brought before dinner even started. So, not much turkey went into either boy, altough Jamie did eat well, and ate a pumpkin tart that Alice made too. Yay, someone to share pumpkin pies with! The day and night were chaotic, but in a good way, and all were fed and made happy with food. Jamie and Ian played video games together, and Liam followed along. It was a good day, and the boys were in bed almost indecently late.

2009-10-12 23:43 (Kristen) Jamie and Ian were up early this morning, playing video games, and that was pretty much what the boys did all day. They played old video games, new video games, cooperative and competitive. They played them upstairs, and downstairs. Amy watched, or played her own, as did Liam. It was not the most productive day we've ever had, but it's not every day that you can blow off a day playing with your cousins like that, and everyone seemed to have a really good time. Ian and Jamie have that same deadpan, "are you really serious?" sense of humour, which had me shaking my head more than once as I listened to them, but it was fun to see them together. Ted, Alice, Ian and Amy left around four to go and see Tai Tai and Ho Ho at their house, and Jamie and Liam played with the present that they'd received last night from Ian, Amy, Ted and Alice. We ate dinner with the Browning folk, as is usual for a Monday night, and the kids were happy when they went to bed.

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

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