Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 3 No. 14

2009-11-10 22:36 (Kristen) John had a five-minute conversation with Jamie about how you get someone to marry you. "How do you *know*?" he wondered, and John explained that you would likely know because you've been spending a lot of time with this person. Then Jamie wanted to know how proposals worked, exactly, and so John asked him about his prospects. "I could get Makaiya to marry me," Jamie said. "Maybe." John reminded him that he had a lot of time, and that he'd know when the time came. "OK," he said, "but I think that it will be Makaiya."

Today was a Jackman/Hakobune day, and the boys both made it off to school/daycare without incident. Afterwards, I realized that it was my last chance to pick up a piece for part of Jamie's actual day of birth present (a binder with card sleeves for his Pokemon cards for easier display, access, and transport), and made Liam walk all the way from Hakobune to Bathurst and Bloor (over a kilometre, for sure). He complained for part of it, but enjoyed the walk over new and unfamiliar edges, ledges, and benches. Beside the comic store that was our ultimate destination was a toy store I'd forgotten about, and which contained a copy of the old version of Battleship: almost impossible to get, now that the new hexagonal version is available. We played a lot of Battleship over the summer, and Jamie has really wanted a copy of his own, so voila! Luck! I picked it up. We picked up the rest of our things, and Liam was getting pretty tired by this point and so we went home. We went out soon after to get Jamie, and Liam did not step out of the wagon once in the playground. John met up with us and we went home for homework before going to John's parents' house for dinner. It was John's mother's 76th birthday, and we celebrated with takeout Indian food from John's mother's favourite Indian restaurant. Yum. The kids had fun seeing her and being back in their house, as we haven't visited with them much since she's been ill. The boys played the piano, and Jack taught Jamie how to play 'Chopsticks." Once home, we had another rousing game of table hockey with Gary and Ayami, complete with yelling, cheering, and trash talk, before it was early to bed. I think that Jamie took less than five minutes to fall asleep, and Liam not much longer than that. Boy, were they tired.

2009-11-11 46:57 (Kristen) Jamie was up early this morning, and indignant that I hadn't wished him a happy birthday as he crawled over me to get out of bed. I told him that I was still asleep, and wished him a happy birthday, and that was all right. He was excited about opening his presents later in the day, but first we had to take him to the dentist for an emergency appointment when he knocked a filling out of a front tooth. I first heard of it when John called downstairs less than half an hour after I'd dropped Jamie off at school, telling me that the school had called, Jamie had chipped a tooth, and was all right but scared and wanted a parent there. I ran back out the door and sure enough, he'd knocked the filling out of a front tooth he'd had a pulpectomy on when he was 2. It took up about half the tooth, so it looked quite startling. Poor boy and his poor dad went off to the dentist for an assessment, and, as he's in no pain, they'll rebuild the tooth in a week or two. In the meantime, no tough, chewy foods like bagels for him. Vicky, the receptionist, did give him a birthday muffin, however, and he got to have a sushi lunch with his dad at the Eaton Centre, which wasn't bad, before going back to school.

In the meantime, Liam and I watched some of the Remembrance Day ceremonies on television and ran outside to see four vintage warplanes fly by after their 11:00 flyby downtown. It was a pretty mellow morning for us before going out to skating, which was not a great success. He was in a cheerful, happy, excited mood, all ready to skate, until it was time to go onto the ice. Then: he balked. Like a mule. There was no way he was going onto the ice. He claimed that skating was too easy, and that he was afraid of falling. I have no idea what happened. He eventually went onto the ice for about the last fifteen minutes of class, but it wasn't an enthusiastic fifteen minutes. Afterwards, we played with Tom and Jack at their house, and Jamie came over too to play with their older brother, Charlie. John picked us up, we went home for food and homework, and then settled in for a quiet evening while John went to Scrabble.

John came home early, however, so that Jamie could open his birthday presents with all of us. We gave him the first season of Dr. Who, the next three volumes of Bone, and a clear blue plastic binder with plastic sheets inside to hold Pokemon cards, with two new packs of Pokemon cards. I'd put all of his Pokemon cards (minus the new ones) into the pockets, so they're all arranged for display and easy access. The binder was his favourite gift, and he was absolutely delighted to have it. Jamie and I have had a long talk about how Pokemon card trades are supposed to work, so that he won't get fleeced by the bigger kids in the playground, and I'm pretty sure that he's prepared. It's not like any of the kids play; they just trade cards back and forth...but it was the simplest thing that Jamie was most happy with. And that was cool.

2009-11-12 23:10 (Kristen) Liam's nose was running this morning, and Jamie's fighting a cough. Can we please recover from the old viruses before new ones take their places? It meant that Liam, in particular, was in a mercurial mood. One minute he was sunshine and the next the world was coming to an end, or (worse) he just kept up a low-level stream of complaints. Not really like him, but no fun for anyone. Jamie had a good day, but lost two larger paper components of his Pokemon game in the schoolyard. We'll likely get new ones from his friends for his borthday, so I'm holding off on any replacements until then. In the meantime, the kids spent a quiet day at home after school. Jamie and Gary played table hockey, and Jamie disappeared downstairs to play with Gary and Ayami for a little while longer than I realized. When I went to get him, he was tired and very grumpy, and it was less good than usual to drag him upstairs. Liam, this time, fell asleep in less than five minutes, while it took Jamie much longer to fall asleep, after a long long conversation about this and that.

The latest linguistic game in the house is to read a bath book with pictures of a cow, a house, a cat, and so on, and to state what the picture is in English, Japanese, and Spanish (thank you, Go Diego Go!). They look at a picture, and say "Mummy says..." (children then chorus, "Cow!"), "Papa says..." (children chorus, "Ushi!"), and "Diego dice..." (children yell "Vaca!"). Liam, in particular, is acquiring a small arsenal of Spanish words, which is rather fascinating.

2009-11-13 21:54 (Kristen) Today was a professional development (PD) day at school, so the kids were all off for a long weekend. This meant that I took Jamie with us when Liam and I went to Hakobune, and Jamie was able to say hello to the teachers there. He was oddly reluctant to go, and I got it out of him that he missed his friends and teachers; I imagine that he felt odd going back and knowing that he wasn't going to be there himself anymore. Liam stopped for a moment and I thought we might have a scene when he realized that Jamie wasn't going in too, but it was all right. Jamie and I went to Starbucks, like we did this summer, where Jamie played on his DS and mused that it was amazing that two people could become friends over a DS (him and Sadaru). We read some Bone, then went for lunch with John ad Nataraj and made faces at Gary through the window at BMV. John drove us to pick up Liam and drove us all home before going off to some appointments of his own. The rest of the day was pretty low energy, but the energy ramped up again when we went over to Browning for dinner. Much fun and mayhem ensued, then it was time for home, and bed. Liam has Rhyming Dust Bunnies almost completely memorized, and I need a copy of our own, stat.

2009-11-14 47:04 (Kristen) Jamie made it to school this morning, and John made it to the market to pick up our groceries. When he came back, we had a bank appointment and had to take Liam with us. He was good as gold for the long time we were there, playing with his DS and checking in with us on occasion to make sure that we were still there and still loved him--check, back to his DS. We put him in the office one over because (for a series of long and silly reasons) the office we were in did not have an outlet for his DS charger. We finished up, picked up things for Jamie's party tomorrow, and then decided on the spur of the moment to go and get Jamie en famille. Liam started to complain that he was feeling sick, halfway up, but it really meant "I'm falling asleep now! Clunk." D'oh. John went and played with Jamie after school for a bit while Liam slept in the car for about an hour and a half. Sigh. He woke up when we got to Loblaws for more party supplies, and was in a pretty good mood. As he'd not been in all that good a mood, good behaviour at the bank aside, the nap was good. We got home, and vegged out for the rest of the day, all of us tired tired. Liam, of course, took a little while to fall asleep because, well, he'd had a nap.

2009-11-15 23:08 (Kristen) Jamie was crazy excited that it was his class party today, and we had about sixteen children show up at Playground Paradise (you don't think that I would have sixteen six-year-olds in my *house*, do you?!) for the festivities. Jamie was very happy and the kids ran until they were just about to lose it when we called them in for snacks. Then it was back out to the playground to play for another half an hour before cake. We had a Star Trek ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, which hit the spot for almost everyone. Yum! Then it was more play before it was time to go. The kids were great, no one was hurt seriously (various bumps and bruises, of course), and Daniel earned a few crateloads of karma points by offering himself as a target to overwound, oversugared kids. It was all good. Jamie spent the afternoon unwrapping presents, and was delighted with them. We have a house full of new toys with teeny tiny parts, so I'll be reorganizing the toys soon to make room for them. We spent the afternoon in a bit of a daze before going to John's parents' house for dinner with them and John's aunts to celebrate all the various birthdays in the family this month. Jamie got a Battleship game from his grandparents, and proceeded to beat his grandfather at it, much to his intense delight. We had fortune cookies, and had a hilarious round of "What's your fortune?" Liam's was "Others love your dramatic side," while Jamie's was the accurate "Friends are more valuable than money." As Jamie's real wish for his birthday was to have a big party with his friends, I'm happy that it came true. The stuff is nice, but friends are where it's at, and he seems to have a nice bunch of them.

Needless to say, the boys were unconscious in about two minutes flat when the lights went out tonight.

2009-11-16 10:11 (Kristen) I forgot to mention, last night, that Liam made us all laugh when we were over at John's parents' house by yelling "Otooo--san!" from the living room when he wanted John's attention. It's the first time he's called John "Dad" in Japanese (although Otosan is formal enough that it could be "father"). He understood everything Hari-kun's mom said to him in Japanese yesterday, and his teachers at Hakobune are saying that he's speaking much more Japanese now. I think that all the Sailor Moon book reading is, in part, paying off. He was speaking Japanese reflexively, I think, last night because he heard other people speaking it, but the inflexion and tone he had in his "Otoooo-san!" was very funny.

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

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