Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 3 No. 15

2009-11-17 23:09 (Kristen) This morning, Liam insisted (unusually) on accompanying me and Jamie to school. As it was 8:35, we were leaving, and Liam was still in his pajamas, this posed a problem until I decided to put his sneakers on without socks, and let him come in his coat and pajamas. I wrapped a blanket around his legs and put him into the wagon, and problem solved. He had fun at soccer, and Jamie had fun at school, and all was well. In the evening, we were over at Browning for dinner. Simon, Peter, and Leslie were there, and Liam and Simon had fun playing with Tom. At one point, Jamie and Liam were attacking Basil, Ross's friend who was also over for dinner, and Liam kept yelling "Demon fang! Demon fang!" This is, apparently, a spell in the video game "Song of Symphonia," and Liam has picked up on it as a thing to yell at a person while attacking them. Good grief. A good time was had by all, and the boys were in bed far too late, again. Tomorrow night, we'll have to go to bed much earlier or it will be Not Good.

Please note that John has been working feverishly to update the photos of the boys in the blog, and that we are now Up To Date. We've also sorted out some problems with missing entries (some fixable, some requiring rewrites), and we hope that everything is Peachy Keen, Hunky Dory now with the blog as a whole.

2009-11-18 25:18 (Kristen) Liam was fine this morning with staying home while I took Jamie to school, and decided that he wanted to stay home all day to play DS instead of going to Hakobune. Not an option. There was some yelling, tears, and general protest as I hauled him off to the bus stop, but I explained when he was still crying on the bus that this was not on, and why, and he gulped back the tears and stopped. Strangely rational sometimes, is Liam, but you can never really comfortably predict it. He brightened up, of course, by the time we got to the daycare, and he ran off as usual without a second glance. John and I picked him up afterwards, did a little shopping, then headed for home. He got to play his DS for an hour or so as I ran errands in the neighbourhood and he got to sit in the wagon. More than one adult looked at him, enviously. We got Jamie, and came home for some intense Papa time before he leaves on his long, two-week-long trip tomorrow. Liam is, I think, more sensitive to this departure than before, and is insisting on more personal time, or he could just be crabby in general. Jamie is an old hand, and knows that he'll get to talk with John on Skype, so it's not all bad. John's mom came by and Jamie did some Japanese reading with her. There was some intense World of Goo playing, I think, with John and boys, and then it was bedtime. This required one last game of Bath Towel Vampires, but Liam pointed out that he is allergic to purple bath towels, and therefore cannot be turned into a vampire by Jamie (who was wearing a purple bath towel). We wonder where this idea of "being allergic" to something made it into the mind of our three-year-old boy...

2009-11-19 23:18 (Kristen) John left this morning for a two-week trip in Asia (Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore). His taxi arrived after he walked Jamie to school, and played one final level of Kirby with Liam. He got a kiss from Liam and a hug too. Liam and I hung out for a bit, then picked Jamie up at school for lunch. We had lunch, dropped Jamie off at school, then went to skating. The instructors pulled out the glider again, as Liam was somewhat apprehensive about going back onto the ice, and he spent most of the class with it again. I think he just needed a little confidence again. When he wanted to get off the ice, I told him that he could if he skated to the red line and back without it. He did, and didn't fall, which ended the class on a good note for him.

We played over at Charlie, Jack and Tom's house afterwards, and Jamie came along too for what has been a Wednesday afternoon tradition. Unusually we didn't have to head back early to do homework before John went to Scrabble, so we were home around 5:30 or so. We, daringly, did homework after dinner and it worked out. It helped that it was math, which Jamie can do in a heartbeat. This page took longer because there was colouring involved. As recompense, we did some timed addition practice, and Jamie tore through 40 very simple (x+1) addition questions in a little more than a minute and a half. He liked that. Liam did some mazes earlier in the day, and I'm hoping to get him back into the habit of working when Jamie does. It was later than it should have been when we got to bed, as I was pretty tired and losing track of time too easily.

2009-11-20 22:28 (Kristen) My alarm was set at the right time, but my morning routine fell apart quicker than I would have liked. We did manage to catch John on Skype this morning aorund 8, when he was about to go to bed in Japan. It made the kids happy, but I fell behind in my appointed tasks and got Jamie to school just as the second bell sounded. Gleep. Liam and I, after what was a stressful departure from the house in pouring rain, wandered over to McDonalds for an apple juice and a sausage McMuffin. Liam was cute and remarkably quiet as he wolfed the whole thing and ate some of my hash browns besides. He never eats the hash browns. Sigh. It's not like I needed the calories anyway... I dropped him off at Hakobune, and note that it's the first time in ages that he didn't ask to play his DS on the subway, even though I'd put him into the stroller for ease of movement (for me). He, in fact, didn't remember it until we were on the subway on the way home. In the meantime, Mrs. Sasaki told me that Liam has joined in the Christmas pageant rehearsals (last year he completely refused) and has been dancing and singing. He's been dancing around the house lately, with lots and lots of spins, and he does like singing. Cool! We went to Book City because he asked to, after a few errands, but he wasn't interested in the books by the time we got there. We had a bathroom break, picked up some groceries at the Big Carrot, and went to get Jamie. Jamie came out into the rain wearing his sneakers and no coat, so we went inside for another Liam bathroom break and to dress Jamie properly. Jamie is excited because his class is going to have a baby from Roots of Empathy visiting (Wyatt) next week. I reminded him that Liam had been a Roots of Empathy baby, and Jamie asked why he wasn't one too. This required explanation that babies in the program have to be a certain age by November, and Jamie hadn't been born until November. OK, he'd concede that one. We went home, vegged, ate dinner, and then did homework and wrote out thank you cards for birthday presents. We had a long Skype session with John (almost like being there but you don't have to wipe bottoms), and then I put the boys into the bath early. Liam by this point was crazy tired, and had his impulse control on Off. It was just better that way, and he fell asleep pretty quickly. Jamie took longer, but it still wasn't all that long.

2009-11-21 23:18 (Kristen) Our morning was made much much easier by Tom's offer to drive Jamie up to Nisshu Gakkuin. Yay, Tom! I think that Jamie enjoyed himself. Liam and I folded laundry (rather, I folded laundry and Liam didn't knock it over too much), and chatted a little with John on Skype. We picked Jamie up at school, played a bit in the playground, and when plagued by hunger and caffeine withdrawal, we went and had a quick snack at Starbucks. Home again by four, then off to Browning for dinner at 6. We stayed for quite a long time, enjoying a quiet evening of video games and company before Tom helped me to bring the kids home. We had a quick bath, after which I combed the kids' hair. Jamie laughed at the wing appearance of Liam's hair when I combed it back smoothly, and laughed even harder when I did it to his hair. "I look like Malfoy!" he laughed, and I had to admit that I'd been thinking the same thing. But our Jamie won't be in Slytherin House, that's for sure! It was a day that went more easily with friends. Both boys are crazy excited that Grammie is coming tomorrow, and we're all looking forward to her safe arrival.

2009-11-22 23:28 (Kristen) Today was spent largely in anticipation of Grammie's arrival. Jamie declared that he was *so* excited that he could hardly stand it, and Liam kept asking when Grammie was going to be here. I had plans to take them to a playground in the afternoon, but Jamie begged to be allowed to stay home. Since he runs about so much normally, I didn't see a problem with that until later. The boys played a lot of DS and did a little of this and that for the day until Grammie arrived. Then the smiles were large, and the pouncing was great, and they were delighted to have her here. I had gone out in the morning to pick up something and the boys had spent the morning with Gary and Ayami, so after Jamie did his homework with Ayami in the evening, I said no going downstairs. We excavated some velociraptor, and then the boys discovered that their brother was a fun person to play with. They spent about half an hour running around the house like mad wild things, pretending to be pirates and laughing nonstop the whole time. Liam was most definitely a pirate if you asked him about it. "Are you the Dread Pirate Liam?" "YES!" The boys have plans for Grammie for this trip. Pirates may or may not be involved. At 8:00, I decided that it was time to wind down, and put the boys into the bath and read them books/let them watch Anpanman. The lights were out a little after 9, and they definitely needed the 8:00 stop time to wind down at that time. Jamie fell asleep pretty quickly, but Liam flopped and tossed for a little while before finally falling asleep.

2009-11-23 22:04 (Kristen) I forgot to mention that, when my mother arrived yesterday, she was in such a hurry to get out of the house that she forgot her suitcase. However, a veteran traveler, she had her toiletries and sundries in another bag. She had just exclaimed that she at least had some underwear, when we heard from the next room "Underwear!" and a huge laugh. That was Liam, in a startlingly quick display of preschool wit. It was quite funny. "Underwear!" *snehsnehsneh* Grammie watched Liam while I took Jamie to school, and then we hung out until it was time to take Liam to soccer. Liam was not entirely focused on his game, running about then coming to me to ask for a snack, a cuddle, or just to check in. My mother says that I did the same thing at his age when I was in ballet class. Liam had two collisions with other kids that more or less ended the class for him, but he was all right in time to join the final circle and get a sticker on his hand. We then went to Winners to get some clothes for my mom, and Liam ate a fair amount of chicken curry from a west Indian curry place in the food court nearby. While in the mall, Liam insisted on getting (but was denied, gently) a very shiny pink purse and a pair of white and pink winter boots. I explained that we weren't buying anything today, but he was still heartbroken temporarily when we left the stores without them. They were pretty, and my son likes pretty things. We went back home, and I picked Jamie up after school. The weather was turning cold, so he didn't mind too much that I asked him to come home. In the meantime, Sam gave Jamie a birthday present (Mario Power Tennis for the Wii!) and they made a playdate for Wednesday. Once home, Jamie did some homework with Ayami and with me before we went to Browning for dinner. Tonight was the Big Experiment: I went to trivia, leaving Grammie to take the boys home (with help from Tom and Gary), and put them to bed Without Mummy or Papa. I had a great time at trivia, and came home with a feeling of some trepidation, wondering what I would open the door to. First I couldn't open the door because Grammie locked it, but once in I was greeted with: silence. Both boys went to sleep for Grammie like little angels. Wow. No fuss, no bother. It was the first time that the boys went to bed for anyone other than me or John, and apparently Jamie declared that he was going to stay awake for me and wait just before he fell asleep. Liam took a little longer, and asked for me, but it was more a statement than a demand. He too fell asleep. What a feeling of liberation. I think that I could do this again!

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

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