Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 3 No. 16

2009-11-24 22:16 (Kristen) Today was Jamie's dentist appointment to fix his front tooth, which he was happy about and nervous about at the same time. His appointment was at the awkward time of 11:15, as we had to drop Liam off at Hakobune at 10. Rather than do a whole bunch of driving back and forth, we decided to just take Jamie with us. He enjoyed a mellow morning at Starbucks with Grammie and me, and then was a star at the dentist. I lay on the chair and Jamie lay on top of me, and our dentist, Dr. DaCosta, was very patient and informative with Jamie. I think that the hardest part for Jamie, in truth, was not being able to ask questions for part of the procedure as he needed to keep his mouth open in a particular position at that point. He did very well, and I was proud of him. We took him for pizza for lunch, as it was lunchtime, and then picked up Liam. We brought Jamie back to school, then took Liam home. Grammie went to get Jamie, and brought him home for some more homework with Ayami. Liam had woken up early (7:30?), and so was so tired by 8:00, when I had the boys watching So You Think You Can Dance? ("I don't want to watch this!"..."Hey! This is cool! Let's dance too!") that he was rather out of control. Grammie was having dinner out with Auntie Millie at the time, so I bathed the boys quickly and sent Jamie to spend time with Gary and Ayami while I got No Impulse Control and Totally Irrational Boy to sleep by 9:15.

2009-11-25 22:23 (Kristen) It was so dark this morning when I woke up, late, that it looked like it was barely dawn. The clouds were a heavy gray, and it drizzled on and off all day: a textbook example of a dreary November day. The boys had a hard time waking up too, both of them in bed with me after Liam wet himself in the night (possibly forgot to take off his pants on the toilet; I'm not sure how he did it because he was quite wet, but his bed was dry) and came in with me for comfort, and Jamie showed up in the early morning. I got Jamie off to school, arranged a playdate for tomorrow with Jake and Charlie over, then went back to work while Grammie babysat Liam. In fact, Grammie made coffee, did dishes, watched Liam, and made lunch while I worked. This must be what life is like with a wife; I could get used to this. In case it isn't clear, I really appreciate my mom. Jamie had a pizza day lunch, so he wasn't home for lunch, and he had a playdate with Sam after school, so I didn't see him again until I picked him up at 6:45. In the meantime, we took Liam to skating, where he once again dug deep down and managed to both stay on the ice the entire time and skate without his glider for the end. He was pleased as pleased could be with himself. We got a doughnut at Tim Horton's for him (a classically Canadian thing to do after a trip to the arena), then headed home for more Grammie time and work for Mom. It sounds like they had a good time together. I got Jamie, did homework with him, and let the boys play like hysterically happy things with the collapsable tunnel before we started to let them wind down, play Battleship with Gary, and get ready for bed. They still took a while to fall asleep, despite a long story time, and I hope that they sleep well. They were pretty tired today, but that was in part because of the low pressure and dim light from the weather, which meant that I had to have house lights on during the middle of the day. I hope that tomorrow's weather is nicer.

2009-11-26 22:33 (Kristen) I took Liam off to Hakobune this morning while Mom relaxed and did some necessary shopping around the Danforth. Jamie went to school happily and with no trouble. I forgot to mention that he had Scientist in the School yesterday, and was bubbling forth on energy sources after I asked him. He had a good time. Liam had the usual "I don't want to go!" reaction to leaving the house and the usual good time at Hakobune. I brought him home, where he played with the tunnel, cushions, and other objects until it was time to go grocery shopping and to pick up Jamie, Charlie, and Jake. The kids all played around for about 45 minutes outside the school with Michael and Isabelle, and then came home to warm up. I fed them at 5:00, which was just the right time. Jake went home at 6, and Charlie's mom came soon after to get him. John's parents dropped by with some food, and stopped to chat for a bit, which was nice. Jamie did his homework with Ayami, finishing for the week except for some reading. He then played a little Wii with Liam before heading off to Browning for a short playtime with the Finnish son of a friend (relative?) of Tom's. Alexi doesn't speak any English, and Tom reports that any linguistic awkwardness was forgotten in a rousing game of "Attack the Tom." Jamie was home by 9, and the boys were immediately popped into the bath for a shampoo and rinse, and straight into bed. They were asleep around 10:00.

2009-11-27 21:42 (Kristen) Once again it was the mad rush out the door, but Jamie is getting better at understanding how much time he has from the time he gets up to the time we have to leave. He wasn't happy about not riding his bike to school today (strong possibility of rain, not going home after school), and complained bitterly about it until I got him distracted by asking him how to spell words like "stop," "go," and "run." He's still learning how to listen for vowels. I ran back, got Grammie and Liam, and headed out to Hakobune. We arrived on time, dropped off the Liam, and picked him up again at 1:00. He was happy and cheerful, as always, and happy to see us. We went to do a little shopping, then headed home to drop off things before picking up Jamie at school. We had been invited to Liam's friend the Dread Pirate Simon's birthday party, which was to start at four. As the Dread Pirate Simon lives in a different part of the city, we grabbed Jamie and headed out across town. The boys handled the drive well, and Jamie passed the time by telling me about Wyatt, the baby who is coming into his class as part of Roots of Empathy, and what he could do (or not do). This led, unexpectedly, into Jamie asking me to tell him things about my life from before he was born. I told him one or two things, and he asked me to tell him some more before we wandered off into some other topic, but I liked that he was curious. We arrived at Simon's, where the kids played with Simon and his friends, decorated cookies with icing and a billion trillion sprinkles. and ate pizza and some fabulous gelato from La Paloma. As Simon's mom put it, "After looking online at ice cream cakes for half an hour, I remembered that I lived near La Paloma and why was I not just going there?" Good choice, totally. The boys had a lovely time, and we pulled them out, despite still going strong, around 6:20. We got home around half an hour later, then let them organize their own time until 8:45. At that point, I noticed that Jamie's face was practically ghostly (under the remnants of gelato, pizza, and icing). Up to bed we went, where the boys were fast asleep by 9:20 or so. They were both hysterically tired, and I think that we avoided a total meltdown of epic proportions on both sides by milliseconds.

We received a postcard from John two days ago with a picture of Tokyo and Mount Fuji on it, and the boys were very happy to see it. We are wondering if any more postcards might be on their way?

2009-11-28 23:04 (Kristen) We piled into the car to drive Jamie up to Nisshu Gakkuin this morning. We got Jamie to class almost exactly on time, and I got a moment to chat with his teacher (whose name I consistently forget). She asked me who was Japanese in the family, as I clearly don't look Japanese, and I explained it was through Jamie's dad. I can't read if she's just curious, or if there are other levels to the question that I'm missing. I went back to the car to find Grammie and Liam, and we went to the local Starbucks. When I came back, Liam had taken apart the card and chip for his DS, despite repeated warnings not to do so, and I spent a bad minute or two looking for a tiny little chip until Liam informed me that he was sitting on it. After his dropping the thing and cracking the case (not fully, but still...) and jamming cards into the DS the wrong way, I'd had enough. I explained that I was taking it away for a little while, and that was more or less that. He went the rest of the day without his DS, and spent it watching television with Grammie and playing games with Jamie. He survived surprisingly well, actually. What little DS time he had was when he looked over Jamie's shoulder as Jamie played, but I put Jamie's DS up high as Liam is also forbidden his brother's DS. This is because Liam keeps erasing all of Jamie's progress at Kirby's Squeak Squad, and I'm tired of that as well. Jamie is too, but he was very good and understanding about it. Liam also defaulted to playing with the Wii, and made Grammie play with him as I was upstairs, working to meet a deadline. Grammie reports that Liam, frustrated with Grammie, at one point leaned forward slowly and put his face into his hands. Very funny. In the evening, after we picked up Jamie, played at the playground, picked up a donut at Tim Horton's and went home, Grammie made dinner and I played Ladybirds with the boys. They were pretty tired, so I put them into the bath early and we read before bed. I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

2009-11-29 23:46 (Kristen) It was gray and gloomy today, and we needed to turn lights on in the house to read and do much of anything. Jamie was up around 7:45, and Liam was fussing around 8:00. I went in with Liam, and managed to stay in bed with him until closer to 9; then they started to climb all over me or play video games nearby, and that was that. We lazed in our pajamas into the early afternoon, while Grammie watched Christmas movies on YTV with Jamie and Liam. The boys played together very well all day, but were more than a little wound up by 3:00. We went out to run a few errands and had lunch at Harvey's. Jamie devoured his whole burger and some fries, while Liam ate fries, ketchup, and the bun and cheese parts of his burger. The burger itself got nibbled but not much else. We also picked up some Timbits, on Jamie's particular insistence. Once home in the pouring rain (the sky was green, and it felt like living under water), I came downstairs to find Jamie watching Home Alone. I stayed with him to explain the movie, which he'd just turned on: why the boy was home alone, and that the violence was cartoonish, like Team Rocket blasting off on Pokemon, even though it was live action. Glad I did. In the evening, we went off to Browning for some chicken katsu and fun with the Browningites. When we got home, Jamie did a little Japanese homework with Ayami, then it was off to bed. Liam, for some reason, couldn't sleep and tossed and turned until 10:20. No idea why.

2009-11-30 23:03 (Kristen) Despite going to sleep a little late last night, the boys were up early. Why, I have no idea. I got Jamie off to school, then came home to some light housework with Mom. Liam is on Day 2 of No DS, and coped by playing Wii and playing with toys. There are toys all over the place, but he's having a good time. Grammie and I took Liam to his last soccer class of the year, and then off to Tim Horton's for lunch. He liked his bagel and cream cheese, but was looking a little tired. We went to Winners to look for some sheets for the boys' room, and Liam was off and running all over the store. He tried on shoes, much to the amusement of the people around him, oohed and aahed at the pretty dresses and things, and hid amongst the clothes (which I remember doing too as a kid). However, his goodnatured hijinks soon turned into an expression of fatigue, so we headed home. Grammie looked after the boys for a good deal of the rest of the afternoon while I replaced a toilet seat in the bathroom. The boys were tired when we went to Browning, but Liam was exhausted to the point of acting out blindly, in that overstimulated toddler way he still has. We got dinner into the boys but Liam melted down on Daniel and Gary twice, and was only consoled by Tom playing World of Goo with him. I had trivia (we won the semi-finals, for those following along), so Grammie once again became My Heroine by taking the kids home and putting them to bed by 9:00. They were asleep a little after 9, I think, and she says that the boys asked where I was. She told them, and told them when I was expected back. They then fell asleep. Amazing.

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

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