Back to Vol. 3 No. 19, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 3 No. 21.

Jamie Chew's Web Log: Vol. 3 No. 20

2009-12-22 22:51 (Kristen) Today's plan was to run the boys around at an indoor playground and then go to the dentist. Turns out that the dentist is tomorrow, so we got extra time at the playground. Yay! This outing was a big Posse playdate with siblings and a few other friends along for fun. We ended up, for a long list of reasons, at a place called Funnelz, which was pretty big and more than enough fun for all the kids for over three hours. They ran, jumped, slid, and threw foam balls at each other, and ate pizza and drank juice when their engines ran out of gas. Brilliant. They were so exhausted that Liam fell asleep for 20 minutes (which, unusually, was a good thing, as you'll read in a moment) in the car on the way home and I wasn't unhappy. Liam had slept very badly last night; so badly that I had to go into his bed to keep him mostly calm for the rest of the night. Even then, he was awake at 7:07, and while I was able to keep him in bed until 8, it was not restful. I let him get up at 8, I slept until John woke me up at 8:45 to tell me he was leaving for a meeting, and I was a Foul Mummy until I had a cup of coffee. Some days, you do what you can with what you've got to make it through. We had toasted chicken salad sandwiches with cucumbers and avocado on the side for dinner, but Liam refused to eat the chicken salad or the bread, melting down in favour of a cookie. He was denied. Eventually he ate some yoghurt for dinner, and we just had to be happy with that. On the bright side, we put the tree up tonight, which was great. I think that Jamie was about to explode if we didn't put up the tree, or if we did. He was so hapy to be putting the tree up with us that he said that his legs wouldn't stop dancing.John bought some egg nog to celebrate, and Jamie (upon sipping his) declared that the taste was so good that it made him fall to the floor (then he fell to the floor). It also turned him into a zombie, and did a few other things to him. The power of egg nog. The boys finished off the evening by rediscovering their Lego, and played more or less together with that until Liam discovered the tiny tiny pieces of the space ship that Jamie was building. Then it was time to find Liam Lego of his own...

2009-12-23 22:44 (Kristen) John let me sleep in this morning, which was lovely, and appreciated, as Liam was up coughing in the night about half an hour after I went to bed (late). He would cough, scream in anger for a moment, then fall back to sleep. I ended up sleeping in his bed as being there seemed to calm him down faster, but it was a jumbled night again. We went to the dentist in the afternoon, and I am the only one without a return visit planned. Jamie has another tooth with no enamel that needs work, while Liam has a teeny tiny cavity at the very back in a deep crevice in his back tooth. Liam won't need freezing, but Jamie will. In the meantime, I'm delighted to report that both boys were as good as gold for the dentist, and that Liam, when it was his turn, even ran to the chair and sat down, gleefully, with his arms on the armrests. Both boys wore sunglasses to protect them from the bright lights, which made them look like they were sunning themselves as they reclined. I was shopping and met up with them after they'd arrived at the dentist's office, and I found them in the waiting room, playing MarioKart DS with another boy who was also waiting for his dad. The boy's dad came out, saw all three boys playing, and his jaw dropped. It dropped further when he found out that they were all linked and playing the same game. He hadn't known you could do that. Very funny. Dinner was takeout from the Silk Road, as the boys had seen and coveted John's hot and sour soup from eariler in the day. John was out at Scrabble, but came back in time to put the boys to bed. It was late, though, and they were tired.

2009-12-24 22:54 (Kristen) Liam had another bad night, and so did I, and so I was surprised when John told me it was 10:15. Liam had only been up a few minutes earlier, it seemed, and I have no idea when Jamie got up. Justin had come to visit and stay overnight, and was now leaving. Liam demonstrated his new "shy" behaviour to Justin, which continues to surprise me as he's never been shy before in any large way. We spent the day dealing with the last of our Christmas tag ends, and spent the afternoon watching Christmas children's television programming. Jamie helped me and John to put up the Christmas lights outside as the snow gently fell, and then we got packed up to go to my Auntie Millie's for Christmas Eve celebrations. Jamie was fine once we got there, but Liam was overwhelmed by the strange people (Jeff had brought his girlfriend Jessie, and her two sons Connor and Taylor) and refused to join in. He and John stayed in the living room eating nibblies and watching for the cat, while Jamie and I stayed upstairs. Jessie's boys were tired and not feeling well, so we moved on to presents early. Liam was willing, by this point, to come upstairs for presents and to not scream, and we spent a happy half hour doing just that. Then it was time to go home, and we did (stopping off at a McDonald's for a snack before bed, as the boys hadn't eaten as much as I would have liked). They were willing to go to sleep much more quickly than usual because they were tired, it was late, and because Santa doesn't come unless you're asleep. And that's important.

2009-12-25 24:40 (Kristen) I don't know what time Jamie was up, but Liam and I slept until about 9. I had to wake Liam up with promises of presents; he was solidly and completely asleep, and I felt badly waking him. However, Jamie was *very* ready to go downstairs to find what Santa had left. He was very excited to see the note that Santa had left, thanking Jamie for the cookies that were left out (as Jamie was very worried that I'd forget, he was happy to find the proof that I'd not forgotten), and was so happy to find proof that Santa existed. Santa left Liam a Connect 4 game and Jamie a certificate indicating that he was now a Captain at MechQuest (a commission purchased by Santa). We all enjoyed opening our stockings, and then headed over to Browning for the traditional breakfast and present opening. We opened the rest of our presents there, and I think that Jamie enjoyed having Super Mario Bros. the most, while Liam was very very happy to have his own copy of Rhyming Dust Bunnies. Unusually, we didn't go to Ottawa today, as John (our sole driver) is very tired and worn out from traveling, so we'll be going tomorrow. Instead, we stayed and played at Browning for most of the day, then headed home for a dinner of leftover Chinese food and fresh dumplings. John and I have been getting prepared for our drive tomorrow, and we hope to leave very early to avoid the unpleasant ("wintry mix") road conditions on the highway tomorrow as a winter storm moves in with freezing rain, etc. Wish us luck!

2009-12-26 23:59 (Kristen) The threat of deeply unpleasant weather had us up, awake, fed, and on the road by 9:30: a new car trip record for us, I do believe. The boys were good, and kept themselves entertained with Timbits from a pitstop early on the way. The highway was wet, with enormous plumes of white spray kicked up by passing cars and heavy trucks creating a heavy mist over the road. At certain points, I didn't even try to focus on the road, and was glad that John did. We arrived three hours later in Kingston, where we stayed for two hours, enjoying time with Ted, Alice, Ian, and Amy, and eating delicious ham and cheese sandwiches with faces of Elmo and Cookie Monster on them. Alice had received a Sesame Street sandwich grill, and Liam was very excited at the sight of it, so that's what we did for lunch. After a pleasant time exchanging gifts and catching up, we headed back onto the road. The roads were drier after Kingston, but the freezing rain that had fallen earlier in the day was still causing problems on the 416. Night started to fall as we headed up the highway, and it was dark by the time we reached Ottawa proper. Liam and Jamie were watching Backyardigans by this time, and everyone was happy and doing well, if a little stir crazy. When we arrived in Ottawa, Becky, Auntie, and Grammie were waiting for us, and we had lots of fun pouncing, jumping, running, talking, hugging, and doing all those things we needed to catch up on. The boys were still a little tightly wound, but were doing better after dinner. Poppy was over by then, and we all exchanged presents and had a great time until it was time for bedtime. The boys had Grammie tell them a story, and they fell asleep pretty quickly.

2009-12-27 23:11 (Kristen) I had, at any given time last night, one or two boys either beside or on top of me. I suspect that Jamie was trying to wake me up on purpose when he did that, as the words "I'm bored!" may have escaped his lips, but it was too early in the morning for me to want to hear them. Liam just lay as close to the edge of the bed as he could, requiring me to not be fully asleep, as I had to make sure that he didn't fall out of bed. And I, I was too tired to get up out of bed and find one that was empty. Jamie was up at 8:15, and I think that Liam and I weren't that far behind. They played with Becky and did a little of this and that before we all got into the car to go for Sunday brunch with my dad and Liz. The boys were happy to see them, but Liam was a little shy about being in a room full of people, even if they were loved people. He hung back and ate muffins in the kitchen, which made him happy. Jamie was all over, I think, and a bottomless pit of a boy. Much fun was had by all, and the boys enjoyed the musical part of the day, which included Grandpa, Jen, and Anna seranading the rest of us. My father has given me his old guitar, which he played for me when I was a little girl, and I'm not sure who got more pleasure out of seeing my boys strum the strings as I chorded, me or him. The boys certainly enjoyed it, and seeing what different sorts of sounds they could make on the guitar and why. Eventually, it was time to go home, and the boys played with Owen the whole way. He came back to Grammie's with us and romped and wrestled with Jamie and Liam, to their great delight. We had dinner, and watched the new Star Trek movie all together before it was time for Jen and Owen to go home, after which the boys, John, Grammie and I finished the movie off. Liam was behaving like a very tired boy and Jamie was too, in retrospect, as they fell asleep very quickly once we got them into bed and read them The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. The Grinch got far far fewer questions than the Star Trek movie did and was easier than the Trek movie: fantasy is always easier to explain than bad, if fun, physics.

2009-12-28 23:54 (Kristen) Today's outing was a visit to the house of our friend Badger and his family. We had Owen with us, and the boys were thrilled to have him with us both on a trip to the mall, including a mad game of tag at the play park, and in the car to Badger's. Jamie announced that he knew Badger's address, which suprised us: "Well, what is it?" "Fish!" he announced triumphantly, as Badger's house has a fish on the front of it. Well, there you go. Once we got there, we exchanged presents and saw that Grammie, Jen, Becky, and Ian were already there. The kids romped and played for hours, the adults talked, and wonderful food was eaten by all. My highschool friend Kate came too, with her lovely twin girls, and the afternoon was full of fun and remembering. Jamie and Liam played well with everyone, but the highlight of Jamie's day was when Badger gave him a kung fu lesson. The boy has to work on his punches, but he has a killer elbow attack. He was delighted, and asked Badger to teach him more and more techniques for about ten or fifteen minutes. He walked off happy, and John and I were deeply delighted ourselves with how much he'd enjoyed himself. Eventually things wound down, and we went to Poppy's to have some dinner. The kids played together happily, watched television, and the adults did the same. By the time we got home, the boys were exhausted and happy, and so were we.

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

Back to Vol. 3 No. 19, or up to Jamie Chew's Web Log Archive. or forward to Vol. 3 No. 21.