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Jamie and Liam Chew

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NOTE: If it's your first time reading Jamie and Liam's diary, you might find it less confusing to start with the older entries first. Or you can help test the new interface, which works fine if you have a monitor that displays at least 1024 pixels across, and less fine at the moment if not.

2008-10-28 23:44 (Kristen) I've been getting a fair amount of housework done, which is nice. I think that I've washed and folded 3/4 of the boys' clothes in the last two days, and taught Jamie to fold up and put away his own pajamas after wearing. Yay us! Liam was up at 7:50 to pee, and Jamie was up at 9:30 or so. Jamie complained of being tired for a lot of today, but that might also be the result of a few days of inactivity. Both boys are spotty, and they had a twenty-minute spree this morning where they lost their minds at the same time. Unsure what caused that. Liam napped for only 40 minutes or so today, as I ran down to the Big Carrot for bread, with Liam encased in plastic to keep the germs inside and the very blustery weather outside. When I brought him home into our front hall, however, he didn't sleep for much longer. He was half asleep for a while, then perked up enough to roam about causing trouble for the rest of the day. Sigh. He was clumsy and a real danger to himself and others by the time we got him into bed tonight.

Jamie was too tired to do any real reading today. He just wasn't in the mood. He did like the little Lego 3-in-1 toy that I bought him, and Liam and Jamie liked the reusable firehall stickers that I bought for them (they're thin vinyl-like stickers, which I remember using when I was a kid) too. It was a day of quiet and extreme goofiness as we all dealt with varying forms of cabin fever. John and Jamie are now two stars away from unlocking Luigi in Super Mario Galaxy (that's 118 stars, for those who are paying attention), and they're pretty focused on that. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

2008-10-29 12:16 (Kristen) I went to check the mail a few minutes ago, and found a card made of orange construction paper with four colourful feathers on it and addressed to Jamie. On the inside, Jamie's posse had all signed their names, and a parent (I assume) had written: Dear Jamie, We hope you get better soon. You are so funny. Love Parker, Sam, Charlie, and Jake. Jamie was quite moved by the card in his small boy way, and we're all so touched by their thoughfulness. I told Jamie that he has a great group of friends, and that he must be a great friend to have such great friends. He nodded, and moved on to his next activity, like all small boys his age. In other developments, I'm teaching him to tie a bow using the "bunny ear" method. We can move on to other, more complicated, ways later in our program.

2008-10-30 23:51 (Kristen) It is nice and quiet now. It was not nice and quiet earlier. Both boys are hitting the "we're bored and want to go outside and play and be with our friends, and ..." Jamie in particular didn't pause much for breath today as he asked me question after question after question, and often not pausing to listen to the answer before being distracted by something else, which resulted in a lot of "What did you say?" and my repeating myself on average 2-3 times a question. Usually, the questions were "what does [idea, colloquial phrase, word] mean?" or questions about character motivation and plot advancement while watching The Last Unicorn. The questions usually were answered in the dialog of the movie, but Jamie was too impatient to wait. While I welcome, on one level, this opening of the intellectual floodgates, I was exhausted by noon. Liam contributed to the mayhem by wanting to do his "work" all day. We're finished the second cut and paste book in a week, and Liam melted down when I told him that we had no more to do. He was mollified by some folding work and some cutting, but he's a hazard with scissors. He just wants to cut up the expensive little pages in the workbooks himself, turning them into fringes. I gave him some white paper to do that with, but he still wants the pretty pieces. When I take them away, BOOM! Again, I was exhausted today by noon. Both boys were doing bright, intelligent, useful things, which was great, but...but...but...

John was out for what felt like much of the day, doing university stuff (he has an external advisor! Yay!) and taking his mom to T&T. When he was home, he was pounced upon too. I should have taken the photo of John stretched out on the living room floor, asleep, because Liam insisted on company while he watched "Backyardigans." I took Liam out for a walk around 3:30, as I figured he wasn't going to sleep as he'd woken up close to 10 this morning (as did I, after passing out with him last night), but of course he fell asleep at 3:45. I woke him up after an hour or so, which was loud but not too painful. When I arrived home with a sleeping Liam, John was outside with Jamie as Jamie rode his bike up and down the sidewalk. They'd already played soccer and possibly a game of chase; I don't quite remember. Jamie rode his bike some more, hiding near houses when people came by so that he wouldn't give them his chickenpox. Sweet boy. Both boys had a great deal of difficulty falling asleep tonight, and I don't think that Jamie was actually asleep before 10:45. They're on the cusp of being better, but not quite yet, so the quiet, indoor days are making them a little crazy, I think. Tomorrow is Hallowe'en, and we'll take the boys out for a little trick or treating in costume, as they aren't very communicable any more, especially if we stay outside.

2008-10-31 24:14 (Kristen) We all slept in again today, which leads me to thinking about what was good and what was not so good about this last week. Good: sleeping in, and not having to make so many lunches. Bad: having the chicken pox. Good: Jamie and Liam spent a lot of time together, and are enjoying each other's company. Bad: They wind each other up, and run screaming through the house like wild elephants. Good: they're done lots of homework, crafts, and arty things. Bad: they've also watched more television than they have in their entire lives. So, all in all, it'll be good to get back to our old routine on Monday, when we're going to send Jamie back to school. Liam's going to miss him, and miss telling me the instant Jamie does something to hurt Liam even slightly. "Mi! Mi!" (pats head to indicate pain), he says, and I know exactly what happened...Jamie also polices Liam like a hawk, so they're more or less even.

It being Hallowe'en, Jamie was very excited. He helped to draw the face on his pumpkin, which turned out very nicely. John made an Anpanman pumpkin, which drew out exclamations of "Anman! Anman!" from Liam when he saw it. The Sasakis, who run the boys' daycare, dropped off their Hallowe'en candy from the Hakobune party, in the pumpkin bags that the boys had decorated themselves. Liam was very proud of his. The Sasakis liked the Anpanman pumpkin, and liked Jamie's costume, as it was after 5 and Jamie was Ready to Go. Liam was not in his knight outfit, as he'd pitched a fit (no nap this afternoon, despite our trying) when I put it on him. Mrs. Sasaki noted wryly that it is impossible to get Liam to do something that he really doesn't want to do. We concur. We did, however, manage to convince Liam to wear his costume when it was time to set out trick or treating. John took the boys out, and they ran into a number of Jamie's classmates. Liam and Jamie were more interested in playing than in trick or treating; John said that they wouldn't go to houses that were too scary, or had dry ice, or for other reasons. Jake, on the other hand, easily went to 10 houses for every 1 that Jamie and Liam went to. He's a candy acquiring machine. Somewhere along the way, Liam shed his costume and shirt, and was complimented on his Bruce Lee outfit (?!?!). Later in the evening, at home, he got rid of the rest of his clothes, much to the amusement of Daniel and Ross, as Liam ran out of the house, stark naked, to see them when they dropped by for the last candy of the night.

Jamie did well with his candy, getting lots of chips and other non-chocolatey snacks by telling people that he was allergic to chocolate (which he is). Liam, on the other hand, is all about the chocolate. Smarties, in particular, but chips will certainly do too. They were pretty hopped up on candy when bedtime rolled around, but Liam fell asleep easily because he'd not napped. Jamie, on the other hand, was awake until 11, just unable to wind down from the excitement of the night.

2008-11-01 46:43 (Kristen) I fell asleep putting Liam to bed, as it was after 11:00, and I was tired. This is what I can remember of the day.

We all got up somewhat late again, but in reasonable moods. We headed out en famille to the market, after convincing Jamie that he had to go too. The boys had a good time, and enjoyed getting tempura and sushi to go on the way home. Jamie, however, ended up not eating much, and was reminding us for the rest of the day, once he'd realized the situation, that he'd not eaten lunch. Liam napped from 2:30 until 5, which was not a Good Ting in the end, because he didn't go to sleep until afte 11. Jamie and John got another star in Super Mario Galaxy, and phoned me about it while I was out with Liam. That is pretty much all I can remember.

2008-11-02 22:12 (Kristen) We'd have been up at 9 this morning if we hadn't switched to standard time during the night. As it was, the new time had us up at 7:50, which wasn't really all that bad. We had breakfast, or at least Jamie and I did. Liam only nibbled, and really wasn't much in the mood for food unless it was candy or popcorn. The funny thing, though, is that he really doesn't like chocolate, or he sure didn't today. He'd take a bite of a Smartie and spit it out, and did the same with an Aero bar. What he likes to do, however, is feed me Smarties, one by one. Yummy, but we're restricting the number of candies he can feed me a day. I feel like a Luma (Super Mario Galaxy joke).

Jamie and John got their 120th star, and finished the latest stage of Super Mario Galaxy. They've been working on this for a while, and there was much celebrating. Now they get to do it all over again with Luigi, who I am told has better jumping skills and is faster but harder to control. Liam and I went out for a walk, and Liam slept until a little after 4, waking up by himself when I brought the stroller in to the house. That was good, as I was about to wake him up and it was better that he wake up on his own. He's been nursing rather constantly at night, and a rummage about in his mouth has revealed the other side of the molar he was working on. So, only two to go. John and Jamie rode their bikes around tonight to deliver birthday invitations to the posse. Everyone was happy to see Jamie, and to know that he was feeling better. Oh, and the party was a good thing too.

It was a quiet evening, with puzzles, games, and the usual. We put the boys to bed early, but Liam still took until 10 to fall asleep. As it really is 11, it's like he fell asleep at the same time as last night, but I get to be awake afterwards. John took a lively and jolly Liam downstairs while I got Jamie to fall asleep, as both boys have been insisting on having me put them down for the last little while. I have no idea why, but it means that I'm spending lots of time in dark rooms...

2008-11-03 16:40 (John) No complaints from Jamie about going back to school today, and he was full of energy at soccer class. Sam and Charlie invited themselves over after, so while Kristen was out with Liam, I made the boys lunch, adjudicated concerning which Wii game would be played for how long (Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, Lego Indiana Jones), and ran them back to the schoolyard with a soccer ball at dismissal time to rejoin their families.

2008-11-04 23:44 (Kristen) Today was met with a great deal of joy by both boys as they were finally allowed back into their usual routines, with their usual friends. As John wrote, Jamie was delighted to be with his friends again, and they missed him too. Charlie's mom was telling me that the boys were very concerned about Jamie, and Charlie in particular worried that Jamie wasn't going to be well in time for Hallowe'en. He told his mom, in fact, that if Jamie couldn't trick or treat, that he (Charlie) would give Jamie some of his own candy. Wow. What a great friend. When I met up with Jamie and John at the school, Charlie's mom remarked that Jamie was looking much better, and was still running around on a great big high from being with his friends again. And he was.

Liam was very happy about having a walk over to Browning for lunch, and when he saw Tami come out onto the front porch, looking for us, ran up to her and gave her a big hug. Tami was very happy about that. After picking at lunch in his usual fashion of late (he did eat if he didn't have to sit at the table, the tiny rat), he sat at the table while we talked about the fact that Liam didn't like chocolate. I forget exactly how it came about, but Michelle offered Liam some Rockets, which he *loves*. He patted his chest emphatically to indicate that he, Liam, was to have the Rockets. When she gave them to him, Tami (who was sitting beside Liam) asked if she could have some too. Liam gave her a Look, and said "no." He then drew the Rockets away from her, just in case she was going to press the point. This was so much like Michelle's younger son, Ross, at the same age that we all started to laugh. After he'd gobbled about half, Liam let Tami help him to count how many were left. Then he picked up the rest in his little fist, and pointed at Tami accusingly. Tami protested that she didn't try to take a Rocket. More accusation. Tami protested that she didn't *have* any Rockets. It took a minute or more for the penny to drop that Liam was messing with Tami by accusing her of taking Rockets that he was deliberately hiding. Once we all started to laugh and exclaim, Liam called out, in a "Lassie come home" tone, "Rooockettt!" and touched his index finger to his chin, saying "Hmmm...hmmm..." like he was thinking about where those darn Rockets could be. It was very very funny. He's going to be dangerous, that one.

Liam slept for two and a half hours, and woke up not long before I arrived at the schoolground to spell off John and watch the boys play for a bit. We took a leisurely walk home, meeting up with our friend Lisa Kessler on the way, who kindly shared her pretzels with two small locusts. We went to Browning for dinner, where Jamie was ecstatic to play with Gary for the first time in a week and a half, and where Liam had a Tom all to himself. When it was time to go, Michelle intimated that it was time to go to bed for Liam. Liam then grabbed a comforter and climbed onto the couch, declaring "nene" and lying down with the comforter over himself, ready to "sleep." He's got quite the sense of humour now! John got the boys into the bath, and says that Jamie fell asleep easily while Liam took more convincing. It was a great day, with both boys so clearly and unreservedly happy to be outside, interacting with their friends, and back to their old routines. It was a wonderful day to be with them.

2008-11-04 22:14 (Kristen) I forgot to say that Jamie saw a puppet show yesterday at school, and spent a great deal of time talking about it, detailing plot, characters, and other details. He wanted to make his own puppets afterwards, which was great! We haven't done it yet, but I'm collecting craft supplies. Today was more of our return to routine. John took Liam into Hakobune, and when he picked him up, took him to Loblaws before going home. I went with Jamie to skating, where he did very well. I had a vision of myself in six years, cooling my butt on an arena bench as Jamie is at a 6 am hockey practice, but shook my head quickly. We went back to Jake's house for the usual lunch and play, followed by a playdate at our house, and topped off by a romp through the lovely fall day to the playground at Jackman. I brought the boys home after a good play, and we had a quiet dinner, followed by a quiet evening at home. It was a good day, over all.

2008-11-05 24:00 (John) Wednesdays are often a blur for me, as trying to compress my usual day into the period before I have to leave for the Scrabble Club can be difficult. I know Liam was up early, as was Jamie. Jamie spent five or ten minutes, maybe longer, lying on top of me as I tried to sleep until the alarm went off, but his heart didn't seem to be in it for a change. I got Jamie to school on time, came home, did yardwork and deskwork for the rest of the morning while Kristen kept Liam busy downstairs. Jamie accidentally got Jake's elbow in his nose during a game of Papa the Monster, which provided a convenient excuse to adjourn, but used up quite a bit of Kleenex (thankfully no blood, just tears). While Jamie was at Hakobune, I worked on reformatting my thesis to look like a 20th century manuscript (double-spaced, I'm tempted to set it in Courier), and his release was a little late as rehearsals have started for the Christmas pageant. Jamie was very tired on the way home (I suspect he's fighting some virus), but when I explained how busy I was getting ready to go out, he did his Nisshu Gakuin homework with me right away and with no complaining (I'll complain for him: 25 pages in one week?!). Over the course of the day, I sneaked a few quality minutes in with Liam, helping him get stuff down from the high shelves where Kristen keeps his stuff for some reason, like his Hallowe'en candy, or toys with small pieces, or the Backyardigans DVDs, etc. He was still awake when I came home, so he pretended to want to sleep with me in each of the beds. Ha, ha, what a joke. When he said he was done sleeping for the night and it was time to go watch TV, Kristen stepped in, tears ensued, and I hope soon sleep.

2008-11-06 24:42 (Kristen) Jamie and Liam were up early again, but I know that Liam is getting up early in part because I keep forgetting to close the blinds. It's not a bad thing, because we'd been sleeping in far too late for a while, but it means that if he's not on the road for his nap by 12:45, he melts down something fierce. Today, John offered to have the posse over for a Thursday playdate, which was great, except that Liam melted down early and threw everything into a tizzy until John took him out for a walk at 1:15. Ken Sagara met up with them, and took over so that John could come back and have a nap (he'd stayed up way too late the night before, what with it being Scrabble night). Jamie and the posse had a good time doing the usual, and I went to collect Liam at 2:30, when he was still sleeping. He woke up when I left the Second Cup, around 3:15, which was great, and so he got a little running around time in at the school where John had taken the posse to run off some energy. Jamie raced around on his bike at a speed I've never seen before--he really loves to ride his bike. He's going to miss it over the winter. We came home with Dylan, Jamie's old classmate from last year who is now in Grade 1, as John is tutoring Chelsea, Dylan's older sister, in Japanese. Jamie and Dylan had fun playing Lego Indiana Jones, while Liam killed a few more brain cells watching Backyardigans. To be fair, both boys weren't feeling all that perky, and John and I are a little nervous because a nasty stomach flu (Norwalk) is making its evil way around the school. It may be starting to go around at Browning too, and we may be eating at home tomorrow night as a result. Stay tuned. John brought back dinner from T&T again, and it was a quiet evening for all of us. The boys were acting tired, so we put them to bed early but they did not go to sleep early. Liam, in particular, was not asleep until 10:20. Jamie went through a period when he was about the same age where he took *forever* to fall asleep--sometimes up to two hours. I fear that Liam is about to go through a similar phase, and I'm not looking forward to it At All.

2008-11-07 23:22 (Kristen) The boys have been getting up earlier, now that we're on standard time. Jamie was tired when he got up, and was spoiling for a fight over something. He told me that he didn't like it when John and I weren't in the same room as him (i.e., why were we not in the bedroom with him?) and he laughed and laughed when I told him that he was just like a cat that I grew up with. At least he was willing to be teased out of it. I took Liam to Hakobune, which he enjoyed with his usual enthusiasm, and I met Jamie and John with some pizza when they arrived at Hakobune at noon. Liam was in a good mood but had a good deal of trouble falling asleep, only doing so at 2:30. I let him sleep until 4, when we picked up Jamie. It seemed to be enough.

I had a manuscript to pick up near Riverdale Farm, so the boys went to see what they could at the farm while I did so. Jamie was disappointed that the goats were off at the Royal Winter Fair, but was happy that the horses were out. Liam let me know that there was a "mama neigh," a "baby neigh," and a "papa neigh." He is working very hard on his enunciation, and it's paying off. We went home for dinner, as there is some sort of evil stomach flu at Browning and we'd like to avoid it. Ross came over to play with Jamie for a bit, which was fun, and we had a generally calm evening at home. Both boys were very tired, but took a while to fall asleep, Liam in particular.

2008-11-08 25:14 (Kristen) John took Jamie to Japanese school this morning, and came back to get Liam for a trip to the market before going back to Nisshu Gakkuin to serve as lunchroom monitor. I stayed home and cleaned in preparation for Jamie's party tomorrow. Let us now state, for the record, that this house has too much stuff in it, and that our usual high standards of neatness will not be met this time around. Sigh. Liam actually ate some lunch and slept for a bit over two hours. Jamie was very tired when he got home, and Liam only wanted to watch television. He melts down over tiny things at the drop of a hat, does our Liam, and he's got to be teething again. He's definitely exhibiting that sort of behaviour. At least, I hope that it's because of teething...

Not much else to report about a relatively quiet day. Jamie and John continue to play Super Mario Galaxy with great success, and Liam still enjoys feeding me chocolates (Smarties, mostly). He melted down when I said that I'd had too much chocolate. Both boys asked to be read to before bed tonight, which was really nice. That was a good way to end the day.

2008-11-09 22:55 (Kristen) The kids were up a little before 9, and I heard Jamie's excited voice trying to get an exhausted John out of bed earlier than that. Jamie definitely knew what was going on today: his birthday party with his friends. I spent the morning cleaning, so that the kids could trash a clean house, and the first guests arrived at the crack of 12. We fed the five kids who came (Sam, Parker, Makaiya, Charlie, and Dylan) for lunch, and then went out to the bus stop to take the TTC down to the theatre for the 1:30 showing of Madagascar 2. The bus driver noted the posse with amusement, and said "birthday party?" Yep. The general response to our group was "brave," and directed at me and John. "Brave" is often code for "freaking nuts!" in my parental experience... WE met up with Peter, Leslie, and Simon, who agreed to join our party at the last minute when we had some extra tickets, and we sat down to watch the movie. Liam didn't fall asleep, but did agree to stay within the theatre. He made friends with another child of approximately the same age, and they spent the last 1/3 of the movie climbing up and down the long, steep stairs of the theatre. John watched the other kids, and they were reasonably well behaved: they wriggled, and climbed, but were mostly quiet. There was one memorable popcorn disaster, but we got off pretty easily. We went home as we went out, on the TTC, and once again owned the back of the streetcar. Or, possibly, were relegated to the back of the streetcar, where we did less damage. Hard to tell. We got home around 4, ate a Madagascar-themed cake that John managed to find at a Dairy Queen 25 minutes away, were joined by Jake (who is afraid of movies), and opened presents. Jamie did very well, getting two Transformers (which made him very happy, lots of Lego, and an odd little toy called a Bakugan. There is, of course, a television show to go with it, in the long tradition of Japanese-style toy tie-ins, but his friends have them too, so it's going to be fun for Jamie to play. They've got magnets in them, which Jamie loves, which also makes it cool. The kids were picked up at 5 or so, and we spent a very quiet evening afterwards until we got the kids to bed early. Jamie was very happy with his day, and told me that he loved everything about what happened today. That's pretty much the response we were hoping for, and so John and I are happy too.

2008-11-10 24:00 (John) Jamie and Liam were tired but malleable for most of the day, partly due to ongoing Birthday Week excitement and partly due to whatever (so far mild, touch wood) seasonal virus is currently passing through the family. We're hoping it's not the norovirus that the school sent out warnings about, though Kristen has some evidence to the contrary.

Kristen looked after Liam in the morning while I worked. Liam has a large repertoire of coping skills to compensate for his speech development, which is a little on the slow side but accelerating by leaps and bounds. He came and found me in the bathroom and said "Boo", which I took to mean the rhyming word (with unvoiced initial consonant) for my current activity. He rolled his eyes and pointed at the bath mat, which was *blue* and patiently waited for the cogs to finish whirring in my brain. "You want... something... blue... like maybe... the blue birthday balloon from yesterday?" Bingo. This evening, he made me locate the one Backyardigans DVD whose case has gone missing by making me fetch the big media binder, pointing at the place where the DVD was supposed to be, touching his finger to his chin and tilting his head in mock quizzical bemusement (which he does very well).

I took Jamie and Charlie (whose family *does* have the norovirus) to soccer class while Kristen took Liam to Browning for lunch. Jamie and I then spent a quiet afternoon together alternately working and playing. We got eight pages of homework done, and Jamie made a birthday card for Tai-Tai (front illustration: poppies growing on a Mexican beach; inside: happy birthday message copied out including appropriate use of kanji).

We then drove down to MEC with Tai-Tai to buy a new winter coat for Jamie, a new knapsack for him, and some sandals for me. The boys loved the store, and it brought back happy childhood memories of running through and hiding in department store aisles of outerwear. We met Ho-Ho, Nobuko and Tomoko at Ema-Tei for Tai-Tai's birthday dinner and ate too much. Jamie impressed everyone by writing the kanji for "nezumi" (mouse) from memory. I'd be slightly happier if he could apply the same effort to learning the Grade 1 kanji set, but I guess at this point the fact that he's learning any at all is commendable. The boys got to bed a little late, but not too much; I hope Kristen is feeling better in the morning.

2008-11-11 21:06 (Kristen) Jamie came into the bedroom early this morning, and was shyly delighted when I sang "Happy Birthday" to him. We had a cuddle before Liam got us up and on with our day. Jamie was the teacher's helper today (because of his birthday) and brought his two new Transformers to show the class. He got a Birthday Boy Crown, which he was very reluctant to remove. Liam went off to Hakobune with John today, and was very happy to go.

I picked up some presents for Jamie from John's aunts at Treasure Island, and spent the last of Liam's birthday money on two presents for him (a toy helicopter with veternarian and sick animals, and a book with stories and some train track and a train in it). Then I went to take Jamie to skating with Jake. When we got back to Jake's house for lunch, Jake's mom Michelle had bought little cupcakes in honour of Jamie's birthday and lit a candle in one for him. Jamie was very pleased. The boys played for a bit, and then came back here for some more play before it was time for Jake to go home. Jamie did some homework and Liam did too, until it was time to go to the Silk Road for Jamie's borthday dinner.

I should note that Jamie wasn't expecting any more presents of note, and told me on the way home that he was saving up all his allowance for a Nintendo DS. I was delighted with this, as we'd already bought the DS! He was quite fixated on it. When he opened it, he didn't recognize the box, but read the letters DS when they were pointed out to him, and he was more than delighted. It is a limited edition Pokemon DS, which is rather cool. He and Gary were playing head-to-head games within seconds (Gary and Ayami bought him some games to go on the DS, as well as making sure that it was all set up and ready for play when Jamie opened it, as well as picking it up for us). He also got a reptile sticker book, a maze book, a book on the earth, and a sorter game that looks quite cool. It was a good haul, complete with a phone call from Grammie, Auntie Jennie, and his cousins Anna, Owen, and Becky singing "Happy Birthday" (his little face glowed). There was ice cream with a candle and another chorus of "Happy Birthday," and the evening was complete. Yay!

And now I have a five-year-old boy in my house. He's pretty awesome, as is his brother. For five years, now, I've been someone's mother, which is a remarkable thing in itself, but that I've been fortunate enough to be mother to two such wonderful boys is beyond all that I could have imagined.

2008-11-12 22:58 (Kristen) John spent most of the day getting ready for his trip to Dallas this weekend, but managed to take Jamie to Hakobune and to help Jamie to finish all his Nisshu Gakkuin homework. Yay! I baked cupcakes for Jamie to take with him, as they were going to have a little party for him today. Jamie came home with two balloons: one for him, and one for Liam. The people who run that daycare are so thoughtful.

I didn't even hear Jamie and John this morning as they were leaving for school. Liam and I were up not long after they left, and I felt a little disoriented for waking up so late. Liam had a quiet morning except for pitching shrieking fits if I tried to get him away from the little DVD player. I remember Jamie being focused on television at this age, but not so much as Liam is. I did get Liam to do some good work with stickers, scissors, and other things later in the day, and I did catch him playing with his new helicopter by himself too. I had been playing with him and the helicopter earlier in the day, which might have helped. I got Liam out the door for his nap around 1:30, and he slept until close to 4. There were exciting rounds of Papa the Monster in the hallway before bath, which involved Liam shrieking at a higher pitch than I can reach, but in utter delight as John pounced upon him for the nineteenth time. Jamie spent the evening playing with Gary and the DS, which was unsurprising, and Jamie has a playdate with Charlie tomorrow to play DS games. I'll be glad for the break, as John will be gone by then and I'll have housework to do so that Grammie, Anna, and Owen will have clean sheets upon which to sleep when they arrive on Friday.

2008-11-13 26:28 (Kristen) I fell asleep when putting the boys to bed tonight, as we were all a little tired. However, Jamie woke me up around 1:30, so here I am. I may not be here for long... The boys had a good day. Jamie went to Jackman, and Liam had a Danforth excursion with me, complete with cookie at the Second Cup. Jamie's playdate with Charlie was cancelled because Charlie got himself grounded, but Sam stepped into the breach and Jamie played happily there. Chelsea came to babysit for two hours, and brought Dylan and his sister Hannah for some happy chaos while I cleaned the house. Quiet evening, but now Liam's back up, and it's time for me to go.

2008-11-14 23:35 (Kristen) In brief: Grammie, Anna, and Owen arrived; Liam and Jamie have colds; we were almost late for school but managed to arrive just in time; much laughter and fun had by all.

I got Jamie to school on time and went with Liam to Hakobune right afterwards. He was happy to be there, as usual, which is always a relief after the trauma of his first few months there. I went back to our neighbourhood to work and picked up Jamie at the usual time. Liam has a cavity in one of his front teeth, where there is a very deep crevice caused by his extra tooth. Although I floss and brush it every night, it is very hard to clean the area and I'm upset but not surprised that the cavity has shown up. It is uncomfortable for Liam when I floss or brush there, which sucks, but we have an emergency dental appointment for Monday. I managed to arrange a playdate with Jamie's friend Charlie for that day, and I once again am glad for good friends with good parents.

Jamie and I got on the subway and gt pizza for lunch, and I hung about and ate my own slice until it was time to get Liam. He fell asleep on the subway, as I wanted to be home when Mom arrived with the kids. Liam woke up just before they arrived, and I had him set up at the DVD player so that I could run out and get Jamie. I shouldn't have worried: when he saw Grammie, he ran to give her a big hug, and I didn't exist any more. I got Jamie, about 15 minutes late, but all was well at Hakobune. Jamie and I had a pleasant ride home, but Jamie was obviously very tired. He too was delighted to see his cousins and his grandmother, and spent a riotous hour with them before we went to Browning to trash their house. It was a good time: Liam monopolized Tom; Owen, Daniel, Ross, and Jamie played Wii; Anna beat Gary 2-1 at Jenga. I put the kids straight to bed, but Liam's cold is really stuffing up his little nose. He wasn't asleep before 10:40 or so, which was not good. Jamie fell asleep a long time before that, at around 9:45 or so.

2008-11-15 23:51 (Kristen) This morning, I got Jamie up around 8 with an 8:15 departure, because he really needed the sleep. I was a little nervous, because we were going to eat on the subway and I know that he hates being rushed and doing that, but he was absolutely great. We left Liam behind with Grammie, and made it to Nisshu Gakkuin just in time for the bell, and with breakfast inside us. I stayed to watch Jamie's class for a bit, as it was Observation Day, and then went home to find Liam. John's parents went up for a bit and spent lunch with Jamie (which was good, as I had asked them to take Jamie his lunch, as I'd forgotten it), and then I went to get Jamie and bring him back home. In the meantime, I spent time with Liam and Anna and Grammie, while Owen spent some time over at Daniel and Ross's house. They really hit it off last night, and it was good for Owen. Liam's cold got worse last night, and he's pretty miserable, but he did get to sleep for an hour and a half when Grammie and Anna took him for a walk. They ended up at the Second Cup, and Jamie and I met them there.

Dinner was at the Silk Road, where we ate with Ted, Alice, Ian, Amy, Jack, and Sai, aswell as the five of us, Auntie Millie, and Scott. The kids had a great time eating and playing with DSes, while Liam spent the entire meal eating while seated on my lap. The weather was miserable, but we all had a good time. Afterwards, we went back to our house where much riotous rioting wen on, especially when Gary showed up, and Jamie got his presents from Auntie Millie, and from Ted and Alice and family (a portable electronic drumkit, since the family has many other types of musician but no drummers yet), and from Grammie, Auntie Jenny, and his Ottawa cousins (MarioKart). Games were played, and a good time had by all. Liam didn't let go of the driving wheel for MarioKart for a good part of the night. We all went to bed much too late, and I hope to have a very quiet day tomorrow.

2008-11-16 23:26 (Kristen) John travels quite a bit now, for Scrabble, and the kids and I have gotten pretty good at coping with the one-man-down scenario. I must have been feeling very cocky, because the universe decided to show me exactly how much help I do needfrom my family and friends this weekend to appreciate having John around that much more.

Today I woke up late with the boys at 9:30 or so. Trifina came to clean the house, and it was a lazy morning before Grammie, Anna, and Owen left to go back to Ottawa. I started to get a headache around lunchtime, but didn't worry too much. I decided, since Liam got up late and I was on my own with the kids, to let Liam stay up and just stay home and have a quiet day. We did just that, and Gary came up later in the afternoon to play DS with Jamie. We had all been playing MarioKart earlier in the day, and we need to get Liam a wheel of his won. He loves it, and can enunciate "Mario" quite clearly now. By 4 or so, however, I was feeling pretty rotten and had the worse migraine in at least a few years raging in my skull. Gary and Ayami quietly took over while I collapsed into a heap, and Ayami even made dinner for the boys while I rested, woke up, and had a shower to shake the rest of it out of my head. If not for friends, it would have been a much much worse day, and if not for family, we would have had a weekend full of fail. Jamie had a playdate with Charlie tomorrow, thanks to Charlie's mom being willing to take Jamie while I run Liam to the dentist, and I thank the stars and the Powers That Be that I am not on my own full time with the boys.

The boys were well behaved, and had a fabulous time this weekend with all their visiting relatives. They're missing Grammie, Owen, and Anna, and are looking forward to playing DS with Ian and Amy as soon as possible. At least Jamie is; Liam just looks forward to the next session of romping unless a MarioKart wheel is involved. They were both asleep by 8:45, and Liam is sleeping lightly because of his cold. Tomorrow we start anew, and wait for John to get home.

2008-11-17 21:01 (Kristen) I got Jamie to school barely on time, whew, and took Liam out to his dentist appointment. Sure enough, he's got a cavity. Darn. I scheduled an appointment with the special dentist that Jamie saw for his cavity, and we'll be seeing him for a consult on Wednesday. Gnash. Jamie had gone off with his friend Charlie for soccer, lunch and a playdate, which was great. Charlie's mom said that Jamie wasn't all that used to all the errands she had to do, because he kept asking, after each one, "and *now* are we going to Charlie's house?" I picked him up at 3:30, and we went home to wait for John. Gary came up and stole Jamie to play some DS for a bit, and then John was home. The boys were delighted to see him, and John came back with cool Pez and Pez dispensers for each.

We had dinner at Browning, which was lovely, andeveryone had fun playing four-man MarioKart. Then it was home for bed, as everyone is tired and fighting something.

2008-11-18 23:56 (Kristen) We are all pretty draggy today, as we fight weekend exhaustion or colds, depending upon where we were this weekend. Liam is getting better, but my nose is running like a faucet. Jamie is bagged, and John wishes he could sleep much more than he is.

Jamie has been full of questions: more than usual, it seems to me. He is asking about everything, mainly vocabulary: what does that word mean? What does this phrase mean? I expected all the "why is the sky blue, Mummy?" questions a year ago, but they never really showed up. Now they are fast and furious, and I have had to explain to Jamie that I love that he is asking questions, but Not Now! He also hurries on to the next question before he's listened to the answer to the first, so there is much backtracking and "What did you say?" which sometimes makes me crazy. Deep down, however, I'm glad.

Liam spent the morning at Hakobune, and Jamie at Jackman. I took Jamie to skating, and then to Jake's for a playdate before we brought Jake back here for one as his mom took his brother swimming. Jamie did homework and Liam played, and then we went to the Silk Road again for dinner to celebrate Jack's 85th birthday. The kids had a good time, and Liam's post nap grumpiness disappeared as he inhaled large amounts of chicken and broccoli. Tomorrow I have to get Liam to the dentist by 10, and we'll be off and running with another day.

2008-11-19 23:04 (Kristen) Jamie was very excited when he saw the snow falling this afternoon, and greeted the snow with much off-the-wall craziness. He talked with me on the phone, and I could barely understand him as he sang out about the weather.

I took Liam to the dentist this morning, and he was pretty manic as I discussed what we were going to do about his cavity with the people there. We'll be taking him in on Dec 9 and hope that he won't be needing the root canal that they're saying may be necessary. They won't know until they're in there with x-rays. There is no way they're doing anything on that tooth without heavily sedating the boy first, that's for sure. Liam and I headed home after our appointment, while John picked Jamie up and took him to Hakobune. After lunch, Liam and I went for a walk, and he slept for about three hours. Most of it was outside as I got some emergency yardwork done, since the oncoming snow made it necessary to get a lot done before winter arrived. He likes being bundled up in the cold, and I think that's why he slept for so long.

The evening was spent doing the usual homework, Liam's "work," watching Backyardigans, and playing video games. Jamie played with Gary for at least a few hours, and the boys went to the bath around 8:30. They both took a little while to go to sleep.

2008-11-20 24:21 (Kristen) The snow was thick enough on the ground this morning that John took Jamie to school on the sled, and pulled his friends around too. He got a good cardio workout today. The real excitement was when Charlie came over for lunch, and his and Jamie's backpacks disappeared from the schoolyard while they were playing with John there. It's a good neighbourhood, and we're assuming that another parent, harried like us, grabbed them in error. The only real stressors are that Charlie's backpack had the DS in it that he was bringing to our house, and Jamie's new (and somewhat expensive) shoes are in his. Arrrgh. We've checked back at the school three times now, but will wait until tomorrow, just in case, before panic.

The kids have all been very tired. Jamie had a spectacular meltdown as John was leaving to take him and Charlie tobogganing, and Charlie did when it was time to leave for home. Parker, who joined Jamie and Charlie at the hill, had melted down earlier in the day when he was invited to join the boys at lunch but his nanny said no, she needed to check with his parents first and they weren't available. They did have a great time on the hill, and Parker is the daredevil of them all, to his mother's suprise. After, John and Jamie did homework, and then John got dinner from T&T. We were all tired at that point, but still managed somehow to be in bed a little later than we should have.

2008-11-21 24:28 (Kristen) I was so sure that I'd posted blog last night, and written it too. Fail! Fail, I said! That would be a 'no'...

Today started well enough. John came home after depositing a very tired and somewhat cranky Jamie at school, but with the news that Jamie had his backpack back, and Charlie too. Turns out an overzealous teacher had taken them inside, assuming that they had been left behind, and put them into a classroom. Charlie was so happy to be reunited with his DS that he kept pulling it out, creating, in effect, a new "workstation" as kids crowded around him, and causing Mrs. Mikoza to institute a "No DS in the classroom" rule. Oops. At least he has it. I took Liam to Hakobune without incident, and he slept in the afternoon for me after a small mitten and blanket fight ("No!" "Are you sure? " "No!" ... five minutes later ... quiet acceptance of blanket, but just because Mom insisted...but no mitts). We all picked Jamie up at 4, stopped to see John's mom for about twenty minutes, and then went to Browning. Jamie, amazingly, finished his homework there after dinner before the four man MarioKart mayhem. Liam and Tom spent some time together, as usual, and then it was home to bath and bed.

John tells me that Jamie's amazing barrage of questions is a developmental milestone that kids reach at age five, right down to the not waiting for the answer before heading to the next question pattern Jamie has. We swear that he barely draws breath as the questions pour out of him, and only to finance the next question, as it were.

2008-11-22 24:45 (John) I took a somewhat tired Jamie to Nisshu Gakuin in the morning, feeding him tamago-no-gohan in the car on the way to save time. I picked up Kristen and Liam, drove Kristen to the Eaton Centre to go shopping while Liam and I went to the St. Lawrence Market. Liam took a few bites out of a whole bunch of things: Nupur's samosas and pakoras, a Stonemill muffin, California-maki, etc., and would not stay in his stroller as he wanted to practice running away from me and hiding. Ha, ha. Fortunately, he is well known to the staff of his favourite hidey-holes, including the kitchenware shop with his favourite spoons and banana cases, and the grocery store. He's at an optimum point in his life for getting lost: he can run at a good clip, but is short enough that he can't be seen behind most furniture. Afterward, we picked up Kristen and went to Mountain Equipment Co-op for more running and hiding and a little replenishment of my winter accessories. I dropped the two of them back off at the Eaton Centre, then went up to pick up Jamie. He and Sora-kun played out in the cold for an hour, until they were the last ones left in the playground, and they only agreed to go home after negotiating a possible future playdate. The rest of the day was very quiet, as I hope tomorrow will be, after a long and busy week. On a sad note, my Nikon D40, which I have used to shoot for the last year and a half or so of blog photos, has a broken shutter, and I'll likely be without it for a few weeks.

2008-11-23 23:44 (Kristen) The boys were up around 8, I think. I've been trying to night wean Liam again, and we've made it through three nights of no nursing. It involves him waking up at various times of the night (I have no LED clock in the room, so I have no idea what time it is), we have a conversation in which we discuss when the next nursing time might be (when the sun comes up ... NOW! ... when the sun comes up ... NOW!), we circle around the issue a few times, I ask him questions about why he woke up, and then we either cuddle back to sleep or we go to the bathroom. I should add that, after a week of dry nights, he was allowed (at his request) to sleep in his Big Boy Underwear all night. He made it through with flying colours. Yay, Liam! However, I am feeling a little sleep deprived after our late night discussion fests.

The morning passes quietly, with breakfast (Liam nibbles then runs to do something else, returns to nibble, then flees again) and an attempt or two on my part to read books to the boys. Liam can't make up his mind and keeps wanting a different book every time I pick up the book he's asked for, and then one thing after another interrupted me and Jamie. I made the boys lunc a little late, and took Liam off with me for a trip to the optician, as I'd fallen asleep on my glasses the night before and broken them. Boo. Both opticians were closed so I fixed the glasses myself in desperation (not perfect, but the lens is back in the frames) and took the sleeping Liam to the Second Cup with me. After I settled in, he woke up in the stroller. Thinking the boy awake, I picked him up and sat down with him, but he fell asleep again, almost instantly. I let him stay like that for an hour before we went to buy the milk we'd set out to get (Papa milk! Papa milk!) and to join the party over at John's parents' house. John's sisters and their families had come into town to see John's parents before they fly to Mexico next month, and the kids had a great time seeing their aunts, uncles, and cousins. We ate dinner at the Silk Road, and left around 7:30, when the boys (full of food) started their pre-meltdown routines.

The boys were as good as they could be when we got home, and we actually got some book reading done. Then it was bathtime, and bedtime. Liam had a hard time falling asleep, and was out until well after 10. Surprising, really. Jamie was asleep much earlier than that. He'd ridden his bike to and from the restaurant, and I was thinking about how his dad used to ride his bike all winter too, when we were first dating.

2008-11-24 09:00 (Kristen) I forgot to add that, last night, Liam showed his practical streak very clearly again, and reassured his father and me that the supernatural will not get the better of him. In the bath, John was using a small hand towel to pretend that his hand was a ghost, complete with Japanese ghost equivalents of "wooo wooo". Liam gave one good look at the approaching "ghost," and shoved a bath cup over its "head." I worry about Liam in many areas, but it's nice to know that this won't be one of them. I was also notified that Jamie has a second girlfirend, Bianca, in his class. !!!! This impressed his cousins, and prompted me to encourage his father to have a "man to man" talk with his older son sooner than expected. Actually, I'm very happy that Jamie, even in the sex-segregated world of kindergarten, can have male and female friends.

2008-11-24 23:10 (Kristen) There isn't much else to report about the rest of the day. John, Liam, and I went out in the morning, and I picked up a copy of Imagine a Day for Jamie with his birthday gift certificate from Auntie Millie. Now he can give the book back to the school library, as he's had it for weeks and really doesn't want to give it back. Jamie went to soccer and lunch at Jake's house, and then to the Science Centre with them, so I haven't really seen him much today. Ken took Liam for a walk, and arrived at 2:30 at the Second Cup with a wide-awake boy. Huh. Oh well. We did a little of this and that, and headed home in some rather miserable weather. Dinner was at Browning, and we had to feed Liam some emergency dinner before anyone else to preserve our eardrums and the back of his head. He still likes to pitch himself backwards when he's having a meltdown, and the injustice of banging his head always makes things worse for him, if that's possible. After some MarioKart, we headed home and put the boys to bed. Liam fell asleep quickly, but Jamie didn't fall asleep until 10:05. Another night of weaning Liam, and we'll get tomorrow started.

2008-11-25 22:41 (Kristen) Jake had a dentist appointment today, so there was a change in plans as to who took what child where today. I took Liam to Hakobune instead of John because Jamie needed someone to drive him to skating, and so John drove him there (after I gave him detailed instructions that he insisted missed essential details such as Jamie prefers to sit on *this* and not *that* side of the change room...). I came back with Liam, who fell asleep in Broadview station as I moved us from subway car to bus, and John came back home with Charlie, whose mom was not having a good day, and with whom Jamie was happy to have a playdate. When Charlie's mom came to get him, she laughed when I ruefully told her that they hadn't had much exercise, but that their thumbs had (I don't think that Charlie put Jamie's DS down the entire time he was here, and Jamie watched Pink Panther cartoons). They did enjoy the cookies I'd baked for them (frozen dough kit, natch), and it was a nice, quiet afternoon. The rest of the day went equally quietly. I got Jamie to do some reading with me after he declared that he *knew* how to read and didn't need to practice...John had already gotten him to finish off five pages of Japanese homework, so he was well educated today. Liam fed me more of his Hallowe'en candy as he's down to the chocolate now, which he doesn't like. There was much giggling during the bath, and the boys were asleep sometime around 10 yet again. We try to get them asleep earlier, but we're not succeeding yet. Tonight will be another night of arguing with Liam about not nursing at night. I'm tired enough now that when he wakes up I almost let him nurse, which causes stress when I wake up enough to realize what I'm doing. I'm also tired enough that I don't wake up with his first grumbles and protests, so he's harder to soothe back to sleep. John has offered to take Liam into bed with him, but we'll wait until whatever virus is rampaging thorugh his system calms down before we ruin the sleep patterns of yet another parent in the house.

2008-11-26 10:00 (John) Jamie and I got up early to go to school for Visiting Scientist Day, but the VS's daughter was sick and cancelled, so I have an unexpected free morning to catch up on work from yesterday, hooray. As I type this, I have Liam on my lap watching Totoro on one screen while I work on the other. Liam is the perfect age for this right now, as the movie is just full of things for him to proudly identify and call out, and the level of dramatic intensity is optimal. So far, he's only really gotten upset when the girls blacken their hands and feet with the makkurokurosuke and don't immediately wash up. My favourite scene is still the brief one where everyone is asleep in their futon, with Satsuki and her dad sleeping straight and Mei rotated at an angle. Jamie has outgrown the need to rotate constantly in his sleep (on a vertical axis at least); Liam is still heavily into it.

2008-11-26 00:45 (Kristen) Tonight, Liam spontaneously decided that he wanted to sleep in the same room as Jamie. John and I, being no fools, took him up on it. So, Liam is now asleep in the little pull-out bed that usually is stored underneath Jamie's (if you didn't know it was a bed in its 'put-away' state, you'd think it was a large drawer). This means that I'm going to bed *by myself* in a few minutes--or at least until Liam wakes up sometime in the night. Then I'll get up and go get him, but for now, I get some sleep sans child. Wow.

John and I have been working on this 'master plan' for a while, but it's better that Liam make the decision for himself. Having the boys sleep in the same room is what we'd ultimately like, along with a weaned Liam. Liam continues to be night weaned, but only woke up close to dawn last night, which reduced the amount of negotiation. However, once he's awake near dawn, he's pretty much up and looking for friends, who in this case is John. He does know that he should be quiet when John's asleep ("Papa nene, shhhh", with finger to lips) but it's hard for him to contain his early morning glee. This morning he was up at 7:30 without a shadow of a doubt, and I don't know how long before that he was snoozing lightly. Ah: a quick check of the Environment Canada website tells me that sunrise was at 7:26, so thank goodness for winter's late sunrises.

Jamie went to Hakobune today, where he was surprised and scared by a sudden fire alarm. He said that someone had pulled the alarm by accident, but it did lead to a useful discussion of what causes fires and what to do if there is a real fire. I lost track of time so Liam slept until 4:20, which was bad in the end as he wasn't asleep until after 11:00. Both boys and John disliked the 15-minute white bean soup that I made for dinner, so everyone was a little hungry too. Too many shallots, I'm told. This complicated Liam's ability to fall asleep, so I was shovelling food into him as he sat at my computer, watching Totoro at 10:30. I am very tired now, and will now go to bed.

2008-11-27 23:49 (Kristen) Both boys are asleep in the same room tonight. Liam took a longer time than I expected to fall asleep (tooth?), but Jamie was out like a light. John told Jamie that Liam was going to be sleeping in the bed beside him, and that if Jamie woke up in the night and Liam was there, that he should stay to keep Liam company. Jamie was unsure about this, but John pointed out that Liam would be scared if he woke up there by himself. Jamie bravely said that he'd come and find me in the night if Liam woke up crying to tell me that Liam was crying. Good boy.

Jamie was very thoughtful over all, today. His friends were over in the afternoon (Sam, Jake, and Charlie; I don't know where Parker was), and Sam was in tears because Jake kept winning at MarioKart (guess which one has a Wii at home and who doesn't). Jamie and Charlie spent a good deal of time trying to get Sam to feel better, up to and including allowing Sam to win. Jamie and Charlie set up an agreement at one point that everyone would let Sam win, but Jake then reneged and won anyway. Jamie was pretty upset, but instead of crying or otherwise kicking up a fuss, recused himself from the proceedings until he was feeling better. I don't do that very well; I was very pleased with him. He has a good heart.

Jamie finished reading a book about Little Critter and his class visit to the firehouse, from which he'd been reading about six pages a day. He was pretty pleased with himself, and rightfully so. Liam did his cutting "work" and is starting to get some good manual dexterity. I may buy another copy of the cutting book so that he can try doing it all himself from the beginning and without the large amounts of help I was providing at the first. He loves to cut with scissors, and is also into mazes, like his brother.

2008-11-28 44:16 (Kristen) I finally found a good home for most of our baby stuff, and so John and I dropped it off at for baby Seamus after taking Jamie to school and Liam to daycare. It was strange to have it go (at least five big garbage bags worth, diapers, wipes, and all sorts of things), as it has been in our house since Jamie was born (more or less), and because it is another milestone, in a way, in the growth of our family. However, the clear space in the house is needed, and time does march on. I have two Rubbermaid bins, however, full of the stuff I couldn't bear to part with yet. Baby steps. It was nice to see Seamus in the bouncy chair, and to know that the stuff was going to have a good home.

We did the usual rush of "pick up Jamie, drop off Jamie, have lunch, then pick up Liam" of a Friday, and got some work done in a very crowded Aroma before getting Jamie. Dinner was at Browning, and both boys had fun. Jamie rolled some dice for his D&D character, which is something like the gremlin that my friend Denise played back in high school: Denise wouldn't formally play, but would swoop in with her gremlin and do things that were not in any player's manual or rule book, then sit back for a while. That's Jamie. The boys went to bed around 10:00, but Liam wouldn't settle down until 11:00. I suspect he didn't have enough dinner and was hungry, but don't know for sure.

2008-11-29 20:29 (Kristen) Amongst any group of people, you expect a wide range of joy and tragedy. This is particularly true if you're a parent. Most of us will have healthy, happy children with no complications. Some will have complications that will challenge and worry their parents, sometimes only through childhood or adolescence, and sometimes for life. Once, in a very great while, you hear or know of someone who loses a child, as we did today when we learned that our Scrabble friend Craig Rowland's infant nephew, Werner, died today. He'd been born with heart problems, but we'd all hoped for the best to happen, and now we've heard the worst. Craig has always been a wonderful friend to me and John, and to our boys, and we are so sad to hear about this horrible loss for him and his family. We will hold our boys especially close tonight.

It was, otherwise, a normal day. John took Jamie to Nisshu Gakkuin, where he sounds oike he had a good time. He was exhausted when he got home, though, and has been very mellow since. He was haunting the basement door for Gary's return from work, and raced downstairs to be with him as soon as he could, despite offers to put together Lego, play Super Mario Galaxy, and have books read to him. Liam has been very insistent on doing his "work" today, and has gotten much better at cutting and mazes. Some synapse has just made a vital connection, I think, which will make doing "work" much easier. He is working hard on numbers from 1-10 too.

Liam has very much liked videos with music in them. He has a Classical Baby: The Music Show DVD, and I introduced the boys to Fantasia yesterday to great success. The boys are well, and Liam is starting to accept that he's not nursing at night any mire. The boys stay in their own room until about 6 AM, if I'm awake at 1:30 to deal with the middle-of-the-night awakening and keep them in their own room. This morning, I woke up with Jamie between me and John, and Liam crying for company in the blue room. It's not quite like being with a newborn.

2008-11-30 08:42 (Kristen) I forgot to add that Liam, yesterday, found a little dragonfly craft that Jamie had made with a popsicle stick and some construction paper at Hakobune. John told Liam it was a dragonfly, which Liam promptly decided said "whoosh! ROAR!" as he ran about with it. Jamie has a little joke that he's shared with me for a while, where whenever he eats a raisin in his cereal or in his cookie, he says 'Mummy, look at this raisin." I dutifully look at hte raisin, and then he pops it into his mouth and says "I ate it." THis has become somewhat ritualized, including my comic looks of deep annoyance at being asked to acknowledge Raisin #1257. John took the joke up another notch yesterday in the car when he added "Now look at the other side" to the middle of the routine. Then Liam piped up with "look raisin!" *maternal headdesk*

2008-11-30 00:53 (Kristen) We took the boys Christmas shopping this afternoon, trying to figure out what in the world Jamie might like for a present. Because he just had his birthday, with some pretty wicked loot, it's hard to know, and we haven't been near any toy stores for a little while. John walked Jamie through Science City, where there was a cool toy from Quercetti that is like the Mini Digicolor that he got for his birthday, which he really enjoys. He also saw a robot-like toy that he knows John bought for him, and has been demanding to play with, even though he knows it's a Christmas present that he wasn't supposed to see. It's going to be a *long* December. We also thought about ordering the boys (a shared gift) of a play tent with tunnel and parachute, because we *know* that they'll play with them, and Liam would like toy food (Melissa and Doug wooden food) and a dinosaur, and anything that has numbers or letters on it (he's into numbers and the alphabet, and counts to five to himself for fun), but we're still thinking. We've told ourselves that it's going to be a more restrained Christmas than last year, and it was easy until today. Now we have too many ideas.

John and Jamie's big news is that they finished all 242 stars in Super Mario Galaxy. They are very very pleased with themselves, and Jamie is officially the best Super Mario player in the house. Ross came over to watch them try to get the 240th star, and was amazed that a five-year-old was that good. Frankly, he smokes us all, which gives John a great deal of amusement since a good proportion of the sites on the web about SMG are about how it's too hard to complete. All right, it's just a video game, but they've been working hard at it for months, and deserve some props.

2008-12-01 00:52 (Kristen) Liam wasn't feeling that well last night, and woke up a few times. He had diarrhea all day, which was no fun for him at all, but he kept on motoring and even ate well. Hopefully it's just a mild bug and will move on. He's still unhappy tonight, but managing to sleep.

John left on a trip to Massachusetts today, and will be back on Monday. The boys are doing well with just me around, and I was aided today by Jamie having a nice long playdate with Sam at his house, and by dinner at Browning. Jamie had a lovely time at Sam's, and the boys played really well all afternoon with Transformers and other robot-like things. I picked up Jamie around 3:30, and Liam and I stayed for tea, play, and another hour. It was very nice. Jamie came up with a new "knock knock" joke: Knock knock. Who's there? Luk't this raisin, Mummy! Then there is the sequel: Knock knock. Who's there? Luk't the other side, Mummy! Sigh.

2008-12-02 23:41 (Kristen) Thanks to our friend Justin, who dropped by last night to borrow a bed on his way back to Montreal, I managed to get Jamie to school and back without having to pack up Liam too. Yay! Justin and Liam get along well, and I found them watching Pythagoras Switch when I got back: the perfect show for both of them. I packed up the rest of Liam's lunch, and we all left to go to our respective destinations. Liam had a great time, once again, and runs around the daycare in his bare feet. The moment he can, the socks come off, every time. Jamie had a playdate at Jake's, so I packed Liam up for a walk, and he fell asleep as I was getting off the subway at Pape Station. I did some work at the library, then picked up Jamie around 3:30. We ended up staying a little longer because Liam had woken up and wanted to come in and play, but we ended up missing Chelsea, who had come to our house to babysit at 3:50. I felt quite badly about that. John's mom came over to play with the kids for a bit, and I made dinner (spaghetti and leftover meat sauce from Friday). Liam had woken up early, and he melted down around 8:30 as a result. I put him to sleep, and Jamie came along and was helpful by putting on his pajamas and going to bed beside us. Liam has woken up once, rather badly, and is sleeping lightly again. I suspect teeth.

2008-12-03 22:36 (Kristen) The boys spent most of the night in their own room last night. I don't know when Jamie showed up, but I didn't get up to find a crying Liam until 7:18. Wow. We went back to bed, and he got his morning nurse, but that was largely that. He did have some trouble sleeping yesterday evening, and I'm not sure if it's his tummy (still some diarrhea), his teeth, or if he was woken up by the sound of my mother and I arguing politics over Skype. Possibly all three. I eventually got him settled again, but was glad that he got through the rest of the night all right. Jamie was a little tired and looking to start a fight in the morning, but settled down by the time we got to school.

Another clue that Liam is fighting something (tooth, bug) is that he was right full of beans today, rapid cycling through things that I didn't want him to do and being rather shirty if I told him no. For some reason, I fight Liam head on about most things instead of redirecting him or doing any number of other tricks I'd worked out with Jamie. It is possibly because Liam is a much more direct and assertive personality than Jamie was; Jamie would listen. Liam doesn't. However, I could be fostering a continued cycle, so I should be careful about that, and realize that he will change at some point. Cute Liam story: at Spadina Station, there are three little totem poles. Liam knows that one of them has a wolf at top, and always pats his chest and says "Oooo!" when he sees them. He is Liam Wolf. Today Jamie was Jamie Wolf, and I was Mummy Wolf. He also said that he was Mummy's boy for the first time today, and continues to some after me with Monster Arms waving and making slurping sounds which means that I am delicious and he is going to eat me all up. Heh.

I took Jamie to Hakobune, and hung out with Liam in the area until it was time to take Jamie home. Liam slept for a little over an hour, which was short but convenient as he woke up when he heard Jamie come out of the daycare. We went home, did some reading, and met John's mom when she came over to drop off some takeout food from the Silk Road for us. John got hom around 7:00 or so, armed with the toys he'd bought at the Hasbro Family Shop at the Hasbro game factory in Springfield, Massachusetts. The star present (the only one for now; the others are in reserve) was the purple Mace Windoo lightsabre that lights up (3 AAs), makes noise, and has a spring release action, causing your plastic lightsabre to leap out of the hilt as fast as ... yeah. It's cool. Liam squeed* over it, claiming it first because it was a LIGHT SABRE and PURPLE!! I have video of Liam attacking and killing John with it. Priceless. It is technically for Jamie, but I see Liam having many happy hours with that thing when Jamie isn't around. The boys were completely spun with happiness to have yummy food, a cool new toy, and their father home, not necessarily in that order. Eventually they calmed down enough to have a bath with their dad and to get into bed. Despite his lack of sleep today, Liam still took a little while to fall asleep. I am monitoring the situation.

2008-12-04 20:36 (Kristen) Today we took Liam with us to the funeral of our Scrabble friend Craig's nephew, Werner. What made it even more sad than one would expect a sad event to be was that Werner was only 3 months old; he'd been born with a heart defect, and died before he was old enough or strong enough to operate. Liam was very excited by the new surroundings, and by long hallways, so when he took off out of the room where the service was to take place, I kept him out. His little chirpy voice, beloved to us, might have been distracting to others, I tought, but John told me that there were other kids running in and out of the room at the time. I can't help but think that they would have been quieter than our dear Liam. He ended up playing in a large meeting room (complete with television and Disney tapes) with a little girl about six months older than him named Olivia. They parallel played until I got them both involved in a game in which we made the perfect cup of tea (thank you, Backyardigans). That cut down the number of breaks for freedom considerably. After the service, we drove to the cemetery to see Werner's interment. Liam didn't like the snow that was gently falling on us, and kept sweeping snow off my hair and black coat with equal gentleness. He was curious about the little ornaments and decorations on the graves nearby, which is how I found out that in some cemeteries they inter all the babies in one area. How inutterably sad it was.

Liam fell asleep in the car on the way back to the funeral home for the reception and lunch, so John and I went in separately. It meant, unfortunately, that Liam didn't have lunch himself, and that was not such a good thing when he woke up two hours or so later. We had made it back home and were picking up Jamie when he woke up (Jamie had a very successful playdate at Parker's), but he was very short tempered for the rest of the day. Chelsea came over to look after him while John and I went to our post-report card meeting with Jamie's teacher (more in a moment), and Liam screamed the entire twenty-five minutes we were gone. Sigh. I managed to shovel more food into him, which helped a bit, but an early bedtime will help more.

The bright spot in an otherwise emotionally draining day was our meeting with Jamie's teacher. She showed us his work, which surprised us in a few ways. First, he was praised by his teacher for trying to spell out his ideas without necessarily knowing the words, which means that he's getting over his fear of failure: he's not afraid to try. Wow. He contributes to class, cleans up, and does everything that he is told to do. He's tired by the end of the day, but he's also younger than most of the kids in his class, so she thought that he was doing very very well for a child his age. He also has been experimenting with colour in his drawings, which has surprised and delighted both me and John. We think that Becky had a hand in helping him to think about colour in his artwork. Tonight, he drew a house and some people, used lovely colour, and even told me a story about all the people in the picture. Wow again. All in all, we've very happy with Jamie and all the good work he's doing. John gave Jamie a Transformer that he bought in Springfield as a "well done" gift, and I think that jamie was very pleasantly surprised.

2008-12-05 26:31 (Kristen) Today was a PD day, so Jamie didn't have to wake up for school. Even Liam slept in until 8:30. However, John had a hair appointment for today, and so he took Jamie with him (and a DS, to keep him busy). I took Liam to Hakobune for his usual morning, and for his afternoon walk in the Annex. There was much fighting over the blanket ("No!") and mittens ("No!") and even over the hat, but I finally pulled rank and said that he had to have the plastic shield over him because it was just too cold and windy. Strangely, he was asleep less than ten minutes afterwards. Hmm... We picked up a tired Jamie at Hakobune, then came home to decompress before going to Browning for the evening. Liam is starting to love My Neighbour Totoro, which is lovely, and so we watched a bit of that in between doing "work" and other things. We had dinner, then came back home in a rush because it was the boys' bedtime. Straight to bed, no bath, and Jamie was alseep by 10:00 (in bed at 9:55). Liam, however, took much longer to get to sleep, and I didn't wake up myself until 1:15. Boo.

2008-12-06 35:03 (Kristen) We all woke up relatively early, and got ready to go to our respective destinations. Jamie and John went to Nisshu Gakkuin, where we found out that we'd forgotten that it was pizza day. We'll save Jamie's lunch for some other time. John took Liam to the market and Loblaws, and he was happy to run around for almost the whole time. He melted down when it was time to go home, however, likely because he hadn't eaten enough. That was unusual in and of itself, as he usually eats his way through the market. He melted down again when it was time to go for his walk, but he fell asleep almost instantly when we hit the road. He slept until 4:15, when I woke him up, which may explain why he fell asleep after 11:00 again tonight. John and Jamie were home when we arrived, and we had a pleasant evening at home.

2008-12-07 20:43 (Kristen) Liam fell asleep after 11 PM last night, *again*, and so I fell asleep while playing dead so that he'd get the idea. I woke up in my clothes again, which was amusing when I was in my 20s and sleeping over after parties. Not so much fun now. It was a little before 8, and Liam was waking up because he wanted to pee but settled for a nurse instead. Jamie got up around the same time, and we three puttered around for most of the morning. Liam was showing signs of fatigue by noon, so I fed the boys and got Liam out a little after one. He slept for two and a half hours, and would have slept for more if I hadn't made him get up when I got home at 3:30. I was hoping that he'd sleep earlier tonight, as my work productivity has gone down the tubes with this falling asleep with Liam routine. Both boys played, and did a little of this and that, while I made dinner, and ate relatively well. The evening was more of the same. As it was frigid outside, with a high of -5 or so, and a nasty windchill, no one other than me and Liam ventured outside. Consequently, the boys were both tired and a little wound up by the time bathtime came around. I have no idea how well they'll sleep tonight, but I know that Jamie in particular needed a quiet day doing nothing after a very busy week. I don't think that it'll take very long to fall asleep. Oh: Gary told me that he watched WALL-E withJamie yesterday, and that Jamie was full of questions. Heh. Yeah.

2008-12-08 23:49 (Kristen) John called the daycare to say that Liam wouldn't be in tomorrow, and so they suggested that he come in today. He was delighted to do so, and had a great time. When he came out, he was holding a little angel tree ornament that he'd made himself (and done a very good job on). He was about ready to burst, he was so proud of himself. He then, as he showed it to me, made it clear that it was me. Mother slain by cute, daycare worker made collateral damage. Really.

Liam fell asleep around 2:30, and I let him slep until 4:20 or so. We met Jamie and John at Dr Kennedy's office to confirm that Jamie has a small wart on one of his toes. We'll be using a home kit to take it off. John and Jamie went home and did five pages of homework while Liam (asleep) and I did some errands. We did the usual puttering around when we got home, and then went to Browning for dinner. Our friends Peter, Leslie, and Simon were there, and Liam and Simon got along very well (Simon is about nine months older than Liam). They played trains together, and Liam gave Simon a big hug at one point after a small train ownership dispute was resolved. Wow. More amazing cute. Liam is starting to notice kids who are his age more and more, and I'm enjoying his social flowering immensely. Jamie played MarioKart with Ross and Daniel, and spent a good deal of time smoking both older boys. His reflexes are phenomenal. Home to bed, and Liam was asleep by 10:30. Jamie was asleep much earlier, as he'd been complaining of fatigue all day.

2008-12-09 12:35 (John) Here's a quick update on Liam's dental surgery. We've had to postpone it because he was dehydrated (nil by mouth for eight hours before surgery, go figure) and the anaesthesiologist was unable to find a vein after spending an hour turning Liam's feet into pincushions. The outlook for his extra tooth is still uncertain, and he has decay on eight other teeth (all the front teeth near the gum line, and the chewing surfaces of two molars), so he'll have a lot of work done at his next appointment, as well as having his teeth sealed. The only bright spot today is that my own dental emergency turned out to be minor, just trapped food in a crater-shaped cavity on a molar.

2008-12-09 15:00 (John) Here's another quick update. Because they couldn't get an IV into Liam, they couldn't get fluids, glucose or Gravol into him, so when he woke up he was dehydrated, hypoglycaemic and very nauseous. He alternated vomiting and drinking water of flat ginger ale, and finally fell asleep on Kristen just when I had left the clinic to buy some Gravol. We decided that I would go home, get the car, pick up Jamie from Sam's house and come back and pick up Liam and Kristen, and as I write this I'm waiting for the bus to leave the subway station to take me home. And my dentist called and said I have a second cavity that he just noticed reviewing my X-rays.

2008-12-09 24:54 (Kristen) We got Liam home without giving him the Gravol and without him vomiting again (four times was, apparently, enough). I get very sick when I have a general too, so I knew how he felt. He fell asleep on the couch for an hour after drinking a box of juice, and was more his old self when he woke up around 6. We went to John's parents' house for the traditional Indian takeaway departure meal, and then came home. Liam was still a danger to himself as the evening unfolded, as his balance and recovery time still sucked. He did eat a good deal of dinner, however, as did Jamie. Jamie and Tai Tai spent most of the meal discussing kanji, and Jamie surprised me at how well he could copy what John's mother wrote. Jamie really likes kanji - it appeals to the part of him that likes to create writing systems - so it was an easy way for them to bond. The fun began when we got home, as we've been telling Liam all day that he isn't going to nurse anymore: the milk is gone, he's a big boy now and big boys like his brother don't nurse, that it hurts his teeth to nurse himself to sleep. We even said "bye nurse," but he was dubious. At bedtime, he reacted badly to the change in routine, so I took him for a walk in the dark and rain until he fell asleep, sometime around 11:00. He's still asleep which I hope means that he is down for the night. I expect him to wake up at 7:15 demanding to nurse, which will require me to be awake at an early hour and to take him downstairs immediately for a drink and food. I have a bottle of water by the bed, just in case, but I'm not counting on him accepting it as a substitute. The nurse at the dental clinic was amazed at Liam's levels of feistiness, as he struggled against the sedative and still needed people to hold him down for the gas to be administered (they will give him a higher dose next time, despite the dosage this time being calibrated to his weight and that it normally should work). This is who I get to deal with over the weaning policy. We're in for a bumpy ride.

2008-12-10 22:00 (John) I took Liam to the Scrabble club tonight to try to run him around enough that he might fall asleep on the way home in the car or soon thereafter. The fact that I am writing this in bed with Liam beside me noisily watching Totoro is evidence enough of my abject failure. On the bright side, Liam had a fabulous time at the club, helping out handing out pairings, buying chips from the vending machine, drawing on the back of all my scrap paper, watching Juppon Anime on my laptop, trying to figure out why some words give a Red Stop signal on the word judge computer and others a Green Go, trying to get the drinking fountain to work and repeatedly climbing up and down the toy castle. Oh well, at least he's stopped screaming.

(Kristen) As you can tell, the weaning of Liam limps along. He's so *stubborn*. I told him that the milk is gone, and in another day or two it really will be. Then that really will be that. He woke up at 7:15, just as I predicted, and was not all that happy until I took him downstairs to do this and that. He was hungry, and ate a good breakfast, which didn't surprise me. He's not full of milk anymore, so he has room for regular food. John took Liam with him and Jamie to school and for an errand or two, and Liam was glowing when he got back. He was pretty tired by the time noon rolled around, so he had lunch and then was asleep by a little after 1:00. He slept until 4 on the dot, when we got home after some Christmas shopping. Jamie was off at a birthday party for a classmate (Olivia), and by all accounts had a marvellous time. John took Liam with him to the club before Jamie got home, so Jamie and I had a lovely mom-and-son night. We played MarioKart, ate a late dinner (he'd only eaten one slice of pizza) and then read the first chapter of Charlotte's WEb before turning out the lights. He had some trouble falling asleep with Liam's screaming, but managed well enough when they were in different rooms. Liam is still awake, and I have to decide what to do next with him.

2008-12-11 21:20 (Kristen) Liam fell asleep at 2, and proceeded to wake up every half hour to hour screaming "Nurse nurse nene". He was up at 8, and that was that. Needless to say, everyone but Jamie (who slept through it all) was tired. Liam was pretty crabby until I took him to the Big Carrot with me at 11, and I don't think that it took him more than three minutes to fall asleep. He stayed that way for two hours, even sleeping through Jamie and four of his friends arguing over what video game to play next less than five feet away from him. We had the posse over, and everyone was pretty tired and crabby until they had lunch and had a chance for their glycemic levels to rise. They spent the afternoon doing what they always do. After 3:30, they all left for home, and we had a chance to have some quiet time before our friend Stewart and his son Jasper arrived. Jasper is just about to turn 3, and was very shy for the first hour or so. Then he relaxed enough to play a little ball with me, and eat dinner. Jamie and Liam will enjoy having him around for the next five days. Liam is exhausted, punchy, and very clumsy. We bought him a pacifier today, using the parental "faint hope" clause, and maybe it'll work tonight. John and Jamie are having one last round of MarioKart before bed, and seem to be enjoying themselves.

2008-12-11 23:32 (Kristen) I bought a book for Liam for his birthday called Dinosaur vs Bedtime, a little dinosaur is versus everything: e.g., Dinosaur vs lunch, Dinosaur wins! But he can't win against bedtime. Tonight it was Liam versus Bedtime, Bedtime Wins! It certainly helped that he was beyond exhausted: he'd not napped after his 1:00 wakeup, and so it must have felt like one am again. Curiously, I didn't tell him that he had to sleep, only that he had to be quiet so that other people could sleep. He wasn't all that reasonable, but at least he wasn't having that fight. In the end, he fell asleep around 11, in my arms, as I rocked him to sleep in the bathroom. Yeah, the bathroom, after he got rid of the pee that was keeping him awake. I am guessing that the fact that he wasn't in a bedroom, where he was supposed to sleep, was enough to allow him to give over to the sleep, or at least let it pounce on him from behind. No one can say that my son isn't perverse, stubborn, or a real fighter. I rocked him to sleep on my shoulder, he stirred when he wanted to shift more onto his back from an upright position, and then was out. I maanged to wait long enough for him to be completely asleep so that I could even put him down into bed without him stirring. I won the lottery, I am mighty, roar roar roar. Now I need some sleep.

2008-12-12 48:04 (Kristen) My apologies for the lateness of this post; I fell asleep with Liam again. I've been doing that a lot lately.

Liam's been picking up a lot of new words lately, in English and Japanese. Today, his new word was "bunai!", which is Japanese for dangerous (Abunai). He was pointing at the steep stairs at Knox Church when he said it, which was gratifying, as it means that he knows that he can get quite hurt goofing around on them. We were at the church because it was the day of the Hakobune Christmas concert, and Jamie, as one of the big boys, was one of the Three Wise Men. I should say that he was one of the Three Wise Guys, as he hammed it up, looking all over exaggeratedly through his "telescope" for the star of Bethlehem, and making faces and miming the action of singing to the Hallelujah Chorus. as he stood behind the baby Jesus at the end. However, he was very excited, and very happy, to be part of the play. Liam had, as we'd known, refused to participate in the pageant. He stayed with me for almost the whole time, running around and generally being full of manic energy. However, at one point, the littler children put on little headbands with Totoros on them, and Liam was called over. Liam ran over, put on his headband (which he'd coloured himself, they later told us), went front and centre, and did the dance with all the other kids to the theme song to "My Neighbour Totoro." John and I couldn't believe it: we held hands and had tears in our eyes as we watched Liam take off and be a little star. Then it was over: he took the headband off, and that was the end of his participation in the pageant. We were told later that he always did participated in just this one thing, and John and I laughed as a result as we know now exactly how much he loves that movie. Nobuko and Tomoko kindly came to the pageant too, which was great of them, and saw it all. The pageant was followed by an elaborate snack time, when we discovered that Jamie has the same weakness for Peak Freans with the red jelly centre as I do.

Liam fell asleep in his stroller inside the church (he was *that* tired) and so Jamie, John, and I shared some pizza at Cora's before coming home. Stewart and Jasper were there, having spent a nice day together, and I took Jamie and Liam to play with Jasper and Stewart at the Jackman playground around 4:50. It was cold and got dark quickly, so we picked up a few groceries at the Big Carrot and came home. Ross was sick, so we picked up some garlic bread and spaghetti sauce from Browning, and a Daniel as well, then played some D&D. I was dreading bedtime, but John and Liam had been talking in the bath about how he was going to bed, but not nursing. He seems to have resigned himself, because he didn't fuss or fight, but flopped around a good deal as he tried to find the right position. Then he was asleep. And that was that. I was amazed, and delighted, and shocked.

2008-12-13 24:26 (Kristen) Liam slept through the night, and didn't wake up until after 8:15. Oh My God! He was in a good mood, and I was delighted. I helped John and Jamie get out the door for Nisshu Gakkuin, which was a rougher process than usual for reasons that were beyond control. As a result, I had Liam for the morning, and when John dropped Stewart and Jasper off after a morning at the market, I took Liam out to run errands. Stewart and Jasper came too, and we enjoyed a nice lunch at Wimpy's before we got our serious errands under way. Liam split my hamburger with me, and we were supposed to share a strawberry milkshake but Liam ended up hogging his "pink milk" (a la the Charlie and Lola books). I got to drink it when he wasn't looking. Liam didn't end up falling asleep until after 3, but I woke him up at 4:30 anyway.

Tonight was Jake's parents' annual Christmas bash, and the kids each had a fabulous time. They ate all the yummy finger food that Jake's mom Michelle had made, roared through the house playing Wii games, drawing and cutting, and going through all of Jake and Charlie's toys. A number of times I found Liam by himself, just quietly playing. Jamie ran himself into a stupor, and was almost boneless with fatigue when we left the party a little after 9. Liam was also happy and well run, but he took a good deal longer to fall asleep. He's asking once and a while to nurse, but takes it well when I say no. He is, however, finding it very hard to fall asleep in the same room as Jamie, and so we're back to sleeping with Liam in one room and Jamie in another. I hope that, as Liam gets more used to falling asleep without nursing, that we can switch back. Liam would love to be asleep in the blue room, but he just can't do it yet.

2008-12-14 20:30 (John) Liam has rekindled Jamie's interest in a minor Japanese animation classic, "Juppon Anime", where the eponymous ten sticks morph to tell a story, and as I write this, Jamie is patiently opening each video in turn at Liam's direction.

Actually, in the time it's taken me to write that, Kristen has taken Liam off to try to get him to sleep, and Jamie has settled into my lap to watch a Japanese Pokemon movie. They were both pretty tired, as we spent the afternoon with Stewart and Jasper, and Charlie White, at the Science Centre. It was the first time that I had been to the exhibits there in more than twenty years, but some of my favourites were still there. Better, Jamie and Charlie knew where all their favourites were, so I just had to run along to try to keep up with them.

(Kristen) Liam took forever to fall asleep tonight, despite the fact that he'd not napped today. He tossed, turned, switched bedrooms three times, had a pee, and finally fell asleep after I forced him to take some painkiller (despite his protests that I was killing him by doing so). I think that his teeth are really starting to hurt him, unfortunately, as he kept complaining that his head hurt.

2008-12-15 46:30 (John) We've both been more overloaded with work than usual, so this blog entry is being posted a day late, and the photos will have to go up tomorrow. After dropping Jamie off at school, I spent the morning running errands in the neighbourhood while Liam stayed home to play with Kristen, Stewart and Jasper. After meeting Jamie briefly at school and sending him off with to Charlie's for a playdate, I took Liam to Loblaws for lunch and shopping. Liam had his usual California roll while supervising my shopping and making sure I bought yoghurt. On the way to and from the store, he was very chatty, and has decided that only Liam may refer to colours using the Japanese words, not me. "My ao! My aka!" Jamie came home from Charlie's a little wound up, partly because he hadn't peed in four hours, but no serious harm was done. We worked together at unlocking more Mario Kart Wii characters, did some Japanese homework, then I went to Browning to grill while Kristen manned the stove at home, as Browning has been under quarantine for a few days because Ross has had flulike symptoms.

2008-12-16 22:40 (John) Kristen took Liam to Hakobune for the morning, while I was an emergency substitute assistant parental classroom cookie making volunteer, along with Stewart and Jasper. When we came home, Jasper melted down because he thought he was getting straight into the car and back to his grandmother's house to see his mom, but I eventually quieted him down with grapes, cookies and milk, recognizing all-too-familiar signs of toddler hypoglycaemic unreasonability, not to be confused with Liam's current cutting-a-molar unreasonability. Jamie went to Jake's for a playdate while I talked about the fate of the Scrabble universe with the powers that be, then came home and as usual unlocked Mario Kart Wii characters (Birdo today) and did his homework. Liam tried yet again to sleep with Jamie and me in the blue room tonight, but couldn't quite get the hang of it, and as I write this is happily chattering away to Mom in the white room.

2008-12-17 23:00 (John) Mrs. Sasaki told me that when she gave Liam his self-made Totoro hat to take home, he strode proudly to his mark and posed, ready to begin the Totoro dance. She was afraid he would be disappointed that they wouldn't be performing, but when she explained that he could do the dance at home anytime he liked, he was delighted, which explains why he was doing it for much of yesterday. I found out today why he's been theatrically pretending to sneeze for a few days: it's because he's been watching the old Frosty the Snowman program on DVD.

Jamie had a bit of a rough day at Hakobune, because the church was doing fire alarm testing, and the bell rang at inopportune moments while he was trying to pee and then eat lunch. He burst into tears, I think because he's fighting a virus; he has a little rash on his torso, and he complains of being tired.

Liam has been waking up ravenous since he was weaned, and today was probably the most extreme case. After eating a little bowl of porridge, he happily grabbed one of my waffles (or as he corrected me "MY waffle"), ate it, and started in on another before waddling off from the table.

When Jamie and I came home from Hakobune, the boys both wanted to help me shovel snow, and who was I to argue. Jamie helped throw a little snow, at first with his shovel, and then with his hands because it was more fun that way. Liam pulled the big black sled back and forth between the driveway where I filled it up with snow and the back yard where I emptied it. Very strong, very determined.

Because our community centre is closed for four weeks for the holidays, we had a third of the Toronto Scrabble Club over after dinner. Kristen played the first two games while I kept the boys busy in the living room with my computer, the portable DVD player and the Wii. Both kids were tired and quiet, and cooperative. Liam at one point wanted to play Scrabble himself ("MY scrabble!"), and carefully placed tiles on all the bonus squares on a board. I remember Jamie doing that when he was little too. Then Liam found the blank and quizzically touched his finger to his chin and asked where the missing letter was: "Miss! Miss! Nai!", theatrically looking around the room for it.

(Kristen) I finally got Liam to fall asleep in his bed in the blue room tonight, so that he and Jamie are sleeping in their room and John and I will be sleeping in our room. I fully expect to have one, if not two, boys in bed with us by morning, but it's an excellent start.

2008-12-18 22:33 (Kristen) Last night, when I was flossing Jamie's teeth, I did it from an angle that I don't normally use, so that the light was shining full onto his back molars. I stared at his back left molar for a moment, stuck my finger in there, and exclaimed to John, "he's missing part of his back molar!" Emergency phone call to the dentist, and less than 24 hours later, we find out that yes, Jamie has indeed broken his back tooth, and that part of it is gone below the gumline. He's not in pain, but this is not a good state of affairs. John took Jamie to see Dr. Da Costa, who sent them to Dr. Dann (again), saying that the tooth would have to be pulled, as he didn't think that there would be enough left for a crown. If the tooth was pulled, then we'd need a spacer (orthodontia) to ensure that his six-year molar, which is thinking about coming in next year, would shift over, causing mass chaos on the bottom left half of his jaw and eventual braces. OK.

Dr. Dann was able to see Jamie right away, and so John took him there after his appointment with Dr. Da Costa. Jamie was fine with the process of x-raying his front teeth, but gagged when they tried to x-ray the back teeth. Eventually, John hit on the idea of playing a game on Jamie's DS, with Jamie watching. That distracted him enough that they were able to get the x-ray. On the other hand, part of me would have been happy not to have the x-rays, because Jamie has 10 (ten) cavities, and will need crowns on two teeth (the broken one, and one other). We obviously have been doing this wrong. Do not ask me how much this is going to cost: it is bad enough that John can't talk about it yet. We are not in happy moods today. That is all.

On a happier note, John took Liam with him and Jamie to school today as it was cookie decorating day. Liam had a fabulous time, and Ms. Mikosza enjoyed having him around. She quizzed him on his colours (knew them all, natch), and he coloured while the other kids were doing their work. John reports that there was a spelling lesson. which went like this: "Spell 'he'...good...spell 'me'...good...'spell 'we'...Jake [Jamie's friend], it's 'we,' not 'Wii." John brought Liam home around 11:00, and we went back out again to get Jamie 20 minutes later (Liam had let us know about a 'code pee' first). After lunch, Jamie went to a playdate with Makaiya, and then to the dentist. Liam went for a walk with Ken, and then came home to play with me. Tonight, I talked Liam into falling asleep in the blue room again, and he fell asleep in less than 20 minutes. I was shocked, but happy that he seems to be finding a routine to settle down and sleep after being weaned.

2008-12-19 23:45 (John) Toronto has a much-derided habit of overreacting to snow, and I'm not sure Environment Canada's referring to the three storms that are supposed to dump 60 cm of snow on us this weekend as "Snowmageddon" is helping. I took Jamie to school in the big black sled for the last day of classes before the Christmas break; he lay prone on the sled and was starting to disappear under fallen snow by the time we arrived. Kristen took Liam to Hakobune in the big blue stroller, after I spent half an hour cramming him full of two or three bowls of Froot Loops and milk. I picked up a tired Jamie (he is still fighting some sort of virus) and dropped him off for lunch with Liam at Hakobune, while Kristen and I had lunch at Nataraj. Then Kristen took Liam out for a walk in the snowstorm, I did some Christmas shopping in the neighbourhood, and then sat at Aroma and watched the snow fall. It took a shovel to dig the car out three times on the way to picking up Jamie, so yes, it was coming down fairly hard. Jamie kept Liam amused in the back seat by playing DS games on the slow ride home. I dropped everyone off, spent half an hour shovelling out the driveway and windrow, then spent the rest of the evening picking up my visiting cousin Takako at YYZ. The rest of the family had a quiet evening at Browning, and was in bed not too late, though Liam has been up once already with nightmares, dental pain or both.

2008-12-20 23:45 (John) Jamie woke up with a slightly higher fever than yesterday, regular appetite, fatigue and malaise (not willing to walk up and down stairs), and asked to go back to bed after breakfast rather than to the Christmas party at Nisshu Gakuin. I drove down to the St. Lawrence Market and did the bare minimum of shopping, then up to Japanese school for the day without Jamie, as I had been assigned parental hall monitor duty. Jamie apparently slept in until noon while Kristen (not feeling well herself) tried to keep up with a very energetic Liam (who has the same spots that Jamie had a few days ago, and may therefore start running a fever soon). We had a very quiet and early evening, with the boys in bed and asleep by 8:45. Jamie just woke up with a fever headache, we'll drug him now and I'm off to bed to keep him company.

2008-12-21 23:23 (Kristen) Jamie woke up feeling lightly better but not great, while Liam was happy bouncing boy. After a quiet morning, John took Liam out grocery shopping for Christmas supplies, which I am sure Liam appreciated greatly. I stayed behind with Jamie, who was quiet and slightly bored. We started to set up the Christmas tree, but had to stop after we found that mice had chewed through the box that we had stored in the garage with ornaments in them, and ruined a bunch of them. The Christmas lights didn't work properly either, so John headed out and bought some more at Canadian Tire (where the only the tacky ornaments were left, he says) and picked up food for us at Silk Road. Jamie, however, was not feeling quite so well any more, and when he fell asleep and I had a hard time waking him up, I took his temperature. 104.5 F. Not so good. In with the Tylenol, which dropped the fever down to acceptable levels, and Jamie was soon playhing MarioKart and eating hot and sour soup. Whew. Liam hadn't napped, so he was tired, and we just put the boys to bed. Liam tried to fall asleep with John and Jamie, but gave up at the end and came to sleep with me in the blue room. He came in, flopped down, and was asleep in less than a minute. Easily a new record.

2008-12-22 08:50 (John) We got up at 6:15 this morning, left Jamie (no fever this morning) with Gary and drove Liam to the dental clinic. Liam was less fractious than last time, and accepted the oral sedative, much to our surprise. Thanks to the earlier hour and keeping boots on to the last minute, we also had no problem keeping him hydrated and warm enough for the anaesthesiologist to insert the IV. We're waiting right now to hear what can be done with his main problem, the decay in his extra tooth and its neighbour.

2008-12-22 09:40 (John) Dr. Dann reports that he was able to perform the pulpotomy and restoration on the supernumerary tooth, meaning that Liam will keep the tooth for now. He has to come back in six months to see if the pulpotomy was successful in removing all the decay. We'll keep our fingers crossed until then that there were no weird side canals in the tooth.

2008-12-22 21:45 (Kristen) Liam slept for an hour or so after returning from surgery, and slowly woke up. He was pretty vague for the first freezie, and then slowly got the hang of them, and, by the time we left, was asking for the purple one. His once bifurcated tooth has been filled in, and now looks like an unusually large front tooth. I hope that it holds until he's six, and it falls out on its own. We took him home via Starbucks, where he got a grande green tea frappuccino of his very own, and to which he clung ferociously until he got about half of it into him. Ice and sugar likely went a long way towards helping him to feel better. He was awfully wobbly for the rest of the day, though, and needed to be watched as though he was 13 months old again. You can imagine how Mr. Independence enjoyed that. His appetite was good, and he was not in any obvious discomfort over the course of the day.

Jamie was good for Gary and Ayami. He woke up at 7, when we left, and Gary went back to sleep at 10. Ayami looked after him until we got home at 2, and said that Jamie was easy to look after and not too demanding. Whew. We did some tree trimming, and Jamie helped Ayami wrap some presents by holding the tape for her. Jamie did end up playing downstairs with Gary and Ayami for a while longer, as I had my hands full with Liam and John had fallen asleep upstairs after an unusually early and stressful morning. We went to Browning for dinner, and the boys were so tired that we had them home not long after 8, and in the bath. Liam fell asleep very easily, but Jamie had a much harder time winding down to sleep. It'll only get harder as Christmas gets closer.

2008-12-23 24:18 (Kristen) Today was rather chaotic as we tried to get as much done as possible before Christmas Eve. The house needed to be cleaned, beds changed and sheets washed, kitchens tidied, cookies baked, and children entertained. Jamie is asking us every day how many days are left before Christmas, and both boys are eyeing the tree and the presents underneath. Liam, this year, has not started opening any on his own initiative, which is good.

Liam and I were up around 7:40, while John and Jamie slept until close to 10. John went out and did a bunch of last minute shopping, and picked Jason and Owen up at the train station. Ken walked Liam, and Jamie stayed and played with Ross and Daniel for much of the afternoon. I cleaned and mixed cookie batter. Liam woke up at 3, when Ken dropped him off, and Jamie came home around 4:15, when I knew that my mom, Jen, Becky, and Anna were about to arrive. It was a house full of happy chaos when they did, and we soon went to Browning for a large round of happy chaos. We ate pizza, thanks to Tom and Michelle, and cinnamon buns, and chased Gary and played Mario Kart and had, in general, a good time decompressing after the stresses of the day. We came home around 9:30, and the boys were asleep around 10:30. Tomorrow is a big day, and the kids will likely spend a good deal of it at Browning while the adults get the last of the food together. It should be a lot of fun.

2008-12-24 38:03 (John) I went out first thing in the morning to pick up the turkey, and then I came home to play with Owen and Jamie while everyone else went for a walk to shop for everything else we needed for dinner tonight and tomorrow. Daniel and Ross came over, and we started working on a large snow sculpture. When we had the basic structure in place, Becky took stock of it and turned it into the snow monster seen in the photos.

Millie and her sons came over for dinner, and we tried to put the boys to bed early. Jamie protested loudly all the way to bed and then passed out right away; Liam went along relatively quietly to bed but was still wide awake and chattering an hour later when we gave up and decided he could watch his DVDs while some present opening took place. Liam came over every now and then to make sure that all the presents were handed out correctly, and eventually got to bed fairly late.

2008-12-25 14:11 (John) The boys let us sleep in until 8:45, then hustled us downstairs for stocking presents. Jamie got a box of his favourite fruit creme cookies, a Bakugon, gloves, a jigsaw puzzle, Kung Fu Panda on DVD, a Wall-E cutlery set, a SIGG bottle, and a little 1-15 sliding block puzzle that I liked as a child. Liam got a box of the same cookies, construction cutlery, a SIGG bottle, mittens, a jigsaw puzzle, and a DVD that I can't remember. Then the four of us went to Browning to open presents. Jamie received two big Exoforces (from Gary and Ayami), a Christmas ornament (Ken and Tami), a large Optimus Prime (Tom and Michelle), a "there's a little hero in everybody" T-shirt, climbotron, green robot, maze book, sketchbook, brainquest book and "Great Paper Caper" from his doting parents. Liam received a BeyBlade from Tom, and "Big Bird in Japan" on DVD from Gary and Ayami, Julie Black Belt (the book), dinosaur wooden puzzles, a wooden food set, wooden pots and pans, a food basket, and a sticker book from Kristen and me. Jamie declared that Christmas was his "best [favourite] day". My in-laws then came over to join us for brunch, and as I write this everyone has gone back home to make dinner, except for Jamie, who has stayed here at Browning to play with Daniel and Ross' new Guitar Hero Wii set, and Liam, who has gone for his afternoon walk with Laraine.

2008-12-26 23:07 (Kristen) I should say that Liam, last night, was absolutely hilarious as he refused to fall asleep and stayed up until midnight. Really. I heard laughing downstairs in Gary's apartment around 10:30 or so, and went down to investigate. Liam was apparently playing air guitar and headbanging to music on his own initiative. Then he'd stop, throw his hands into the air, and give a joyous "Yay!". !!!!! He was also very funny when he opened the Imaginext dinosaur from his cousins and aunt Jenny, as not only does it roar (Liam: "ROAR!") but it walks when you press a button on its back. Beautiful. He leapt into my lap, but wouldn't stop pressing the button and having it "eat" the people around him. Very funny. Both of the boys were close to present overload by the end of the day, but neither one melted down, surprisingly.

That changed today. Jamie was tired when we left the house around 11:20 to go to the Boxing day sales at Yorkdale Mall. Liam was too, as he'd woken up at 7:45 or so, but he at least didn't have to walk. Jamie got Gary to carry him on his back through the mall, however, so perhaps he didn't walk as much as I'd thought. John took the kids home around 2, while I stayed with Grammi and did some more shopping. We all met up at Browning at 5 or so, and Jamie was looking very tired. After dinner, both boys (as Liam once again did not nap) were perilously close to meltdown, so we decided to take them home. Boom. Jamie melted down entirely, and could not hold it together for longer than a few minutes before melting down again. We put him straight to bed, and he was asleep by 8. Liam, on the other hand, decided to use his personal atomic reactor to keep himself going until 10:30. He is so very overstimulated, but at least he's a happy overstimulated. I hope that they both sleep long and well tonight.

2008-12-27 48:05 (Kristen) John took Liam with Anna and Becky to the market, while Owen and Jamie stayed home and played video games and watched Kung Fu Panda about seven times. Liam had a nap but woke up late, so he didn't fall asleep until midnight again. We're trying to get the boys back into a routine, but it's not very easy to do. Jamie had a calm day because he was so overstimulated, but did spend some time over at Daniel and Ross's, as he was fixated on designing his own level of Step On It. Daniel and Ross came over in the evening for one last round of D&D, and Liam entertained us by feeding play food to his new dinosaur.

2008-12-28 24:10 (Kristen) Anna, Becky, Owen, and Jason all left by train this morning, and so I woke up Liam at 8:15 to say goodbye to them. Liam was not ready to be awake, and had one of his more difficult wakeups, but it would have been worse if he'd not said goodbye, and spent the day wondering where they all were. He's very attached to his cousins, and both boys are, I know, missing them now. The boys spent a quiet morning, and Mom, Jen, and I took Liam out for late walk after a late lunch. Liam was up around 4:15, but had only slept for an hour and a half at that time. He walked to the Silk Road Cafe for dinner, chasing Jamie and pretending to be a dinosaur. Jamie and Liam were both in wonderful moods, ate heroic quantities of food, and walked most of the way back to the house. We put the boys to sleep in their own room, and while Liam still had some difficulty calming down, I think that being back in his own bed helped to calm him down and get him to sleep. I don't know what time he fell asleep, as I was asleep too.

2008-12-29 18:45 (John) Phrases I didn't think I'd hear from Jamie for a few years yet: "What's 'necromancy'?"

2008-12-29 23:36 (Kristen) Liam had a rough night, waking up with stomach troubles and having a hard time getting back to sleep. I ended up sleeping in the same bed as him for the rest of the night, as he kept stirring and wondering where I was. Poor guy. The boys and I were up around 8:20, and we had a quiet morning. Jamie and I are reading Charlotte's Web one chapter at a time, and while he's outwardly casual about it, he does seem to be enjoying the story. He's just about to meet Charlotte, and I've been playing it up a little and talking about the story after we read the chapter. I'm enjoying it, and Jamie is too, he admits. Liam listens in, but I don't know how much he's getting out of it other than the cuddle and the picture of the pig and other farm animals.

Jamie declared himself to be "bored" today, and Liam followed suit, but I think that they just miss their cousins. We found things to do quickly enough. We ate lunch at Browning, where Gary at one point, slightly frustrated by Liam's insistence that he play the drums for Guitar Hero World Tour, suggested that Liam play the drums with his head. Liam, of course, did just that, to Gary's eternal chagrin. The drum pads, at least, are soft... Liam slept for about an hour and a half, and I picked up Jamie from Browning on my way back home with Liam. Jamie needed some quiet time then, and we watched some of WALL-E before going back to Browning for dinner. Grammi and Auntie Jenny had left earlier in the day, after being given many kisses and hugs, and the next wave of family arrived in the evening, with Ian, Ted, Amy, and Alice. It was good to see their cousins, but the boys were pretty tired by 8:00 or so. We took them home, and put them to bed. Jamie was out by 10, but Liam still is having trouble settling down. He was out, I think, all of a sudden at 10:30, but is having a restless time of it.

2008-12-30 49:25 (Kristen) Jamie had an offer to play at Jake's this afternoon with his friends, which freed me up to walk Liam and get a little work done. I picked Jamie up at Jake's, where he was very reluctant to leave, but as I was dropping him off at Daniel and Ross's (along with Liam) so that John and I could go to a movie, he eventually acquiesced. We had a fun conversation with Sam and his dad about Super mario Kart on the way home, and who had unlocked what. The boys were good for Tom and Michelle, which was lovely, and were in very good moods when we came to get them.

2008-12-31 25:28 (Kristen) Happy New Year to each and every one of you from us. We all slept in this morning, and Jamie managed to stay in his robe and pajamas until after 2, when I finally made him put his day clothes on, under protest. Liam went with John for a walk, but failed to sleep until 3, just as John was coming back home. We let him sleep until 4:30, which, as we were going out to Reid and Luis's for a New Year's party, wasn't as bad a thing as usual. The kids watched movies, did homework, and lazed about until it was time to go to the party, where they ran about, "played" Rock Band (which meant that Liam sat on the stool and banged on the drums), and played with whomever they could. At one point, I saw Liam and Simon running around the main floor on their hands and knees, meowing and pretending to be cats. It was very cute. We dressed the children in their pajamas, hoping that they would fall asleep in the car, but both boys were far too keyed up for that. Liam fell asleep at 11:40, about ten minutes after Jamie did.

2009-01-01 21:30 (John) Alissa came over to help clean up the house in the morning; Liam and I went to pick up Nobuko and Tomoko and the osechi (Japanese New Year's banquet food). Liam is very serious about helping with everything, though he can get distracted easily, say by packages of Anpanman rice crackers left carelessly lying about an apartment. He wanted to eat them, but also wanted to see the whole set before doing so, correctly inferring the hidden presence of a Baikinman package and asking for it until he got it. Liam carried a large bag of Anpanman character rice cracker packages to the car for us.

We all ate until we were very full, the cousins played with each other, Liam and Kristen on guitar accompanied Ted on violin. Ian helped Jamie unlock new Mario Kart Wii features.

Before bath, we watched some of Totoro on my laptop. Liam has been speaking more and more Japanese, learning more from video sources than I remember Jamie doing. Today, he was excitedly repeating "Taihen!", which may join "Otto!" among his favourite Japanese exclamations.

In the bath, Liam asked to be tickled. He likes to tickle and be tickled, and has a special mischievous when he tickles. He tickled me, he tickled the bath, and we took turns playing This Little Piggy. Jamie sat on the toilet for the longest time trying to whistle, achieving success for the first time after about a week's trying, and is rightfully proud. My dad taught me how to whistle in the bath when I was eight; I don't remember him stressing proper tongue placement (tip against lower front teeth, middle arched high), but thank goodness for Google and helpful web sites or Jamie would still just be blowing air out his lips.

2009-01-02 23:51 (Kristen) I've been so busy getting the house clean and work done, and all sorts of other projects underway, that I really haven't paid as much attention to what the boys are doing as I should. Liam has been sleeping badly at night, which means that I go in with him around 2 or 3, and wake up with him around 8:15 or so. I get crammed against the side of the trundle bed when I do, so my sleep isn't all that restful. Liam is wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, however, and rarin' to go in a very crabby "feed me before I start to destroy your city" kind of way. The downside of weaning him is that he is very thirsty and ravenous in the morning, and there really shouldn't be any delay in feeding him.

I had both boys fed and dressed by 9:20, and John took the children to Loblaws while I went curtain rod shopping with Alice. Jamie lost his new Laaken bottle, which has upset him, but I'll buy him a new one with his Christmas money if no one turns it in at the Loblaws. It was a Santa present, but he can help me to pick one out this time, if he likes. We all came back home in time to have a playdate with Jake. Jamie was actually bored of the Wii, which was unfortunate as Jake has a lot of Wii obsession to work through before he could ever claim to be bored by one. They worked it out, in part thanks to other presents like the tent, which was nice.

John took Liam out for a walk, and Liam slept for about two hours. Both boys are interested in my guitar, which I have taken out of its case and am playing (I use the term loosely) again for the first time in years. Jamie wants to strum the strings, and Liam likes to sit on my knee and make his own sounds as I try to play. I'm trying to be patient, as I remember my father letting me do that sort of thing when I was a child, but it's not all that easy. Liam and Jamie are mad for Guitar Hero and Rock Band too, and both insist on playing those as well. Liam can be bought off by being given a microphone ("Liam sing!") that is not logged into the game, but he's insisting on playing guitar or drums more and more, and very upset when someone else is playing "his" instrument. We had dinner at Browning, with some Guitar Hero World Tour on the side, which was fun. We came back home to play some D&D, and put the boys to bed between 9:30 and 10. Liam was not at all sleepy, and stayed awake until 10:53 or so.

2009-01-03 45:39 (Kristen) The start of school is almost before us, and we're trying to get the