.

We don’t know how much Victor weighs right now. I’m guessing more than he used to, because this weeks clothes always have to be bigger than last weeks clothes.

It has been three weeks since we took him to the “Watch Me Grow” program at the Knox Presbyterian Church in Vankleek Hill. The program offers a registered nurse, or nurse practitioner who monitors the baby’s growth and makes sure he gets all of his shots when he’s supposed to get them.

They’re also there with advice on when to start solid foods, and what foods to offer the baby.

They also weigh the kids. The last time we checked, Victor was firmly in the middle of the “normal” curve at 16lbs. Which, for a kid born five weeks before his due date, means he’s been an eating machine.

Diane has been experimenting with what Little Victor eats, this week it was pears, last week it was peaches. So far he likes the former, greatly dislikes the latter — just like his uncle Luc. This is the time in a babies life where we’re supposed to introduce real food into the diet. So far it’s been boob-juice, formula and lately some kind of gruel.

I missed his introduction to peaches, but was there to see his reaction to pears. So far everything he’s jammed into his mouth has tasted like his fist, plastic or mommy, so it was really interesting to see how long it took for his brain to register back to his body that this thing in his mouth was new.

It took a few seconds but eventually he looked concerned, his body spasmed in the ExcerSaucer, and he mushed the tiny spoonful of pear around in his mouth. He smiled, so I think he liked it, but the kid smiles twenty hours a day.

I don’t know what Diane thinks — I’ll probably find out ten minutes after I publish this — but I think dates should be on the menu. But I’m not sure I should be trusted with these decisions.

I inadvertently, kind of, introduced Victor to a new taste last week. Diane, kind of, freaked out a little when I showed her how much Little Victor liked licking a piece of popcorn. I guess that was probably his first introduction to salt. He loves salt.

What I know about babies comes directly, and solely, from The Mom Show. It’s a great show, probably one of the most honest and fearless programs on TV, and I’ve watched it for years. Unfortunately, since Diane’s third trimester I’ve been too busy with hospitals and actually taking part in raising my son, that I’ve lost access to The Mom Show.

I wish I could read the parenting books, but the book-reading piece of my brain burned out years ago. I can barely focus on a newspaper anymore, and it takes an act of will to read a magazine article.

So at this point I’m basically relying on YouTube as a learning too. I can’t wait for when Victor starts shooting lasers out of his eyes.

We took Victor and his 4.5-year old big brother, Andrew, to the splash pad at the Vankleek Hill Arena this past Saturday. Whoever voted to have that thing installed needs to be thanked. With a parade and fireworks… every year on their birthday.

The water was a little cold, but Andrew and I got soaked while Diane walked Little Victor up to one of the streams of water. He got a little wet, and a little freaked out, but he had a great time.

The trip home in his little buggy ended up being too much for the poor little guy, just when we got to the stairs he released his last meal in a fountain of formula that coated him and filled the seat of his buggy. Then he smiled.

Little Victor turned six months old over the weekend, just in time for his great-grandfather, Big Victor’s eighty-eighth birthday.

Diane and I took them both out for dinner to “Goodies” in Hawkesbury.

A nice time was had by all, Big Victor got a nice card from Andrew, and some peanut brittle, and an album filled with photos of his great-grandson.

And the two Victor’s really perked up everyone’s day.

.

Photo Of Victor’s Week:

.

Movie’s We Watched Last Week:

We didn’t really have an opportunity to watch a lot of movies this week. I know Diane watched a lot of HBO’s “Rome“. The only serious movie we watched together was “Shutter Island” (2010), with Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo. I read too much of a review where the reviewer forgot to put up a “spoiler alert”, so I kind of knew what was going on.

It was good… classic 1950’s, fedora wearing, Humphrey Bogart-style thriller, with some major twists and way more use of the word “fuck” than in “The Maltese Falcon”.

The only other movie I watched this week (Victor skipped this one) was “The Birth Of A Nation” (1915), a silent B&W flick about how the Ku Klux Klan saved the White South from the menacing Black North after the American Civil War. Fascinating movie. It’s considered by most critics to be the greatest American movie ever made… and the most racist.

The movie actually played at the town hall in Vankleek Hill on March 13, 1918. I just wrote a post about it that I’m publishing here on Tuesday or Wednesday. Oooo… I almost have a schedule.

.

.