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Victor finally has an age. He is a full year old. His original due date was January 10, 2010, and his original name would have been Victor Binary Landriault… so his being premature might have been a good thing. We ended up going with Victor, for my grandfather, and David, for Diane’s father.

The entire “birth” thing started around 9pm on Friday, December 11, 2009, when his mother’s water broke. Somehow, forty-five minutes later, her apartment was filled with her parents, two paramedics and a friend of mine.

This is a relatively short slideshow of the past year and a bit… just reload the page, or use the arrow keys to find the beginning.

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Other than Diane freaking out, Victor popping out, and the nurse’s reaction when I asked if I could keep the scissors I cut the umbilical cord with (they’re in my freezer), the thing I remember most about the two days of Victor’s birth is how weird the nurses treated me.

Both nights I was there, for example, I had to sleep on the floor. Which was weird. At least the first night they gave me a sheet to cover up with. The second night I mostly spent with Victor in the Intensive Care Unit, he was considered to be a premature baby, even though he was only one day early.

I stayed with him for about three and a half hours before I was too exhausted to be alive anymore. When I finally arrived at Diane’s room the nurse told me I couldn’t sleep in the second bed, because someone might be admitted. I could, however, sleep on the floor beside the bed.

I started shaking about twenty minutes later. I think it was mostly from the cold draft, but there had to be some diabetes stuff going on as well. From 11pm on Friday until about 4pm on Saturday I survived on a bag of nuts from the vending machine, and two cups of orange juice I managed to get a nurse to find me.

I know I had something to eat Saturday, just before they started sticking large needles into Diane’s back — Diane has a needle phobia, and at one point a nurse actually quit after being screamed at, she was eventually coaxed back — but it wasn’t much of a meal… I think it was a small container of cream of something soup, and some crackers and jam.

Around 6 or 7am on Sunday they finally brought Victor into our room. I could hear everything people were saying, but I couldn’t move or speak. When I did wake up, or when I stopped being passed out, on Sunday morning Diane let me have some of her breakfast.

Everything pretty much got better from there.

The good news was, I wasn’t the one who had to give birth vaginally to a 6lb9oz bowling ball. So… thanks for that, Diane. And Happy Birthday Victor.

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I’m not sure if it has anything to do with finally having an age, but Victor has discovered new sounds over the past two weeks, and they all echo from the depths of despair.

We think it’s caused by the pains in his mouth, his gums are almost completely white with new teeth pushing through. His cheeks are red almost all the time, and sometimes they swell up like he cotton balls stuffed in there.

The new sounds are… not nice to listen to.

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A combination of Diane being sick for a few days, and having just moved into an actual house, means we’ve had to postpone Victor’s first birthday bonanza.

…probably until the second week of January.

We’ll still have cake later on tonight, but it’ll just be myself, Diane, Andrew and Victor.

It’ll be the first time Victor will have his very own cake, all to himself. I think he’s going to mush it into his face, Diane thinks he’ll stuff a handful into his mouth and fling the rest around the room in big handfuls of cake carnage.

It should be awesome.

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Unfortunately there will be no pictures of the event.

I have [had] misplaced my camera… by which I really mean I put it down and I’m pretty sure someone else picked it up. This is the first time since 1994 I have not had a working camera within reach, and it kind of sucks in ways that really, really suck. And then, three days later, the person who picked it up decided to give it back.

There’s no way I can replace it before… probably February. So… this just sucks beyond suckage.

Friday night Victor was bouncing around in his excersaucer at Diane’s and I couldn’t film it… he has almost outgrown both excersaucers, so when he starts bouncing he can almost get the freaking thing to lift off the ground. It’s awesome.

And with the new sounds of despair, he also has new joyful sounds as well.

Oh well… I do have some markers, and a lot of paper, so maybe I can learn how to draw.

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Here’s some irony to finish this off with… I am without a camera for the first time in sixteen years, and my pocket digital vanished just a day after I started a pure photo blog.

If you’re interested, and you should be because it’s fucking awesome, it’s called “Vankleek Hill Photos” and mostly it’s photos of Vankleek Hill. But really interesting, and I’ll be updating it every day.

Check it out, and don’t be afraid to praise my brilliance.

So far it looks great… and it’s actually soothing to my burned out brain. Which is a nice change of pace.

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Photos Of Victor’s Week:

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Bonus Photo Of Victor’s Week:

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