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Victor has a new batch of teeth poking through his gums, it’s the pack… herd, flock, pride, whatever of molars we’ve been expecting ever since his gums turned white almost two months ago.

The random crying started last week, but pain got intense early this past week. When the inflammation and pain in his mouth is starts to rise, Victor’s cheeks get red and puffy, like it was a cold day and he was doing his Marlon Brando. But then there’s a whole other level of pain which, in grown-up terms, I think would be on par with a split tooth.

That’s when he starts grabbing and twisting his ears. It’s also when the crying gets piercing, and he can’t sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. Which means we can’t sleep. Diane has it worse than I do, because Victor is at his High Street apartment most nights.

It’s only when he’s up for a downtown experience that he’s at my place over night. Like right now.

When it gets this bad we use liquid Tylenol and OraGel, and it seems to take the edge off. The good news is he’s running out of spaces for teeth, so I think there’s only one more round for the poor kid to go through. After that, from what I’ve picked up from the Internet and magazines, it’s smooth sailing until he moves out. Nothing to look forward to but seventeen years of quiet bliss. Can’t wait.

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Because Diane is working moderately-full-time, Victor has been spending most of his daylight hours here in my apartment. Until now it’s been pretty easy, either he sleeps and I sleep, or he’s up and I’m sitting beside his playpen playing with him. But recently, since it kind of warmed up, we’ve been out on the balcony, where I’ll hold his hand and we’ll go for little jaunts from one end to the other.

The downside, I’m starting to understand, of giving him new places to roam, giving him new horizons, is he’s quicker to get bored just walking around in his playpen teaching each me funny noises.

He taught himself how to point months ago, so when he wants something, he’ll let you know. And, recently, most of his pointing is towards my front door.

When we’re out together with Diane, or with Diane and her oldest son, Andrew, I have no problem walking beside him, holding his hand as he stumbles along with his big clunky sneakers. But there’s something blocking me at the moment from taking him downstairs and out in his little buggy.

I think for awhile it was the winter weather combined with my broken, and diabetic, foot. Just getting up and down the thirty stairs necessary to get to my parking lot, while wearing a giant plastic space boot, on my own was a pain in the ass. Having a nearly thirty pound angry poo-badger slapping at my eyeball at the same time just seemed like an invitation, at best, to wheelchair sports.

And now it’s raining, and cold, and miserable, and my foot still hurts. I don’t know. I think, if we were left on our own, Victor and I would become cave people. Or Morlocks. I do like to walk, but my favourite time for walking has always been in the hours when the police are suspicious enough to stop and ask questions.

It turns out having a human being to raise is at least as good as therapy can be in getting rid of social anxiety problems. Or at least in forcing their parents to push past them.

We were getting out together regularly last summer… so maybe spending so much time indoors over the past few months was less anxiety and more not wanting to push a twenty-five pound rabid poo-badger up and down sidewalks covered in snowdrifts and enough ice to choke a Norwegian explorer.

As it stands now, other than contracting rickets due to a severe vitamin D deficiency, the other major problem with having Victor inside during the day is he can now stand up at will, and use the wall or bookcase as support so he can walk around. Which means he can either pull things out of other things, or down from higher things.

He’s had access to my coffee table for a while, yet somehow my PS3 has remained in place. But he knows what books are, and how to get inside them — to him it’s like peeling an orange — so he can get access to one of his favourite things… paper, which he loves to crumple and tear. The problem, of course, is I love books. Especially my books.

So, for the sake of my hardcovers, if not for Victor’s health, it’s outside we go.

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Photos Of Victor’s Week(s):

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