There’s a move on now to turn Remembrance Day in Ontario into a holiday. I don’t think it’s a good idea, for the same reason I think people in Ottawa are misguided to think it’s cool to sell white poppies beside the red ones: because we, as a Nation, are so completely ill-informed as to what the day means in the first place.
What chance is there someone with a typical high school education in Canadian history is going to use a stat-holiday to reflect on our role in Korea? About as much chance as there is now of that same person showing up at their town’s cenotaph on Remembrance Day, so why give them an entire day off to celebrate their ignorance?
People have become (have always been) so ignorant of what Remembrance Day is that the day is becoming a political event. Pretty soon we’ll have protesters dressed in black, waving the Anarchy flag in front of war memorials.
There are people in Ottawa, for example, who call themselves a “White Poppy Coalition” (I looked for a website, but couldn’t find one). They’re selling white poppies this year because they’re convinced the red ones are a celebration of war. One of them told the Ottawa Sun recently the white poppies celebrate a “non-violent means of conflict resolution”. They deliberately chose a poppy, making their statement overtly political and insulting to the people — civilian and soldiers alike — who have served , lived through or died in wars around the world.
Rex Murphy pointed out in a recent column that “poppies show our regret at war’s horrors, not our love for it”. In other words, the red poppy already has your non-violent concerns covered, but thanks for reminding us all of the need for a better education system.
Here’s what I remember… after spending the first years of WW2 as a conscientious objector, my grandfather was training to be a tail-gunner when the war ended; his youngest brother flew Lancaster bombers over Germany; their oldest brother was a member of the 1st Special Service Force, aka: “The Devil’s Brigade”. He fought all the way up the Italian boot, and he did it mostly at night and with a knife.
My father’s father served as a radioman aboard the HMS Hood, but transferred off to a smaller ship just weeks before the Hood was sunk by the Bismarck. His future wife, and my grandmother, was a mathematician who helped develop radar. She later worked on breaking Nazi codes.
The first of my relatives who made it to Canada was a French military doctor who came to Quebec in 1740. He started one of the first hospitals in Montreal, and dedicated his life to ministering to the poor and destitute. He also served as a military physician during the War of 1812. Thanks to his work, but mostly because he didn’t get paid for doing it, he died penniless and so far in debt his widow and most of his children had to adopt a new name.
During the early 1970’s my parents and their friends helped protect and shelter young American draft dodgers who were making their way north to avoid being conscripted into the Vietnam War.
That’s what I remember. This is what my family has done to stop tyranny, and to stop wars from happening again, and also to protect people from being forced to serve in war, and the red poppy covers every one of them.
Victor will be eleven months old in a few days. People have been asking if he can crawl yet, he can’t… at least not when he’s awake.
I caught him doing push-ups in his sleep last week, he was actually up on his fingertips and toes and rocking back and forth. I’m still pretty knew at this, so I don’t know if this step in his evolution is normal or freakish, but it feels more like the latter.
From a prone position, while fast asleep, he rose up so his legs and arms were fully extended, and his back arched upwards, then kind of wriggled around before laying back down. Then, a few seconds later, he did it again. There are times when I’m pretty sure he’s going to be walking before he crawls.
Actually… Victor can walk now. At least he can make the motions. Until we can find a cane small enough for him he can only do it while one of us holds onto his hands. But, when he concentrates hard enough, he can put one foot in front of the other, and he does seem to really enjoy doing it.
One thing he really enjoys now is feeding himself. I believe this means Diane and I might be coming to the end of our responsibilities as parents. On my list the only things left is for Victor to find a job, and change his own diaper. After that I think all we’re supposed to do is help him move into his own apartment and we’re done.
Victor has been able to hold his own bottle since he was three weeks old. Diane even has a few photos of Victor holding, and using, his own spoon. And now he can find his own mouth when he’s eating his puffed cereal with his hands. It took a while. First we had to help him recognize the puffs as food, but everything after that was all him working stuff out.
For the longest time he would pick a piece off his tray, examine it, wave his arm around, then flick the piece of cereal to see how far he could make it fly. But then he started to teach himself to synchronize his arm, wrist and hand so he could get the puff as close to his mouth as possible.
He would get so happy if he could get a piece to stick to his cheek. Or he would think he got the piece into his mouth, and start to chew, but the piece of puffed rice would remain stuck to his hand.
Watching all of this happen, Diane is becoming more and more convinced Victor is left handed.
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YouTube Warning: video is cute and heartwarming.
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Victor also had his first experience with dry leaves lasts week… Diane wanted some photos of Victor playing in the leaves, he really seemed impressed. I don’t think we let him discover enough stuff when we’re outside. When his older brother was playing sports at the arena, sometimes we’d put Victor on the ground — mostly on a blanket on the ground — or, sometimes I’d walk up to a tree and let him grab at branches.
Not so much after sports ended.
When we sat Victor in the pile of leaves we could definitely see how strong he has become, he can sit up all on his own and even use his arms to balance himself.
The good news was, he didn’t try to eat the leaves.
Victor has new teeth, I think he’s up to five now, with a lot more on the way soon. He’s had a few teeth-related fevers recently, and his ears have started to hurt him enough that he spends a lot of time rubbing them.
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Victor had his first Halloween experience this week. Diane did a great job turning him into The Joker, then she turned herself into a pretty awesome zombie. We hooked up with some friends to go door-to-door, but the three of us only had time to hit the major houses, all of whom fell to pieces over Victor.
Rosemary Harden even brought (dragged) Diane and Victor into her home to meet with some older (complete strangers to us) relatives. I think it was the closest anyone has come to having a real Hansel and Gretal moment.
We finished off at the convenience store where Diane works. Her boss gave Victor a bunch of chocolate bars. Nice guy. Andrew, Diane’s oldest son, made out like a bandit. He dressed up as “Bumblebee”, from the Transformers. There are boxes of candy in Diane’s apartment right now.
Of course, I continue to remain diabetic.
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Photo Of Victor’s Week:
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Bonus Photo Of Victor’s Week:
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Changing gears slightly… on Thursday, October 14, someone called the Children’s Aid Society — now known locally as Integra — and told them I was an immediate threat to my son’s safety because I was “severely depressed”.
The person also claimed I was being “aggressive” with my son and, bizarrely, I was also supposedly “yelling inappropriately at people”.
Of course none of the claims were true, and seemed to be completely pulled from thin air. But I was investigated anyway, such is the beauty of a system where people are allowed to retain their anonymity behind their lies and delusions.
But a guarantee of anonymity does not always mean the complainant is anonymous. There are times when “anonymous” means someone’s identity is barely hidden due to a lack of direct evidence but, as in this case, all of the substantial circumstantial evidence points to less than a handful of suspects.
The case worker was accommodating, and even apologetic. She asked her questions, and Diane and I gave her answers. She inspected my apartment, she played with Victor, and felt comfortable enough to dismiss the claims against me as “borderline harassment”.
I asked her to see the complaint, but CAS policy requires me to have a lawyer contact their office. When I do receive a copy of the complaint the name of the complainant will be redacted.
At the moment the answers to my questions point to two possibilities: the complainant either has access to both of my blogs or, more likely, it was someone who knows me in the real world.
There are fewer than twenty people who regularly read or know about both of my blogs and, other than a few members of my extended family, they were all invited by me.
So while only some of the evidence fits an Internet stalker, almost all of it points to a specific member of my family.
Which would fit a long pattern of abuse and vindictiveness on her part.
Almost seven months ago I made the decision not to allow my grandmother to have access to my son. She made several disgusting comments to me regarding Victor, my girlfriend and my mother — comments, it turns out, my parents knew about months before the incident, yet felt it unnecessary to warn me beforehand — and I had enough.
Somehow she has managed to abuse my family for decades with zero consequences to stop her. If she felt she was being persecuted, or finally being held to account for her abuses because of my decision to keep her away from my son, it would make sense for her to lash out like this in an attempt to turn me into the abuser.
Of course, it is possible someone I trusted with access to both of my blogs made the phone call to the CAS… but there are things the complainant told the case worker that are just not available on either blog.
But, it’s over now. So what, I asked the case worker, would stop the complainant from repeatedly calling the CAS… could my girlfriend and I look forward to weekly visits? The case worker said if there was another call from the complainant she would treat it with suspicion, and if there were more the CAS would consider it as harassment.
Good times. I think I stopped being angry on the car ride to the Hawkesbury offices of Integra, where I had to sign some papers — as I was calming down, Diane seemed to be getting more anxious. I knew there was no chance of losing Victor, but not being angry at the case worker who was only doing her job doesn’t mean I’ll ever forgive, or forget, someone tried to have my son taken from me.
I think it’s pretty obvious my girlfriend was born to be on the cover of a Simon & Garfunkel album… or in the local weekly newspaper which, coincidentally, is where a black and white version of this photo was published this week. You’re welcome World. This is the second time I’ve selected a photo of Diane to be featured in this category. Again, you’re welcome World.
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Technical Stuff: There are no filters for tiny digital cameras… at least none that can screw onto the lens. So sunlight will bleed into a shot. You’d have to use some freaky combination of fractal mathematics and differential calculus to find the percentage of times it actually works out like it did in this photo… which isn’t a lot. Mostly this photo should have been washed out, kind of like a post-grunge, Canadian-poptart album cover — I’m looking at you, Nelly Furtado.
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This photo of Diane was taken in the Vankleek Hill Community Garden, which has mostly been allowed to return to its natural state of being a place where no one ever goes. If it’s going to continue, and it’s a decent idea, there has to be some kind of ‘end of the season harvest BBQ’ or something so people have a reason for keeping their plot growing. Some event to mark the seasons changing… something involving food… maybe an annual date put aside for giving thanks for the harvest… I don’t know, hopefully someone will come up with an idea for next year.
It’s official, Victor is a cannibal. We just had to wait for his teeth to fully come through to find out for sure.
Sometimes, when we’re feeding him his hard food, we’ll just kind of drop bits into his mouth. Until recently we had an excellent shot at withdrawing our fingers fully intact. Not so much now that his two bottom-front, razor-like teeth have developed. He has at least one fully developed fang on top, but I’m not going in there anymore to find out how many there are.
A few days ago he took a chunk of Diane’s finger along with the little chunk of chicken she offered him. So, now that he has tasted human flesh it should be a lot funnier when people lean in to pinch his cheeks. Maybe not so much when he learns how to run, but for now it should be good for some laughs.
Originally my plan for Halloween was to dress him up as a zombie, but I think we’ve decided on The Joker. His hair is long enough, so we should be able to do him up like the Heath Ledger version. Diane went out and bought the makeup, so we might have a practice night before the real thing.
Victor already has the smile and weird cackling noises perfected, so now all we need is a purple suit and a green vest.
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YouTube Warning: the first minute is mostly an annoying
and untrained dog barking. The rest is cute and heartwarming
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This was Victor’s first Thanksgiving, and our first as a fully formed family. Diane cooked, and I mostly watched TV, so it was traditional. She did a great job, we decided to go with a regular sized chicken rather than the turkey option. Andrew, Diane’s oldest son, hasn’t really developed a regular appetite yet, so it was really just the two of us.
Victor did get some mashed carrots, potatoes and chicken chunks… I fed him with a spoon, because I saw how hard he bit down on Diane’s finger. I also saw the hole where the piece of her finger used to be.
We made sure he got some cranberries and stuffing as well. Victor has a new, interesting and very funny behaviour when he’s eating… when it’s something he really likes his eyes close really tightly, and his head rocks a little and he moans.
When it’s something he’d rather not be eating his entire face gets screwed up and squinty, his mouth opens and he shakes his head. But he keeps chewing.
That was his reaction to the mashed potatoes. So we kept feeding him mashed potatoes, and he kept making the face, but he also kept coming back for more mashed potatoes.
Andrew was fairly content in the living room watching a cartoon called “Johnny Test”, about a boy and his dog. Mostly he was worried about having to eat more than one carrot.
It’s an interesting thing starting new traditions. Thanksgiving in my family has been pretty hit and miss in the past. In the past my parents made a big deal about it, but most of the time it’s just another day. Diane and I have already started making plans for Christmas.
We’re also starting to make plans for Victor’s first official birthday on December 12, he just turned ten-months old yesterday. Andrew will be five-years old in November, so we’re trying to figure out what that’s going to be about as well.
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Last week Victor, Diane and I met up with my grandfather — coincidentally also named Victor — for lunch in Hawkesbury. We had a great time, my grandfather got a real kick hand feeding Victor some little French fry bits.
When we were leaving my grandfather leaned in to give Victor a kiss on the cheek, and Victor grabbed his nose. My grandfather stayed where he was, so Victor used both hands to grab his nose, cheeks, eyelid, forehead, ear, lips… they were really having a moment.
Little Victor was laughing and smiling the whole time, and so was Big Victor. It was a really moving moment, I know Big Victor was really touched (sure, it’s a pun, but it’s also the right word).
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Victor and I have been spending a lot of time together recently. Diane’s back to work at the convenience store, and they’re put her on the morning shifts for most of the week, as well as two afternoon shifts.
So we’ve put together a decent routine. She changes Victor before leaving at 5.30am, then Victor and I wake up about 8.30am. This is when I get the music playing, I always start with Frank Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours”, which seems to be Victor’s favourite album right now.
…the rest of the “lets get Victor back to sleep” playlist is a couple of albums by Canadian alt-rockers ‘Godspeed You Black Emperor!’, and the entire Muddy Waters catalogue.
Then I turn the kettle on, use the washroom, then get a clean diaper and Victor’s ‘wipes’ ready at the change station. By this time the kettle is ready, so I refill Victor’s bottle and start getting it warmed up. Then I change him, get the bottle and put him back in his crib.
He usually falls right back to sleep, which usually gives me until 10am to finish sleeping. When he wakes up this time, if he hadn’t crapped the first time he woke up, this is definitely when I need extra wipes.
For the next two hours we’re outside on the balcony, or he’s in his ExcerSaucer and I’m at the computer, or we’re on the couch watching SportsCentre. Usually all three.
If I have him in the afternoon, for Diane’s 12pm to 5pm shift, then the first two hours are his nap, then he gets some work done in his ExcerSaucer — which looks like a mini-office. If we’re bored and need something to do we’ll head down to Diane’s apartment and watch a movie.
My cat can open cupboards, she can open the drawers on my dresser, when she was a kitten she could escape from every jail I put her and her siblings into. When she was still smaller than my fist she once climbed almost four feet straight up, then walked off the railing of my second balcony. My neighbour found her walking around in the yard. She also likes to hide in boxes, and sleep in my cloth grocery bags. I named her ‘Cooler’ after “the Cooler King”, Steve McQueen’s character in ‘The Great Escape’.
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Technical Stuff: There’s a lot more to getting this photo than just having a cat who hides in bags. First you have to decide to move back to your hometown to recover from a longterm illness. Then, about five years into your recovery, you have to ask the girl at the convenience store out on a date. Then you have to make sure her two cats get together and have a healthy litter of kittens. It gets a little easier after that, because now you have the cat. Now all you have to do is find a decent cloth grocery bag.
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Cooler also plays fetch with her toy mice, and will hide behind corners so she can attack your feet. She’ll jump halfway up a door frame just because, then sit like a prairie dog so she can see what’s going on across the room. Did you know when the original Steve McQueen got a case of cancer he went to a “doctor” who prescribed coffee enemas and frequent shampoos? Know what happened? He died of cancer. Did you know cats will never submit willingly to a coffee enema? Cooler will never become the Steve McQueen impersonator I hoped she would.
I might be jumping the gun here, I’m not sure what the protocol is, or what exactly constitutes “crawling”, but my kid — on camera — got into the crawl position, did his frog dance, then moved one knee forward and then the other.
All together he moved forward roughly four inches. Since then I’ve seen him make the movements, but he doesn’t plant the knee he’s pushing off of, so he kind of falls down, laughs, and tries it again.
Which, I’m starting to suspect, is the fun part for him. It’s fun for him to make the motions, because they’re new, the movement the motions are supposed to create is not something he’s thinking about.
So… he can crawl, he just doesn’t want to right now. He can, however, definitely bite. Any time he can grab someone’s finger, he’ll pull it right into his mouth and chomp down as hard as he can. He’s not being mean, he does the same thing with any object he can grab.
It just hurts more when it’s your finger. He doesn’t have any full teeth yet, but there are the sharp points of a couple of them sticking out of his gums. It doesn’t really hurt, but it is funny to watch him try his hardest to bite your finger off. His eyes get all squinty… he looks like a toothless old dude trying to bite off a piece of beef jerky.
Then, when he can’t get a piece off, he’ll pull your finger out, examine it, turn it a little, and jam it back into his mouth to take another shot.
Having something to push into his gums relaxes him. I have an empty pill bottle that I give him when he starts to get upset. He likes it because it fits his hand perfectly, so he can wave it around and bang it on his ExcerSaucer. But then he’ll look at it really carefully, turn it around, find the sweet spot, and jam it into his upper gums and push.
His two front, top teeth are getting ready to pop out. And it looks like Victor is going to have his daddy’s bucktooth gap. Hopefully he also got my sense of humour.
There are two things Victor loves doing more than anything else… bouncing and talking. He loves his Jolly Jumper and his ExcerSaucer because he can jump around like a maniac in them. But now he’s doing it in his high chair, while we’re feeding him.
When he’s in his high chair we like to tilt the seat back a little, it makes it easier to feed him. So a little while ago he figured out how to pull himself up straight so he could grab a bottle off the tray. Which was cool. But now, and this is a very recent phenomenon, he’ll use the tray to pull himself up, and then he’ll almost throw himself back into the seat. Because it’s a plastic high chair it sounds violent, and overall it’s only kind of “nervously funny”.
It’s probably the first thing he has learned how to do that I hope he grows out of.
I guess the biggest news from the past few weeks is Victor’s ability to talk. I think this is kind of like the crawling situation, it sounds like Victor is talking, but it’s probably just something he’s doing to pass the time between bottles.
He has been saying “dahdahdah-dahdahdah” for almost a month now, but it always seemed to be just an extension of the little noises he makes that make his mouth feel cool. Just over the past week, for example, he has started blowing raspberries at everything.
I take full credit for teaching him how to do that.
But at some point last week he started to say “dada”, like it was it’s own, independent word. It makes sense since his mom has been repeating “dada” in front of him since, at least, March.
There are times when we’re playing — I have a little video of him doing it — and he’ll go through the sounds he knows, then get quiet and start whispering “dada… daDA… DaDa… DAda”, like he’s going through the different pronunciations. It’s one of the coolest, most amazing things I’ve ever seen.
He’s actually at the point now where he’s imitating our mouth movements. Which is just funny. We caught him doing it tonight. His hands move while his mouth moves like he’s explaining something to someone. It’s like he’s lip syncing to a conversation in his head.
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Photo Of Victor’s Week:
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Bonus Photo Of Victor’s [Father’s] Week:
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Big Victor Update
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Little Victor’s great-grandfather, not-so-coincidentally also named Victor, recently had a procedure done to open up his arteries — he had a “mild” heart attack about a month ago, and put a stent in to open one of his arteries.
They were going to add two more stents this time, but decided it’d be easier and just as effective to clean the arteries out manually. My grandfather got a real kick out of watching the whole thing on the monitor.
He got a bigger kick when they told him he could get back on the golf course almost immediately. He played two rounds of 18-holes that week, his score was pretty much the same as before the heart attack.
He’s been having some problems with depression, which is normal when you’re facing heart surgery — and having negative influences in his life. But I’ll leave that for another post — even though I had already written it out and was going to publish it here.
My grandfather has been asking me questions about psychiatry since he moved into his retirement home. And for the past few months he has been asking about the medication I take so I can sleep — he’s having difficulty getting to sleep, and staying there. Personally I’ve had a sleeping disorder, as a symptom of something larger, since I was seventeen… ish.
My grandfather and I talk by phone twice a week. We also try to get together once a week for lunch, and so he can have a visit with his great-grandson.
He’s also (while we’re on the subject) depressed because he has no one left to talk with. Most of his construction friends have passed on, and there’s no one in the ‘retirement home’ he can relate to. He’s pointed out in the past that he and I are in the same position — because of a lengthy, and difficult, recovery from a major health issue, I’ve also lost most of the friends and connections I’ve ever made.
So, basically, he believes we’ve got each other and not much more.
He likes that I’ll argue with him. It keeps his mind active. The thing with my grandfather is he has slowed down — he’s 88-years old, lived through a heart attack and a few strokes — so you have to give him time to talk, otherwise he gets confused and shuts down.
Unfortunately, the “negative influence” I’m not writing about at the moment is around him almost constantly and seems to enjoy talking faster than he can compute, so he feels like he can’t defend himself.
Personally I think some kind of intervention is gravely needed, and at least a decade overdue. Or maybe just handcuffs and 2000mgs of Seroquel.
The former, which is probably a better idea to get started with, is something that’s beyond my current capabilities.
But, like I wrote, beyond this would be for another post… or a post on an entirely other blog.
So… I have no idea what’s going to happen. Which is also depressing.
0_o
cultural sn:afu 