Lab Rat

Victor has been a good little shopper this week as my mom and I have been checking out all the stores in the area. Hey, it's good cardio! ;) Thursday, though, we did something a little different (and then went shopping afterwards). I signed Victor up for the babylab at UCSD in La Jolla about a month ago, and they finally called us in. They are testing four month olds (I know, he's going to be four months old on Tuesday!!!) for vision preferences. They've already tested adults for how they associate the colors black and white with the shapes x and o, and they found divisions along racial lines. This is most likely learned behavior, so they're testing babies of different races as well. Mr. Victor was a very good test subject, despite his initial reluctance to wake up on time. The grad student in charge, Katie, held Victor up to a TV screen and watched his face on a monitor above him. I got to sit at the keyboard and bring up the next screen for him to see and record his results. The monitor was split into halves, left and right, and different combinations of x's and o's in different colors (black and white on a gray background) were shown on each half. Katie watched his eyes to see which way he looked as soon as a new image popped up. He was a good boy and finished all the testing at a nice pace, and flirted with Katie and her two minions before and after. At the end, Victor earned $5 and a shiny new piggy bank to put it in!

We got Victor's prescription refilled on time this time. No more messing about putting him on and off and back on again, especially with the plane trip coming up! I can't believe we're leaving a week from tomorrow--we're so excited! First, though, Victor has to get his 4 month shots on Wednesday. Poor baby! I hope he takes them as well as he did his 2 month shots, but with his new lung capacity and maximum volume upgrade, somehow I doubt it. In the meantime, I'm going to be making lists and lists of all the stuff we could possibly take, then cut it down depending on what Victor's grandparents have already eagerly stocked up on. :) Can't wait!