Benjamin Explores New York (week 182)

A red-eye flight from Long Beach to New York isn't so bad when it is just me and the parents. A (9) month-old on his first trans-continental flight is a total wild card. I had been anticipating our visit to grandma (Dubby) and grandpa Webster for months. We talked about flying on the plane, swimming in the big blue pool, and spending the day on the boat; but for Christopher, the idea of sitting on a plane with (120) other people was a dream come true.

For the first (2) hours, he couldn't stop squirming and stretching to see the faces of the people sitting around him. It didn't help that he is such a social dude, or that everyone around him wanted to catch his eye and win a smile. Wherever we go, he seems to attract attention with his big round eyes and giant eyelashes. This was a huge disadvantage to sleeping our way to New York. Even though we had three seats to ourselves he continued to kick me in the head, wave at the stewardess, and generally keep us all awake. It wasn't until we were well over Kansas City that dada finally got him to fall asleep (somewhere near the emergency exit at the rear of the plane where he couldn't see any other passengers).

When we got to New York, grandpa was waiting for us at the airport to drive us back to the middle of Long Island. Aunt Lindsay brought us bagels; uncle Mark and Aunt Leah came-out fro the City; and Dubby bought (5) pizzas from Tony at Triple P for all the family that came to see Christopher for the first time. When the pizzas arrived early, Tony sent over two more hot pizzas for the guests to make sure that everything was perfect. Dada ate too much and we all fell asleep early.

Since then, we have been doing a lot of swimming (or scooping leaves and "sharks" out of the pool). We even tried to go into the City to see the statue from "An American Tale", but got caught halfway there when the switch tower burned to the ground and the whole system shut down. Instead of going to New York City for the first time, I got to see Floral Park and play with Olivia--one of my first girlfriends--in Garden City.

Project Little Brother (week 37)
Christopher is a handful of trouble now that he can crawl. He still does a lot more dragging--commando style--but can now get up on all fours and is becoming much more accomplished at pulling stuff off shelves. His vocabulary now includes mama-mama-mama, and his is becoming adept at fake cries to indicate that he wants something--usually puffs tor solid food to eat. He also has a sixth sense for finding the most dangerous object in the room and either bee-lining for it to pull it over on his head or crashing into the corner of the nearest coffee table.

Word of the Week
Awesome: an adverb, describing just about any activity or thing that we will be doing that day. This includes the train, the baseball game, or something to eat.