He's Chunkin' Up

We're almost to the point where our Pediatrician will officially put that little "X" on his growth chart where his height, head cir., and weight will all be ON the little "safe" region. Christopher is officially no longer a "runt." I also don't get this, but I took both of these pictures today...he looks like a total tub on the bottom one! Who'da thunk? We're off of rice cereal for the last 2 weeks..now we're on oats. Yesterday he had his first non-cereal/non-formula meal. He downed some carrots. And may I also say that we're proud owners of The Magic Bullet...We will be trying to puree and store all of his foods (except for carrots...our pediatrician told us not to puree carrots for some reason. I asked, and she explained it, but I've got the retention of a goldfish so I can't remember specifically why. It had something to do with it requiring professional processing because of certain enzymes or chemicals used...something like that. I was distracted by a mural of a tree house in the doctor's office.)

"I think I'm getting this whole bottle thing"

Just some pictures of Christopher's learning process. On occasion, when he's getting the "I'm hungry figits," we put a bottle near him to see what he can do with it...as you can tell, the first time, well, he got the point, just not quite getting the "let gravity be your aid" concept. Then, less than two week later, he completely got it...with some guidance (when he's tired, he just won't hold it at all). And the last two pictures I just thought were funny...I love the looks on his face...its like he's saying "f*@! you and your horse! I did it, biotches. "GET BACK, GET BACK YOU DON' KNOW ME LIKE THAT, SON!!!!" (a la Ludicris)





P.S. I swear on my mother that I really don't pose him for these shots. I just always have my camera ready. I did pose him for the astronaut shot and for the one where he's watching TV and his legs are crossed....other than that these are all true-to-life Christopher Michael Kane shots without any contorting of my child merely for the purpose of a cute picture.

The Wright Brothers Museum and Memorial

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT - A.) the actual flight markers for the famous flight. The stones mark the distances of each leg. They had a larger stone there to depict where the flyer initially took off, but I couldn't get a photo of the actual track. B.) A model replica of the flight. You can see the track and all three stone markers where the flyer took off and landed, finalizing the 12 second flight at the 3rd and last stone. C.) replica of the motorized Wright Flyer from a rear angle. D.) The reason we couldn't get to see the Wright Brothers Monument)


Being a bit into historical things, I couldn't resist the temptation to travel back north from our beach house in Avon, NC, to Kitty Hawk, NC, the home of the Wright Brothers and their amazing motorized 13 second flight. It was a pretty cool day trip. The museum, as you might have assumed, had an incredible amount of cool information on the Wright Brothers, the Wright Flyer, and actual flight, and where and how they assembled and flew the flyer. It was a pretty cool day trip. There was an amazing memorial statue up top of a hill (Upper Left). We didn't visit up there because our son was hungry and screaming at the top of his lungs...so we aborted our mission up the hill to feed the child, then had to head back to Avon for dinner. So that was my one disappointing part of the trip. Apparently, if you're flying above the monument, it appears as a star with the point of the monument pointing upwards towards the sky. Its supposed to be pretty cool, but, as I said, we didn't make it up there. Also, as the original Wright Flyer is at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., there were only replicas of the infamous flyer at this museum (one Lower Left). Still an amazing spectacle. They did, however, display the original buildings that the Wright Brothers lived in while they were building the flyer (Lower Right, building on the right) and the hanger where the flyer was assembled (Lower Right, building on the left). Just outside of these structures, the museum retained the original track that was laid for the flyer to begin its historic, though short, flight. The flyer took off from this track initially, landed became airborn again after a few feet of rolling on the ground, then lifted off for a very brief third leg. The flyer went about 120ft in distance, and was in the air for about 12 seconds total (the sum of all three airborn legs of the flight). The Wright Flyer was destroyed after the final landing. The actual flight took place in Kill Devil Hills, NC, which is a town just south of Kitty Hawk, NC. (They're pretty much one entity now, but I suppose the city centers are about 5-8 miles apart.) The Wright Brothers then went on to Dayton, OH, to complete the Wright Flyer II and their future experiments. Pretty amazing stuff. If you're ever in the area you should check it out. Its a good day trip.

More pictures from the Outer Banks, NC

Here are somemore pictures from the Outer Banks...some of the festivities and random pictures that were taken.









Besides my Spiderman impersonation (he only comes out when I've had a bit too much of the sauce, if you know what I'm sayin'), I spent most of the time there taking advantage of some serious and much needed R&R. I didn't go out for Karaoke or to the beach at all...just mostly chilled by the pool or in the living area. Regardless, there were some drunken nights and here are the pictures that proove that some zany stuff was going down!

The Notorious OBX

So, The Kane's went on a family vacation (with the Tierney family...a.k.a. my in-laws) to North Carolina's Outer Banks region. We rented a huge beach house, drank heavily, relaxed, and had some fun. Christopher enjoyed himself as well. He decided to pull out some James Bond 007 action and begin working on his deep sea missions. He had to train in the pool and found a great crab-shaped floatation device. This device blended in with the many crabs that scattered and scurried about on the beach of the Outer Banks region. I'm sure his motive was to use the crab as some sort of camoflage to ambush and destroy his enemies with dart-like speed and precision. He then began training at the Wright Brother's Memorial and Museum. Here he attempted to get fitted into a space suit, but, unfortunately, was just the other side of too small for the tiniest suit they had in stock. We had to thwart that mission. We were so disgusted by the whole scene that we all decided to go to the local brewery for some ale and grub. We laughed and cried over our Porters and Stouts through the wee hours of the early afternoon...after which, Christopher decided to call it a day and retire for the night having met with some enjoyment and success.

What does Wonder Woman have to do with any of this? Nothing. I just thought it was cool that the Brewery used the figurine to display that it was the ladies latrine....gotta love that.

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

OBX

So, we're at the Outer Banks of North Carolina curently with Colleen's family. I won't be able to post much as I didn't bring the correct hook-up for my camera to the computer. I will, however, have some pictures and stories for the blog upon my return. Happy sailing.