Walker, Virginia Ranger

Made it home Friday afternoon about my usual gettin'-home-from-work time, and although it took a few minutes to remember my name, we enjoyed a happy reunion with tea and twiglets on the front porch.
Still happy as a larky clam to walk all over the joint if he has your finger, I let go of him in our foyer and darned if he didn't take a few stutter steps before falling down to his knees. Okay, progress.
An old friend was promoted to Lt Col this afternoon, and although I was flying during the ceremony, he and his wife had an open house to celebrate, and after playing BAWL out back for a few minutes, we had him back inside practicing his freestyle two-step on a cushy carpet. We'd lead him into the center of the rug, let go, and he'd stand there a while, contemplate his feet, and then STOMP STOMP STOMP his way to Mommy or Me, a big Look What I Can Do grin on his face. Of course, Ainsley's response was, "Yay!....Oh, no...."

So we thought we'd take his new-found sea legs to the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt in the playground. They'd roped off different sections for 9+ year olds, 4-8 year olds, and munchkins. We spread out in a line, and when the horn sounded, we took off at Ryan pace (Grandad holding a finger), heading for some plastic eggs in the grass. Unfortunately, some hispanic grandma figured she'd pick up everything in our path (until her daughter reminded her that she was not less than quatro), so Grandad veered off to the left and with a blocking movement of his own, barricaded a young girl from reaching an egg for Ryan to pick up. All told, Ryan only got three or four, plus a couple a cute blonde handed to him ("Ryan, can you say 'What's your phone number?' ... I mean, 'Thank you?'"), and it was over in less than sixty seconds.

But since it was a beautiful day, we spent another thirty minutes on the swing and going down the slide all by himself big boy like, probably to impress the blonde. Whom he proceeded to knock to the ground when she tried to hug him.