GARGA!

Coming to Colorado, I expected "mountains" to be on the list of new words Ryan would learn. ("monmo.")

I did not expect "gargle" to be on the list. Seems the boy finds my blue listerine-swishing ability to be hilarious, to the point that I can't even approach the bathroom without him saying "garga" and pointing to the back corner of the sink.

We've also taught him "pool", as yesterday was the first time I got to take my son swimming (i.e., 'floating on daddy's shoulder'). He's been in the very shallow barely damp end of a kiddy pool, and we all know about the Atlantic Ocean fiasco from last July, but this was our first extended jaunt around a real pool. He didn't like the cold water at first, nor floating around on an inflatable circle, but after giving him to Ainsley and letting him watch me dive around and pop up by the wall, he was intrigued enough to give it another shot.

Speaking of shots, we've seriously got the next Larry Bird here. We've hung out with tons of friends this week, including some who have a couple teen-age boys who were nice enough to pause in the middle of their basketball game out back to roll the ball to Ryan and let him take a few shots. He's two feet tall, can barely balance the big ball onto his face, but darn if he doesn't want to shoot the ball into the hoop way up there eight feet away. Over and over and over. And crying when it was time to come in. "Bas-ball!" says the little boy through giant tears.

Sheesh.

All done with the course, got the certificate, good to go. We finally got through all the class introductions today (timely!), and I told the folks one of my hobbies was dealing with my three dogs and four cats. The Marine LtCol stood up later and said, "Like Dan, I have two dogs and two horses....but I don't do horses. So that's that." Confused, I replied, "I don't do my dogs and cats, either."

One more afternoon in the pool, another night of mass-hello-everyone-isn't-Ryan-cutes, then back home tomorrow.