Wayul Tayul

To celebrate the last day of my four-day weekend, we took the kids to a local Waterpark just a few minutes from the house. Ryan has been there several times with his wee midget friends, but this was our first opportunity to go as a family. What a difference a lack of an Ocean and not being 9 months old makes! Wading out waist-deep into 1-foot water, "floating" on his belly in three-inch water, a determined, clenched-but-smiling jaw hovering above the waves. He ran over to the whale slide and said hello to the tail, but for some reason, after crawling up the side steps, didn't want to go cavorting down the tongue.
(This sure beats the set-up at an inflatable gymboree I saw in North Dakota, where you crawled in through the whale's mouth and slid out its anus.)
Neither Ryan or Erin bothered to take a nap, but Mommy got in a quick hour before we turned around and threw everyone back in the car for Ryan's first organized extended sporting event -- eight days of swimming lessons for wayward tots.
Day one consisted of just bouncing up and down and walking around in a big circle around the instructor, a "Mister Evan", to get acclimated to the water temperature. We then practiced slipping into the water from the ledge into Daddy's hands on a count of 3 (we were going to do 'Ready, Set, Go', but I kept saying 'Ready?' to see if he was ready, and then it just sounded repetitive). We were supposed to let the kids 'fall' deeper and deeper into the water, to get the feel for water in the lower face, but Ryan is a rather buoyant little lad. He tends to bob like a log. But he was still enjoying himself. He even let me grab his hands and pull him around while he kicked in the water, sometimes back behind him, sometimes straight up and down, bicycle style (which is dangerous for the puller).
Then Evan brought out the long, colored, foam 'noodles' for the kids to grab onto and float above, but after doing it once, Ryan wanted to hold it like a fishing pole, up in the air, and was pretty much done with this swimming nonsense. It was his only crying of the night, with constant 'no's to every possible option I was offering. Including letting him hold it like a fishing pole.
It was near the end of the session anyway, so we got him all dried and changed, and as we were leaving, we learned that Ryan was at least somewhat paying attention, as he said to his teacher, "G'BYE MISTER NOODLE!!!"