In The Swing Of Things

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Today was cloudy and intermittently rainy, so we stayed close to home. Ro and Mark went for a swim in the morning, while Sherry went for a jog. Mark tried in vain to encourage Ro to start the basics of swimming. He refused to put his face under to even blow bubbles, but he did finally scoot himself around the edge of the pool, holding onto the edge, which Mark considered a victory.

Ro enjoying scooting around the edge

Later on, Ro was getting restless indoors, it was raining too hard to do much outside, and his friends were at school. Sherry was at the store, so Mark broke down and hooked up the game he had brought to NZ for just such an occasion. Remember those cheap multi-video games-in-one controllers that plug directly into your TV? There were a bunch of mall kiosks selling them at Christmastime a few years back, and this one has a ton of old Nintendo games - mostly dregs, but a few gems including Contra, Tetris, and Super Mario Brothers. Ronan is naive to video games, but was a quick study.

Ro "waiting for Mark to die" so he can have his turn

We had spaghetti and homemade meatballs for dinner. Sherry discovered that the motel has a communal oven, so she was able to bake some brownies for dessert, which go great with a glass of Pinot Noir. Kris, the innkeeper, is quite the wine aficionado and gave us tips on some great NZ vineyards to check out while we're here. We finished up the evening playing on the swingset, where Mark taught Ro to finally swing himself, relieving us of pushing duties forever more. You could almost see the lightbulb go on over Ro's head. It was adorable!

Ro & Luke resting after an evening session at the pool

Ro relishing his first Ronan-powered swing

Alas, Ro's newly adopted pet, "Chin-Chin," appears at death's door. Ro found a praying mantis on his bedroom wall yesterday (remember we leave our windows open), and immediately claimed it for his own. He looks to have a broken hind leg, and after living in an old yogurt container for 24hrs, Sherry convinced Ro to release him into "the wild" (i.e. a hanging flower basket outside our door). At last look, Chin-Chin was lying sideways and not moving much.