Gabe Time

Have I posted about the fact that Gabe is no longer napping?  I know.  He's five years old now.  It was bound to happen soon.  Admittedly, the first week without a nap was the toughest - for mom, that is.  You see, I'd gotten really used to my midday nap.  Ever since my moped accident, I'd been in the habit of sleeping when the boys slept.  And it was really, really nice.

Once my body adjusted to the lack of its daily siesta, I discovered that spending time with Gabe while Zach's still napping to be such a special time for us.  Truly, we hadn't had much one-on-one opportunities, and Gabe is such a relaxed, easygoing little guy when he doesn't have to contend with his little brother. 

So, needless to say, I've been enjoying a lot of Gabe time these days.  I still require him to have one hour of "quiet time" in his room; and he's so good about playing (relatively) quietly in there.  But after quiet time, Gabe and I have our special together time; and lately we've been playing a lot of transformer make-believe games. 

Yesterday, with Jason home on a Saturday, Gabe and I took off to Essex for a little antiquing in the afternoon.  I'd seen on a blog how a mom used a printer's tray as a nature box, and I thought that was such a fabulous idea.  We find so many interesting leaves, rocks, shells, etc. of our own, so I thought it'd be fun to have a place like that to store our loot.  Gabe was down for the idea, and we had a great time puttering in a couple of stores.

Of course he cracked me up by saying, while looking at all of the cool "old things," that he wanted to be an antique.  I think he is an antique, actually.  And a prime example of this fact occurred when we were driving home from our excursion.  Gabe started eating some pretzels that he'd been munching on during the drive earlier that afternoon.  All of a sudden, he gave the pretzels to me, exclaiming, "I better not eat these pretzels, Mom, or I won't have my appetite for dinner."  Seriously?  What five-year-old stops himself from spoiling his dinner?  Oh, my little toddler relic!

he got a big kick out of this knight

look at him holding the knight's hand!

back at home with some treasures already tucked inside our box!

Gabe had a bad cold at the end of the week and missed his friend, Zoe's, Eloise-themed birthday party.  When we dropped the present off, Zoe's mom gave us his party favors.  Later, I turned around in the car to find that Gabe had put the party favors on - the bow tie, glasses, and necklaces.  It was such a cute surprise!

I got a big kick out of it!