Cute and weird and funny and quirky

I used to wonder how I would survive parenting when the children eventually all drop their naps. I expected the days to drag on miserably and leave me begging for bedtime to arrive sooner.

Surprisingly this new phase of parenthood has blossomed out beautifully.

On most weekdays, four-year-old Nathan goes to school. Which he absolutely looks forward to each day. While at home, two-year old Grace still naps for a good solid two hours.

You get the best of both worlds with two-year-olds as they need a nap on most days, but can also stretch and skip a nap every now and then.

On weekends, we sleep in and have a slow leisurely breakfast. And then we might head out to run errands or get groceries. Maybe round things off with a late lunch or afternoon tea. With Nathan lo longer needing naps and Grace being able to skip a nap sometimes, we can stretch the day longer as we no longer need to rush back for naps or time our activities around naptimes.

On afternoons when we stay at home, we establish a quiet rest time for Nathan. He does not need to nap if he doesn’t want to, but he can play quietly in his room while Grace (and the other children) nap.

Our Lego busy bags have been working beautifully for this quiet rest time. Granted they have evolved and been modified to suit Nathan’s own preferences and interests, but the basic concept is still there. And he always looks forward to this time when he can tinker around with them to his heart’s content.

I sometimes hear him talking to himself quietly in his room as he tinkers. But I don’t intrude as this is his own private play time. Though I often wonder what he talks about or what stories he weaves quietly to himself. Sometimes he shares them with me. Sometimes he forgets to.

One afternoon after rest time, I was greeted with this sight…

It was so cute and weird and funny and quirky all at the same time. I just had to snap a photo of it. And share it.

Each one of the above characters he created above had a name. But for the life of me, I cannot remember any of them now. Nathan has a thing about giving almost everything a name. It’s a little hard to keep up with all of them. He even named our cars ‘Bluey’ and ‘Mister Grey’, and our house, ‘Housey’ (It reminded me a little of my brother who had a thing for naming everything ‘George’).

What cute or weird things have your kids come up with lately?