Nathan's Ark

Yesterday, I made huge mistake of letting Nathan lay down at around.. oh.. 5pm. Sighhhhh... When he woke back up at like, 6:45pm I knew we were in for a long night. 

We got ready for bed at, oh, 10pm or so-- but of course he wasn't tired at all... so then we played football, hide and seek, tag, soccer, read stories, lots of stories, danced around, ran up and down the stairs, went to get water, folded and put away some laundry, and did the dishes, too.  What do you mean you're not tired yet, Nathan? I'm exhausted.  

So back in his room, he started finding other toys to play with.  It all started with that wolf looking thing in a suit.  It's usually hidden away in his closet because I think it's ugly, but somehow he found it.  And like always, he wanted it to stand up (which it doesn't) so after a few minutes discovering that, he instead leaned it up against his bed.  Hey! That worked!  So then he added his little panda.. and frog.. and bear... and I could see that this was heading anywhere but bed time. So this is what he ended with:

Even this picture is missing, I think three? more animals.. I couldn't fit all of them in the picture no matter how hard I tried.  He had.. let's see if I can name them all-- a lion, duck, horse, teddy bear, koala, monkey #1, monkey #2, ugly wolf, panda, exotic frog, cow, walrus, Christmas moose, regular moose (which he thought was a reindeer), and a snake. Quite the collection, I suppose.

Admiring his work.

I told him to lay in front of his animals for the picture and he wasn't quite sure what I was asking.. so here he is laying on his animals instead. Good enough.

Yep! All of the stuffed animal containers are empty! Woo hoo!

This look was the best.. Shortly after this, he was yawwwwnnnning.. 

And at this point he had actually turned the light off and climbed into bed-- my poor camera was more concerned with being able to take a picture in pitch black, than it was with making sure it was in focus.  

We also spent a lot of time talking about sizes-- which one was the biggest, which one was the smallest.. And whether or not they were the right sizes.. Are frogs really that big?  But the best part was listening to Nathan talk to the animals and work on arranging them.  

"Okay, little horse, you be here... and ducky, you be here. Oh! Look! The baby bear! (Koala) Here, baby bear! Here! You be with your mami! (Placing it with the larger teddy bear). Awww.. Okay, now! Now! The cow be by the wah-rus." 

And then when we were pulling out all of the animals in the beginning:

I'd say something like, Okay, which one has black and white spots? (Nathan: The COW!! Wow, cool!) Good job, Nathan! 

And then he started with things like this: "Okay. Which one beeeee.... orange and lellow?! (Me: Uhhh.. the frog!) Good job, Mami! (Picking up the frog) Good job!"

I like Nathan.  Even if all these pictures were taken between 12:35 and 12:43 am.