Anyone Need a Nap?

I call this my "Sleeping Tiger" series of portraits:

Every afternoon for a week, N would wander out of the play room having dug this size 2T tiger costume out of the costume trunk. He would ask for a little assistance in getting it on, as it is 2 sizes too small. After wandering around for a while -- perhaps helping make PBJ, perhaps playing the accordion -- he would drop off into a deep sleep that would last for several hours. When I could, I captured some photographic evidence. I may be biased, but I think it's pretty cute.

Bedtime Adventures

Some of you may remember my friend Blanket Boy and how he wreaked havoc on our bedtime routine. Well it seems that Blanket Boy invited a friend to sleep over a few nights ago. I don't know his name, as we haven't been formally introduced. However, I have seen his handiwork:

 

I'm pretty sure his name is Captain Destructor or Demolition Man or something along those lines. That's just judging by what he did to N's bed. Apparently, the good Cap'n was jumping a little bit too exuberantly when -- in the words of a 4-year-old witness -- "the bed went down, down, down."

 In case you can't tell -- that's one of the twins' beds, and the entire side of the frame is split in half.

Needless to say, they aren't sleeping on this bed at the moment.

Amazingly, and unlike Blanket Boy, no one was harmed by Capitan Destruccion. 

Both bed frames have been temporarily relocated to the loft, and the twins' mattresses have been placed on the floor. The boys don't seem to mind.

An unforeseen result of this incident has been this:

There he is. Shorty. Sleeping on a mattress on the floor just like his big brothers.

The night the Captain visited the bedroom, after the twins were safely on the floor and sleeping soundly, the Little Man was still wide awake and shouting in his crib. When I went in to investigate, I found him grunting and shrieking as he attempted to pull his mattress out of the crib all by himself. While standing on it.

"This. Out. On floor. Off. OFF!" he insisted.

I decided to give it a go. The crib is still in the room. Sometimes he sleeps in it. Occasionally because he asks to. Other times it is punishment for raucous behavior. And sometimes he sleeps on the floor with the other big boys.

But when I asked him if he could give up sleeping with the binky -- since he is such a big boy -- he said "no."