A glimpse of the teenager to come

At three-and-a-half years (give or take), Gabriel is still blessedly in daily-nap land. On weekends, you can pretty much count on him to go down at 2 PM and sleep until 4:30, sometimes later. (Weekdays at Mundo Verde, my understanding is that they schedule between 1 and 1.5 hours, and that many (including Gabriel) don't really sleep during this time.)

But every few days now, the scheduled nap doesn't happen, usually because we've got an unusually busy travel schedule. The embedded picture shows a tall tree falling hard after an afternoon birthday party. He was conked out on the couch, lights on, shoes on, for at least half an hour in this pose.

After-school snack

Post-school, Gabriel and I will sometimes walk by Locolat, a local Belgian bakery, if we're headed to the playground at Marie Reed in Adams Morgan, and grab a pain au chocolat to eat on a bench. Here he manages to look thoughtful even with melted chocolate dribbling down his chin.

My boy likes croissants.

He is also becoming more open to meeting new kids. This is especially the case when, as is usually the case at Marie Reed, there is only one other family unit of kids at the playground. He will always sidle over to see what's going on. Seems especially interested when it's older kids, and they create their own games. Last time he was a tiger and the boy he was playing with was a shark-- before that, he played with a kangaroo and he was a rabbit (the games focused on jumping that day).