Evenings with Gabe

Being our dear middle child at the moment, Gabe is a riot. I say he's "his own man" as he never ceases to crack us up with his quirky stubbornness and individuality. He's in the crazy in between stage where he can go a whole day without a nap (at the end of which he crashes at 7 pm) or he crashes in the late afternoon and is wide awake well into the evening (in other words he gets to hang out with Mommy and Daddy while his siblings sleep). We could be frustrated with this, but Luis and I actually get a kick out of it. He's presently using my picture cutter which I taught him how to use...cutting strip after strip of paper from an old magazine. I like giving him individual attention because it's so hard to do this during the day. And his facial expressions! He's an actor. He really is! At some point I'll post a slideshow of his infamous faces. I suppose with Luis as a Dad, Dan as a godfather and Cath as a godmother, he's just destined to be funny and have a way with crowds.
Most of us know he absolutely loves percussion instruments. Watching a parade is so intensely exciting for him that he begs to watch our home videos for days afterwards. He perches himself on the couch with bongo & drumsticks in hand and plays along with the marching bands. He was also captivated by bagpipes and asks me to sing the "bagpipe song" at night before sleep. Well how does one sing like a bagpipe? Mommy decided that "Amazing grace" might do and Gabe accepted it as "the bagpipe song" so this is our new ritual before sleep. He usually will not go down without one of his mallets in hand.
That's it for now. It's time to hang with my little paper cutter...