Naptime :: 31 days of messy parenting {day 17}

He's switched the beds, old for new, baby for toddler. The crib held all three babies born, built by their father, stained and assembled with care the night before we welcomed the first.

A gift of love.

But it's gone now, and it's ok. It did it's job. All babies deserve a comfortable, peaceful, safe place to sleep. And ours had that. Thank you, Lord.

And now? Well, now it's not as peaceful and a bit more explosive. Bedtime routines are less predictable now, and don't even get me started on naptime. Naptimes barely exist anymore. It's not just that he's three, but it's that he's no longer penned in. A toddler bed of pallets and an old door cannot contain him.

And it's ok. He loves this new freedom, the feel of the bounce when he runs and jumps in. How we can lay next to him and read. How he can exhaust himself from playing and land in a heap. How he can wake up, nose to nose, with the father who gave him a place to lay his head.