"I hope I have trouble sleeping tonight!"

Yesterday we saw Grampa G one last time before he and Gramma embarked on their long trip out west.  Almost as an afterthought, Grampa sent us home with a bag conspicuously marked "Happy birthday, Max!" and no further instructions.  I failed to realize that the intent was for us to hold onto the gift until Max's birthday.  I made no effort to hide the bag.  When we arrived home Greta asked what the bag was all about and before I knew it Max was tearing open his exciting new birthday gift only minutes before bedtime, a full thirteen days before his birthday.  (In retrospect I'm glad we let him open it early.  New toys get a lot more mileage when they come one at a time, and we don't like to cultivate the expectation of rapid-fire gifts all at once.)

It's a crane with many attachments that can also mold play dough.

Look how excited he is!  Yeah, his face is a bit blurry.  I didn't get any good shots of him smiling with the crane.  Deal with it.

Max instantly fell in love with the crane.  Giving it to him immediately before bedtime was a big mistake.  I knew we were in for trouble when he agreed to swap a bedtime story for a few more minutes playing with the crane.  (In the end, he got his story and some extra time with the crane.  We're spoiling him rotten.)

We parked the crane only inches from his bed.  That's nothing new -- he often keeps trucks beside his bed at night.  Sometimes he plays with his toys in bed at night if he has trouble sleeping.  But I suspected that tonight would be different.  As I left his room, Max told me with a gleam in his eye, "I hope I have trouble sleeping tonight!"  Who ever wishes that?!

A few minutes later, he sneaked out of his room and found me in the kitchen.  He led me back to his room mumbling, "I'm having trouble slee--crane pieces are stuck."  I helped him put his crane back together and tucked him back into bed with a stern warning that if he comes out again then he'll lose the crane for the rest of the night.  We didn't hear from him again that night.  No one knows exactly how late he stayed up playing with his new crane in bed.  But his little bedside light was switched off by morning, so he must have had the presence of mind to switch it off before falling asleep.

More photos and a couple videos.  We got him to say "thank you" to Gramma and Grampa for the video.

  

Apparently his dad used to do this, too.