Who Do You Think You Are?

Brooke, Clayton and I went to Stonefire Pizza last Friday with Grandma Nancy and Uncle Kenny for lunch. It's a great place to go (with two adults!) and a ton of fun for the kids. Clayton and I had gone their Thursday with our MOPs group and Clayton was so excited to have Brooke there with him on Friday because that meant he could go down the slide. You see it's a series of platforms that you have to climb up to reach the top of the slide and Clayton is just short enough that he can't do it on his own. BUT with his sister pushing his bum from below he can make it up just fine and Brooke is more than happy to help. (I wish I had my camera or camcorder because it's quite the site.) So they are climbing up this thing when a little boy says to them "Who do you think you are?" To which Brooke replies, "We're Brooke and Clayton! From Menomonee Falls." I was telling Mike the story later at dinner and Brooke says, "Mom, didn't I do a good job - they asked me my name and I told them." We've been working on responding when asked a question and interacting a bit more with other children that we don't know (using our manners, etc.) She really thought she had applied her skills well!

And the phrases that I love of Clayton's right now:

• Brooke's my sister!
• Good night. I love you too, mommy.
• Not today. Later.
• I NOT! (Specifically when you tell him to stop doing something that he's currently doing.)
• He was counting something for me the other day and says, "One, two, the rest of them." as he dumped the rest of them into my hands. Currently, unless we're counting or naming colors of jelly beans there is about zero interest.

And not that I love it, but it seems to be who Clayton is. We've had to re-gate off the kitchen because of his recent obsession with Starburst jelly beans. He pushed a chair over to the counter, hurdled it and was standing on the counter with the cabinets open filling his bowl with jelly beans. He also tried to "hide" in the fridge as he does our closets, so that was the end of that! Return of the gate - he's not pleased.