The Rhea Family

19 Month Claytonisms:

Clayton likes to wake up slowly and then plays in her crib for awhile before whining/crying for someone to come get her. Now instead of crying, she calls out names. "Ma---Ma!!!........Da---Da!!!!" And when we're at my parents it's, "Da---Da!!!! Paw---Paw!!! Ma----Ma." (She can't say Mimi so she calls both me and my mom, Mama.) But before she yells out, she throws everything out of the bed and makes sure to get her diaper off as well. She even will take her pajamas with zippers off to get her diaper off. And I bet you are wondering what happens if it's a dirty diaper......it's off and everything inside it is either in the bed or thrown about the room. Yep, nasty.
It's so funny to see all the things that a child will mimic without you realizing. A few things she has picked up are:

When I hug/kiss on Sadie I have been saying, "Oh, Sadie!" to show Clayton how we love on Sadie. So now, Clayton lays on Sadie and says, "ooooohhhhh!" And she will love on us and say, "ooooohhh!" She also does it to her doll and stuffed dog, Fluffy.
My mom has noticed that she exhales loudly randomly. She never realized how much she does it until Clayton does it mimicking her.
When Clayton gets excited about something, I've been opening my my mouth basically saying "wow" but silently. Now Clayton does it all the time. She opens her mouth really wide expressing excitement.
A new word she has picked up this month is "Go!". She will scream "Goooooo" and then wave her arm. I think the arm waving came from me telling Sadie to go outside and waving her out. During the Olympics swimming qualifications and cheering on Michael Phelps, I was screaming "Go!" and then Clayton started yelling at the TV too. The Olympics and football season is going to be fun for her to get in the game.

She has no fear around a pool. She jumps right in. In reality, it is more of a step off the side of the pool or off the diving board. She has to be watched like a hawk around a pool. Of course, like all babies should but mine intentionally goes in while others accidentally fall in.
She loves playing in the hose. But now she thinks it's so fun to spray you. She will chase Sadie and I around the front porch while we are trying to water the ferns and giggles when she gets us. When Harris got home, I heard him yelling in the yard, "She's spraying me!" as she giggled with delight. I said, "Yeah, welcome to our world."
Clayton loves wearing her sunglasses. She will wear them the entire time we are in a store and it attracts many comments. One man was talking on his phone yelling, "You aren't going to believe this...there is a celebrity in Walmart!" Far from a celebrity, but diva maybe a better description.
Clayton runs a soup kitchen out of our house. Her favorite thing to do is make alphabet soup. She stirs and moves the magnet alphabet pieces from pan to pan. It is one of the few activities that will keep her attention. Then she runs over to us and says, "mmmmmmmm" as she shoves the spoon in your mouth. Then she will pick up her operation from one couch and move it to another and continue to make 'soup'. We say she is busy making soup for the hungry.
She has figured out how to unzip a zipper. This poses problems as she now can take off her pajamas, get in my purse, and unpack a bag ready for vacation.
Eating isn't Clayton's favorite activity. And it drives me crazy. I make and make anything that I can think of that she will eat and it's a waste. She turns down my buffet 99% of the time. If she takes 3 bites I consider it a victory. She does like popcorn shrimp, bananas most mornings, berries, but her go-to eat-every-time-food is french fries. I've learned that you don't criticize moms who give their kids McDonald's happy meals all the time because if that's the only thing they will eat I feel their pain.
Clayton is one high-tech bambino. She can navigate an ipod and ipad like crazy. She loves to flip through photos and videos especially the ones of herself. Of course she loves playing music to shake her little shoulders and bend her knees dancing. She finds specific games she wants to play when flipping through the menu pages. She has her own ipod (my old iphone) that entertains her while on road trips but now she wants to play with either my iphone or ipad throughout the day. I feel like I have a teenager as I have begun hiding them so she will play with something besides electronics. We wonder what technology will be like when she is our age. Scary!
Her vocabulary and speech continue to grow. She picks up on new words everyday. I am continuing to enjoy her babbling because I know it will become non-existent and I sure will miss it. I love when she has conversations with great expressions that she expects you to understand but my only response is "oh, really."

Because Clayton refuses to keep her diaper on and other factors that says she is about ready to potty train, we decided it was worth a try. She is fascinated with the toilet so I decided a potty seat was the way to go instead of a kiddy potty. On Monday, we had just returned from buying the potty seat and stool so I sat her on the potty with her clothes on for her to get used to it. I forgot the M&M's in the kitchen and went to get them, Harris was just coming home from work. So he ran in there and gave Clayton a M&M as her reward for sitting on the potty. She was so excited to see her Da and for a M&M.

Then I thought, what the heck, let's take her diaper off and see if she will potty. Well.....SHE DID! Harris and I both screamed in excitement, which scared her almost to the point she wanted off the potty. But we convinced her to to sit for her M&M reward.

So proud of our little potty girl! We have a ways to go but not being at square one is feeling good. (The real task maybe keeping her Da out of her M&M stash.)