The Zorio Family: Clayton is Three AND A HALF!

Clayton, Clayton, Clayton! Oh how you make our life so fun! Clayton has changed so much in the past six months. As of September 21 he is 3.5 years old! (Fortunately I typed this up back in September even though I'm just now getting it posted!) He is such a chatter and we love to hear what all kinds of things he has to say. He notices every.single.little.thing and loves to talk about everything. I love it!

He has always been a great talker and this has continued. He has some cute little phrases that we love that he rolls out quiet frequently.

Some of these include:

-"What you said?!" (this actually sounds like "what chew said") and he says this all the time instead of simply saying, "What?"

-"Just Kidding!" (he loves to say things that get my attention and then tell me he's kidding...for example "Mommy, I need to go potty!" Me: Ok! let's go! Clayton: "Just kidding!")

-"Sislami" pronounced "siz-slami" how he says salami

-"Cannon Ball" what he yells before jumping in the pool in any form of a jump-usually not an actual cannon ball-usually a regular jump or a belly flop but always proceeded by him yelling, "cannon ball!"

-"Bootum" he refers to his bottom as his bootum-obviously a cross between booty and bottom.

-Loves to describe things as "spooky" and says it in a very spooky voice

-"Actually" He uses this word every chance he gets. For example, Me: Clayton would you like peach yogurt or blueberry yogurt?" Clayton: "Peach......no, actually blueberry."

Now for a bunch of little unrelated notes that only a mother would probably appreciate about her son, but for the sake of preserving what this sweet little boy is like at 3.5 here they are...

-Clayton loves to scare people. I think he comes by this honestly, since John has always loved to try to scare me and the kids try to scare each other all the time. He loves hiding then jumping out and saying BOO!

-Clayton loves to know how many days until something. We've been counting down to lots of fun things this year (DC, the beach, trips to Tennessee, and so I think that's where it has come from), but he regularly asks, "how many days until...." fill in the blank with whatever he's thinking about that given day and time.

-Clayton has recently a renewed interest in books. For a few months in the summer he wasn't as interested, but in the past month or two he's more interested again. His current favorite is Smudge's Grumpy Day, and he loves that smudge is grumpy, of course!

-Clayton will do anything to get a laugh-that includes getting in trouble. If he can make one of his siblings laugh he will risk consequence. Ugh!

-Clayton is SO independent. He doesn't like to hold my hand, ever! If we are in a parking lot and I insist he must hold a hand he will request to hold Dawson, Carter, or NK's hands before mine.

-Clayton is so loved by his siblings and they are so good to him. They are so very kind and patient with him. In fact I have recently wondered if they are TOO nice and kind and sharing with him that he gets frustrated with playing with kids his own age who act like him and are not quiet as willing to share.

-Clayton can be very sneaky. This usually comes in the form of sneaking food. He loves to sneak snacks. We have numerous talks about this, and I think we are making some progress.

-Clayton LOVES little legos..like the actual Legos. This is a major upside of having older siblings. He pretty much totally bypassed the duplo blocks age and he's a great builder with little legos. They're his very favorite thing right now. He always has at least one Lego man with him, and he's already requesting a Lego birthday party for...obviously six months from now.

-Clayton loves riding in the Ranger and he regularly includes "and thank you, God, for our ranger" in his nightly prayers whether or not we have ridden it that day or not."

-LOVES swimming. We have worked this summer a lot on swimming without his puddle jumper and he's getting good. I keep him in the puddle jumper when I'm not in the pool though, but next summer may be the summer of swimming with no float-at least in the shallow end.

-He swims and swims and goes under, jumps, dives, etc....but in the bathtub he still cries when we rinse the shampoo out of his hair.

-Clayton knows the following shapes: square, rectangle, circle, oval, triangle, star, diamond, trapezoid, and octagon. He loves finding shapes on different things when we are out in public.

-Clayton loves going to the soccer field-outside play time for him! He always brings a truck and is not shy at all! He makes lots of friends every time!

-Some of Clayton's favorite people to play with right now in addition to his siblings are Cooper and Ruby.

-Clayton loves to sing and if it's in a song he can memorize it quickly.

-At bedtime we still sing Jesus Loves Me and He's Got the Whole World in His Hands. Clayton loves to sing along with these. When we are in the car and I'm singing along to a song on the radio and it does not have a female voice in the song, Clayton asks me not to sing. He will say, "No! Don't sing! Listen this song doesn't have a Mommy singing in it! Just a Daddy!"

-Instead of calling adult females women Clayton calls them Mommies, same for men/Daddies...this is funny to me. For example, we will be in the store and he will say, "What's that Mommy doing over there?"