Clayton and the Popcorn

I am positive that only parents of toddlers want to read about the newest adventures and escapades of other parent's toddlers. Today's post is entirely Clayton, so I completely understand if you have more important things to do. I mean there is a whole world out there that is still reeling over the death of Michael Jackson, the possibility of socialized medicine(and yes, I do have an opinion about that, and no I won't bore you with it), and the Gosselin tragedy.

Last night as I was preparing a fantastic culinary experience of ............ hot dogs, and home fries, Clayton was in the kitchen "helping", as is his usual custom. His idea of helping is to pull the empty pitchers out of the cabinet, eat the dog's food, and open and close the dish washer. Anyway, he spotted his Daddy's very large bag of pre-popped popcorn. It's been in the same place for months(not the same bag obviously, we aren't trying to grow Penicillin), so I'm not sure why it caught his attention last night. He proceeded to man handle the bag down from it's perch and bring(waddle) it to me. I wish I could describe in detail how hard he worked to get this bag down. It was over his head(that's not hard to do still), and it's a big ole' bag of popcorn. After he finally succeeded in retrieving the bag of popcorn he bear hugs it, and waddles across the kitchen to me. He repositions the bag in such a way that he's trying to hand it up to me, and starts shrieking "Mama". I interpreted that to mean, "Sweet, kind, beautiful mother, would you please let me have some popcorn less than 30 minutes before we are to eat the best meal you've ever placed on our table?" I of course consented. After all, the kid doesn't always want to eat. And he's been working on new bottom molars, so he needed a prize. I got out one of his little plastic bowls, and put a handful of popcorn in his bowl.

I assumed that he would sit in the kitchen and eat his popcorn. Boy, was I wrong. He grabbed his bowl with both hands, and headed for the living room sofa. He walked so very slowly and carefully. It was precious. It was almost like he was carrying a bowl full of gold, that's how careful he was with his popcorn. I walked with him, in case he dropped everything. He walked all the way to the couch, set his bowl down on the couch, climbed on the couch, scooted into one of the corners, pulled his bowl close to him, and proceeded to chow down.

I was absolutely amazed at how big he seemed while he was doing this. While he ate his popcorn, I continued to get dinner ready, and Clayton watched Paula Deen prepare an Easter extravaganza.

From our kitchen I can see straight through the dining room, and into the living room. I was keeping an eye on him, when I noticed 2 things. First, Clayton loves music, and loves to groove to the music. At one point I saw him dancing along to whatever commercial was on at the time. And second, I saw him and the dog eating out of the same bowl of popcorn. Good times.