27 Month Update

I was holding my baby, now a big baby, on my lap last night as he dozed off while watching the Detroit v. Phoenix hockey game. (Or wait, was that me that dozed off while watching the hockey game?) Either way, I was holding my baby in my lap and looked down to realize he is really a big boy now. I mean he always tells Darren and I that he is a big boy, but it really hit home last night looking at him sleeping, with his long legs hanging off my arms that cradled him. OK, let me wipe the tear that is coming from my eye. :) But he is a big boy and definitely is smart like a big boy.

Grandma Edwards spent the night last night, because she is wonderful and watches Owen for us 2 days a week :) I was showing Owen and Grandma his baby book. We were looking through the pictures and reading out loud the memories I wrote down and Owen was telling me that the baby in the pictures was indeed Owen. I have one page that has an imprint of his baby hand and foot and we put Owen's hand up to it so I could show him how much he has grown. We flipped through several other pages and then he started to flip back to the imprint page and said, "Mom, I want to measure my hand". He put his 2 year old hand next to the 1 week year old hand and smiled. Seriously, the word measure? I mean...come on! The other day we were driving in the car and we saw a mom pushing her baby in a stroller and Owen said, "Mom, I see a baby". I said, "I see a baby too!" and then Owen says, "He's cute." I said, "No, your cute." and he said, "No your cute, mom". I mean we could banter back and forth all day about how cute the McCarthys/Edwards are, right?

I have started to take Owen to open tumbling class on Monday morning with Papa. Which he absolutely loves. He gets to run, jump, bounce, climb and act like a crazy 2 year old for 2 hours and impress Papa with all his newly acquired tricks. He is getting pretty good at scaling up mats and really has no fear of jumping off them either! Which of course makes mommy nervous.

Yesterday was a big day for the McCarthy household. Darren had his interview for his US Citizenship. He passed with flying colors and probably taught a few Americans a thing or two about American history. He will be sworn in on Wednesday, May 5th. We are very happy that he is now one of us! Congratulations Darren. Owen and I are super proud of you!

The McCarthy's have made it into Chicago, and we are looking forward to spending a lot of time with them. They will be staying for the month of May. Owen can't wait to see his Gramps and Gram-Mo again!

26 Month Update

Owen pees with the big boys now! He is officially potty trained and is performing wonderfully! Darren and I spent an entire weekend of intense potty training. We locked ourselves in the house over the weekend of 3/19 and let the little guy run around naked for 4 days straight. That method seemed to be pleasing to him both for the sake that he probably felt liberated by being allowed to run around with it all hanging out and that it really only took him those 4 weekend days to get the hang of going #1 and #2 in the potty. He no longer wears diapers or pull-ups and makes it without any accidents through nap time and bedtime. Darren and I are sooooooooooo lucky and blessed to have a little champ like O-Dog McCarthy. Good job Owen, Mommy and Daddy are super proud of you and your success of being potty trained at two years and a month. Not a bad record to hold.

The weather is finally adapting to Chicago's springtime. And we are loving and taking advantage of every moment. We spend our evenings after work walking to the park and playing soccer and hitting baseballs off of Owen's awesome automatic tee that Uncle Jim and Carolyn bought him for his birthday! Owen is quite the superstar and can whack the ball pretty far. We let him pee outside the other night because the public bathrooms weren't open yet for the season. So last night Owen told Darren he wanted to "Pee right there" and pointed to the grass in the park. I think we created a monster! We have also started to play tennis and Owen has his own racket. He loves to run around the tennis courts, it is like one huge play pen!

Owen's vocabulary has increased ten-fold. He talks in almost complete sentences and for the most part has turned out to be rather polite. Last night Darren sneezed and Owen yelled out, "Bless You Dad". If you ask him if he has to poo, he will tell you, "No I fart". If he farts he will say, "Cuse Me". Not sure why topic of conversation always relates back to using the washroom but I guess that is what your life consists of when you have a two year old! He also loves to sing songs and will make me repeat Old McDonald twenty thousand times. He loves to sing the E-I-E-I-O part but improvises with "E-O" and tells me "Moo-Cows here and Moo-Cows there".

We spent a great Easter and Aunty Sue Sue's and Uncle Ken's. Owen had a blast playing with Jenna, Ashley, Abbie and Natalie. He also made out quite well at the Easter egg hunt and got a lot of fun toys and candy. Thank you to everyone and hope you all had a Happy Easter!