In which the more things stay the same, the more they change.
Owen may have passed the 2-year mark, but he's still our same little boy. He still loves cars and trucks. He still loves macaroni and cheese. He still poops in the bathtub.
But he is growing up and making his daddy proud.
Tonight, for example, he did his business and then said, "Poops in the tub. Gotta get out." And so he did. I dried him off and he said, "Get the poops, Daddy. NOW."
As some of you know, I'm a member of management in Corporate America. I have to tell you, I kind of choked up with pride as my son barked orders for me to clean up the mess he'd just made. After the third "GET THE POOPS NOW!" I thought, this kid has leadership potential.
I put all of the offending matter into the toilet and I asked Owen if he'd like to flush. "Daddy do it," he commanded.
What excellent delegation! My son will go far.
He even evaluated my performance by counting the items before letting me flush. We're talking Balanced Scorecard Metrics, here; Six Sigma, even.
Even when he's not being bossy, Owen continues to impress with his developing verbal skills. He increasingly tells stories. When we talked about going to Holly's birthday party, he said "Holly get presents. Cars."
"Holly might not want cars," we told him. He stared disbelievingly as though that was the craziest thing he'd ever heard.
After the birthday, Owen came down with a nasty plague: double ear infection and some virus that gave him a wicked sore throat.
"Go see Doctor Moylan," he told me. "Get medicine."
You can see what he looked like taking the medicine at left. (With him waking up every hour on the hour for a week, Mom and Dad were weeping in a similar fashion.)
Fortunately the ailment subsided and Owen returned to his normal, fun-loving self just in time for a very busy weekend. Good friend Roy Benson was in town for a last visit before moving his family to North Carolina.
We spent Saturday afternoon with the Bensons and the Evanses enjoying lunch at T-Rex (where you can enjoy salads amid the comforting roar of attacking dinosaurs). We also listened to some cool Eighties-style cover bands and felt depressed about how old we all are.
Then on Sunday we had a delightful visit with Dad's Aunt Ellen. Aunt Ellen is my father's sister and I hadn't seen her in nearly 17 years. It was a treat to catch up with her and my cousin Steve who brought his lovely wife Marilyn and their daughter Ashley.
Aunt Ellen brought Owen the traditional family gift-- a book. Specifically, it was "The Poky Little Puppy."
The Boss insisted on a formal presentation re: the Puppy Incident this evening. I reviewed the write-up with him around 8:15 p.m.
Like any good boss, he's sleeping on it.
