happy birthday mom!
my family on my birthday. 
Jackson had an upset belly today and we took him to the vet, everything is fine. I guess times of crisis force you to realize just how much love you are capable of. I was going to take a walk today, but the emotional upheaval of a potentially sick animal made me exhausted, lucky for me I had a cute dog to snuggle with.
Will had a work conference in NY today and tomorrow, so it was just me Ruben and Jackson. I could not get Jackson to join me for the picture, but its a tough call to say who missed him more.
our friend julia came to visit and she brought her sense of adventure and her dog Shadow. Jackson loved the company and so did we!
i know the image is fuzzy, someone was too busy turning his head about taking in the whole wide world.
this is less fuzzy, but towards the end of his endurance.
today one of my b-school friends, Martha, came over. we talked about job hunting, families and the rest of stuff that we now have time to talk about now that school is over. The most important part is that she held Ruben (and she didn't break him!)
later on Will and Jackson were playing in the hall while I was nursing Ruben. I realized that there haven't been so many Jackson shots recently, Ruben has taken center stage. Our dog has amazing muscles that are really quite beautiful, hard to capture in a picture though.
during tummy time today ruben was dispensing treats to jackson via daddy
Jack & Ruben
Eliot & Ruben
Eva & Ruben
jackson and ruben are working on getting used to each other. so far ruben has been adjusting much better than jackson. its a process.
there is so much that goes on in this little man's life. today he had a play-date with MOMP's little man and more importantly MOMP got her fill of baby head smell. its her crack, i think that if when you went to the car wash that were a scent available called "newborn baby head" she would get her car cleaned every week just for the smell. (this is no way meant to imply that her car needs cleaning that often just that she's an addict) anyway while there are pictures of this play date... this picture is what took my breath away. jackson is adjusting to have a younger person in the house and today he proved it by being able to share the bed with more than one person. who knew i would a woman in a house full of boys.
for those of you with cats or dogs, you know what it means when they start scooting their butts on the ground. well i noticed it happening which meant it was time to go get those bad boys "expressed" because i am a nice person "expressed" is what i will call it for you. really this is just a picture of jackson's butt much happier!
after a long night of watching the celtics win my boys, they were tired. it was all they could do to muster the energy to go for a walk.
"he looks like one of the little guys from tatooine" says will. "huh? what is that?" says me. apparently in this picture jackson looks like a star wars character, news to me, i think he just looks adorable (full disclosure i had to look up online how to spell tatooine)
will has been teaching jackson to fetch. its a simple concept i know, but our dog he is special, he didn't want to fetch, he just wanted to chase whatever it was and chew on it where it landed. however he is learning that he if he brings something back he will get to chase it again. here he is chasing the frog head down the hall into the kitchen, he then brought it back, ready to chase again. i am so proud!
in past posts i have talked about how jackson likes to "kill" his toys. while of course it was a great post they didn't really capture what happens when toys die, usually we are quick to clean up the mess, here is a great example of jackson being quite pleased with the mess he has created.
today we walked to radio shack with jackson to pick up a line to go from the stereo to the compy so that we can convert old cassettes from my youth to mp3s, so that i can relive my youth through my offspring, this long walk made jackson so tired... that he didn't even flinch when the flash went off.
jackson has recently realized how much fun chasing a ball can be. he came home from the park carrying one ball (identical to the one we have for him as seen above) that is broken. but when he got home he started hoarding both balls. there must be something so delicious inside these balls because even after breakfast was served he stayed on his chair chewing on this ball, ignoring his food. i just love how happy he looks!
this evening, along with 100+ other brookline dog owners went to the library to talk about the future sustainabiltiy of the green dog program. it was a good meeting, way better than the picture i took.
in an attempt to further refine our dogs social skills, i am working with his natural instincts. dogs bow to each other to indicate that they are ready for play. i figure this is a good way for jackson to let us know what he wants, i.e. i don't want to go out, i don't want to be pet, I WANT TO PLAY! as with any training its a slow process but we are making progress, here he is in worcester telling me that its play time and to put the flashy light thing away!
a little over a week ago, will and i went out for dinner followed by ice-cream at jp licks. while there we got jackson a treat as well its called "Cow Paws" its basically honey/peanut butter flavor sorbet. every time we open the freezer he gets excited and as you can see when he gets a couple licks in he gets cross-eyed.
