haircuts!

I promise to post more tomorrow, including pictures from Jack's 30-month checkup where he did amazingly well despite getting 3 shots and I have a picture that I need to match up with another picture that just might totally blow your mind. He's getting so big, my little baby boy is a real live kid.

USA! USA! USA!

Jack is all geared up for the World Cup, thanks to my friend Elise who was in South Africa for a few months this spring and sent him an awesome shirt. (Thanks again Elise!)
He wore it today in preparation for the USA-England game and we're keeping our fingers crossed that Team USA can pull out a win.
And if they can't, no worries, Jack and Chewy are having fun anyway



Happy Saturday!

thanksgiving lol's

you gotta love miami

Weekends are so much nicer now that the weather has finally turned cooler here in the sub-tropics. Our favorite thing to do now is to take nice long walks with Jack and Chewy and get to know the new neighborhood.

What we discovered is that this is what we find if we walk 10 minutes in one direction:



And this is what we find if we walk in the other direction:

Yes, it's a chicken in a vacant lot.

And this is Chris doing The Funky Chicken with the chicken

chewy always wins

sharing is caring

I just uploaded videos to the computer and found this one I took the other day.

Jack has begun sharing everything with Chewy. Yesterday I found him giving Chewy a sock then after he chewed on it a minute, taking it away and chewing on it himself. Yum!

(rug)rats and dogs

So many things have gone on this week, I can't even believe it.

After weeks of kneeling and rocking, Jack started really crawling with purpose this weekend and has made it his mission now to get all of Chewy's toys in his mouth before the week is over. He is also completely obsessed with Chewy and chases him everywhere. Everytime Chewy walks in the room, he starts laughing and trying to get to him. I think it's adorable but Chewy is unimpressed. I think he wants to know when this little human thing is going back to where he came from. (we all had our fun, now let's get back to how things were this time last year.)

Poor Chewy has no idea how much worse it is going to get.
Luckily he is so sweet about it all, most of the time he just walks away when Jack gets close and anytime he has seen Jack with one of his toys, he just stands back and waits for me to take it away from him.

Besides the crawling, Jack is pulling up on everything now, first it was just to his knees but that only lasted 2 days or so. He now pulls directly onto his feet and I have a feeling he is minutes away from cruising. And you all saw what happens when I give him a chance to try to walk. I thought I was just going to stand him up next to the little wooden (magical!) cart and hold him there a minute until he got scared and sat down (silly mommy) Instead, he took that as an opportunity to really show off and WALK!

I am still in shock over how fast this is all happening and I know right now he is taking a nap and dreaming up new and improved ways to drive me crazy. It's all so exciting and great but also SCARY! As Chris said the other day, he's a genuine rugrat now. A darn cute little rugrat.

announcing chewy fridays

Dear Chewy,
I realize that the last few months you have not been given the same doting love and affection that you were used to the first 2 1/2 years of your life. Since the day we brought Jack home from the hospital, you have proven yourself to be the sweet and kind and patient boy that I always knew you were.
At first, you were very confused by his presence



But it didn't take long before you were sharing your toys and accepting him as your little brother.



One day the two of you will play together and be the best of friends but until then, I promise to keep buying you toys you love

and taking you to the park

And letting you take naps on the couch.


Also, from now on, every Friday here will be dedicated to you.
Yay! Chewy Fridays!!

daily dose of cute

ear ye! ear ye!

So I was all excited to talk about happy things, like how Chewy got a (soooo very needed) haircut and looks adorable. And how Jack likes to sometimes wear his bib like a cape.

Unfortunately, Saturday night, I went to admire Chewy's new haircut up close and when I went to pet his new soft and freshly shaved ears, I felt a bubble. Like someone inserted a balloon into Chewy's ear flap and blew it up. We took him to the vet Sunday morning and and a small SURGERY (and about a zillion dollars) later, here he is:


Apparently, when he was at the groomer, he was shaking his head so much that it caused a hematoma in his ear flap, meaning he burst a blood vessel and it pooled into his ear flap and had to be lanced and drained. (two words I really hope I never have to say again)

He seems to be feeling OK this morning and still wants to run around and chase balls like usual but they had to put a drain into the ear flap and that needs to remain for 2 whole weeks, which in Chewy's world is like 5 years and I don't know how I'm going to keep a cone on his head for that long without him going bonkers and don't even get me started on the banging of the cone into every inch of the house (including the backs of our legs).

Besides the stupid drain, we have to give him ear drops and pills and clean the ear with a solution twice a day and OY VEY. I can't even believe it.
But, he's still cute with his haircut and hopefully once this thing is over, we can have some non-cone pictures and we will not be too bruised by the stupid cone and it will be over and done with, AMEN!

where i try to see the silver lining

I have mentioned before how much Chewy loves the vet. He is the only dog I have ever heard of who drags his owner into the office and is so excited to see the vet and get whatever treatments done, only because he knows that afterwards, he will get treats. There is no dog more treat-driven than Chewy.

I give you Exhibit A:
Chewy waiting for the "cookie people" (as he like to call them) to come in.
And from another angle:

They took blood, gave him 2 shots and sprayed some crazy stuff up his nose and he took it all without even flinching. He was like an elephant being hit by a mosquito. He is always focused on the end result - COOKIES!

He seems to be feeling so much better now and I'm sure he is relieved to not have to be a host to a legion of fleas anymore and we had a little talk on the way home from the vet and I promised him that I would be much more attentive to his needs and give him his medicine every month like clockwork and pay attention the minute he starts scratching again and he promised to forgive me, as long as I give him lots of cookies.

*************************************************************************************

Even though I had to do 1 million loads of laundry yesterday, Jack decided to go on a nap-strike and slept maybe a total of 3 minutes the entire day. Even with Jenny here, he was tough to take and by the time 6:00 came around, we decided to give him a bath and get him into bed as early as possible. He usually calms down once he's in the bath and is able to enjoy it for a little while, but not yesterday. He did stop screaming, but this is the closest he got to "relaxing":

I call this, "Mr Angry takes a soak"

jack is smiling because he has no idea...

We have a bit of a situation here at home. I brought Chewy to the vet today for his annual check up and.....he's got fleas.

None of us have seen any sign of them in the house but the vet saw them right away so I have been crazily vacuuming and laundering and this morning, an exterminator is coming that kills fleas in a non-toxic (and non-baby-sickening) way and then we have pills from the vet that will kill the ones that are on Chewy so hopefully soon we will live in a bug-free zone again.

In the meantime, I will be here, itching and muttering to myself about what a bad dog-parent I am to Chewy and how we should have paid better attention to him the last couple of months instead of treating him like a second-class citizen since Jack was born. Ugh!

and we're back

We've been having such a good time this week. Jenny came on Sunday night (just ahead of the big storm) and she has been such a great help with Jack and they are so cute together, and of course it is awesome to have a second set of hands around the house during the day.

I made my big return to the gym yesterday and it went much better than I thought it would. I am trying to take it slow but today I went back and did a little more and it actually felt really good just to be able to walk up the stairs two at a time and do the elliptical machine for 20 minutes without my back feeling like it was going to break in half and to stretch and do all that stuff and feel so....normal afterwards.

I have also been trying to pay more attention to Chewy now that I am not completely consumed with all things Jack all day long, and took him for 2 walks, just the two of us, and I know it meant a lot to him. I have not been taking as many pictures the last couple of days and I will try to do better with that but sometimes I have to step back and just be in the moment instead of trying to document every minute but I also know how happy I will be in the years to come that I have only let possibly 4 days go by these first 2 months of Jack's life without taking a picture of him.

And here are some of the best ones from today:

happy valentine's day!

Thanks, Aunt Cathy for the cute outfit!





Chewy would also like to wish you all a Very Happy Valentine's Day! And if you know any cute poodles, send them over this way...

good weekend

Yesterday my parents returned home and Chris and I are back on our own. We decided to make the most of our weekend and try to go out as a family to get Jack used to going on short trips out. Saturday we went to the dogpark and Chewy had a great time and Jack did really well.
Today (Sunday) we went for a long walk and again, a good time was had by all.
It makes me believe that there will be a day when we can go out and do things like normal again, at least the new normal because, like everyone says, having a baby really does change everything but you can't remember what it was like before, nor do you want to. We are a family.