Its official!

Jacob hearts Elmo!












Mommy brought home Elmo after Jacob had shown an interest in a couple of Elmo books. From what I hear Jacob could not have been more excited. I'm sure you can understand how thrilling it must have been to be able to hug and kiss the star of his favorite book.
I'll try to keep you posted on how the two of them are getting along.

We're heading up to Maine to ring in the New Year quietly, seacoast style.

Happy New Year.

Mystery solved!

Jacob would like to thank the following (formerly) secret sled
senders: aunt sandy, unkie, matthew, jared, aunt pat, uncle Gary,
shaina, and of course, willie!!!

Thanks again!

Strike!

Aruba Pictures

After shoveling way too much snow, I had a chance to post some of the pictures from our Aruba trip, You can check them out HERE.

Are you a secret sled sender?

Jacob received a sled today from a very generous fan. However, the shipper did not include a card or reference to the sender. So please identify yourself secret sled sender, and THANK YOU!

In other news, Aruba pictures will be posted later today, hopefully (Randi Gandleman).

And the nap keeps on keepin' on

Thankfully he's switched to the fan-favorite 'tush up" napping
formation.
And yes, that does say "touchdown" across his tiny bum.

Vacation blogging

Some of you may be wondering, "hey zach, whats with the incessant
blogging while you're on vacation?"
Well, here's the deal. There's only so much one can do quietly in the
dark while Jacob naps. That and the fact that I paid for a week's
worth of wifi access equals mucho de blogo. I have at times ventured
out onto our balcony to admire the scenery while busily tapping away
on the iPhone.

Shhhhhhh

can anyone tell me why Jacob refused to sleep last night? We were up
pacing the hallway at 3:30... After the 3am bath didn't settle him. Oy.

Dont cry

Its sad, its our last night in Aruba. But dont cry, we had lots of fun
and we still have one more morning at the beach/pool. After that we'll
clean up and get ready for the long trip home. Wish us luck!
By the way, he's not crying in THI picture, he's actually hiding, you
can't see him (as far as he knows).

Jacob's nemeses

The cute little guys really put a scare into Jacob. He reaches for
mommy of daddy whenever one approaches. Today at lunch they were
circling jacob's high-chair, Jacob gave them a French-fry as a peace
offering. Then I spent the rest of the meal shooing them away. Mommy
doesnt care for them either.

Aruba Today

Looks like there may have been some snow back home...

Sunset

Sunset is nice here. This picture was taken just before Jacob decided
to take an unscheduled swim, in his clothes.

Pool anyone?

???

Not sure what this is about, its one of his new 'tricks'. If he keeps
it up, olivia is not going to be interested in a 2nd date. Perhaps he
was just VERY excited about his first meal in Aruba.

First date

Here are Jacob and olivia on their first date in Aruba. We are all
having a great (snow-free) time!

Too Long

Its easy to get caught up and before you know it its been nearly 4 weeks since my last post. Thanks to some creative dating, you'll forget that its been so long... these are not the droids you're looking for...
I'll blame the Patriots lack of losing and the Celtic's hot start... Speaking of the Patriots, have I mentioned Jacob's "touchdown" trick? Soon enough I'll capture it on video and get it posted here. Which reminds me, the short film shown here was written, shot and acted by Uncle Ross, back at Jacob's birthday party... Bravo.
Not quite sure how to follow that...

Sunrise isn't so bad...

I really didn't mind waking up with Jacob on the morning I shot this picture. In Maine we slept in the same room as him and as soon as he opened his eyes, he saw us, and decided he was up and ready to go.
Thats been different since we've been home, as he's been fighting an illness all week. Alyson took the little guy to the doctor on Thursday after he'd had a fever off and on for a few days. Turns out, we've got our first ear infection. I guess it could be worse (says Daddy who feels fine), a lot of kids have had multiple ear infections by the time they reach 15 months. He's fighting through it as best he can. I think his least favorite part so far is the amoxicillin, which is funny, because i remember loving that bubble gum deliciousness...

Happy Thanksgiving

It’s a little late, but I need to recognize of my favorite holidays. This picture pretty much sums up what we are thankful for…. Jacob in his Thanksgiving Day finest.
Hope everyone had a great day and ate way too much, like me.
We were up in Maine with Alyson's parents and her brother's and their families... We had a fantastic time. We, except for Jacob, he still thinks he's much better at walking than he really is. He managed to fall and bump and scratch himself on just about every surface in the house. When we came home he looked as if he went about 12 rounds... but you should have seen the other guy...

Happy Birthday Aunt Selma!

These pretzels are making me thirsty! (Jacob thinks to himself while searching for his sippy cup). Today we were in Holyoke MA to help celebrate Aunt Selma’s Birthday. It was great to see everyone, and the brunch buffet worked out nicely as well, although I don’t think Ross will try chocolate covered cucumbers again.

Nice shot

Some of you may be aware that I've been known to take a picture or two, here and there. Well its true, in fact you can check out some of my recent SHOTS (before you look, be aware Jacob does not appear in this group of photos)... The picture you see to the left is not my own. It is a gorgeous shot of a flower taken somehere in the hills of Sumatra, Indonesia, by either Haviva or Howie... I'm going to guess it was Haviva. EDIT, i guessed wrong, it was Howie. I posted a link to their blog back in January, but its certainly worth checking it out again.

Snickers, Butterfinger, Skittles, or Junior Mints?

Or, new this year, Nestle's Crunch with caramel... Oooh that was good. It was similar to a caramello (remember those?) with crunchy goodness on the bottom. Anyway, chances are you aren't reading this for a candy discussion.
Jacob had fun tonight, althouh I'll admit, he was a little bit afraid of his own costume at first, once we got by that he enjoyed some time with Olivia and a walk around the neighborhood watching the big kids trick or treating.
HERE are a few more pictures from tonight. By the way, the pictures at the end are of him during an animated conversation with his bubbe.

Jacoby Gus Greene

Congratulations to the World Champion Boston Red Sox!!!! We decided to let our Jacoby sleep through this world series victory, given that the Red Sox win this thing all the time.
Let's hope they can get world series MVP Mike Lowell signed up for next year.

BREAKING NEWS... JACOB WALKS!!!

Earlier today Jacob just stood up in the middle of the living room... Seconds later, he started walking. After another half hour, he's an expert. Please ignore the inane background commentary... More later, right now its bath time.

JD Drew comes through

Today we went to Stoughton to hang out with Jared. He's doing really, really well. It's really hard to believe that he had major heart surgery just over a week ago. Here's to Jared's continued speedy recovery.
It was a beautiful afternoon and of course I had the camera... Still no photo upload here on blogger, but you can see some of the pictures HERE..
Good luck to the Sox in game 7.

Translation Please?

Jacob has been saying 'bah' lately... a lot. One might think it means 'ball' or perhaps the noise that a sheep makes. However, when you ask him what noise a cow makes, you also get 'bah'. You can give him a ball and sometimes, he'll say ball. But you may also get 'bah' when you hand him a truck.
He's also started pointing to things he wants, sometimes he'll tell us 'bah', and occasionally something that sorta sound like 'dis'. Could be 'this' but i'm not so sure.

More Pix?

While we're waiting for the good people at Blogger to fix up the pix uploader, you can see a bunch of the picutures right HERE.

The Jeep's Passenger seat is occupied...

THE PIX ARE BACK!
As I mentioned previously we were in Maine a couple times last month. On our last trip, over the Columbus Day holiday we got a special treat. Uncle Rossy came to see us. Lucky for us, he did not show up alone. Ross introduced Jacob (and his parents) to his girlfriend, Heidi. Jacob and Heidi became fast friends. Ross and Heidi showed up with 10 hot dogs from Flo's, only 4 were for Ross. I powered through 3 and Jacob, as pictured, got to have his first fantastic flo's frank... he may need some pointers on his hot dog ingestion technique, but, what do you want from him, he's 1.
We got to spend a whole day with Ross and Heidi and it was great. She's great and they seem really happy together. Hopefully you'll all get to meet her soon.

On the rocks

Well, per Ross' suggestion I'm trying to post more about the exciting life and times of Jacob Gus Greene. Sadly, right now something is wrong with the picture upload doohickey. So I guess I'll have to try to get by on boring text alone.
I don't want to make 'excuses' but the reason I haven't posted in such a long time is that we were in Maine for two of the past three weekends, combine that with the Red Sox playoff push and the Patriots dominance and I guess that'll quickly fill up a day.

Perhaps soon I'll be able to post a couple of great pictures of Jacob exploring on the rocks by the ocean in Maine. He waved to the passing boats and enjoyed the waves crashing all around him. You may also get to see a picture of Jacob and daddy along with Rebecca and Unlce Mark after a Jacob and Rebecca took a bath.

Jacob has really been working on walking. He pushes his 'walking toys' all around the house. He's even recently figured out how to turn while pushing the walker, well, sort of anyway. You see when he encounters a wall or table or obstacle larger than him, he sits down, pushes the wheels away from said obstacale, then stands back up and continues on his way. He's brilliant.

In other news, he's still taking 2 naps a day (oh the life of a toddler), each of them is over 90 minutes on a good day. He is becomming a bit of a picky eater, sometimes. Some of his favorite foods (for now) include, waffles, oatmeal, yogurt, hummous, crackers, pretzels, watermelon (still), and canteloupe. He'll eat a veggie burger from time to time along with some pasta and sauce when he's in the mood. He's very big on feeding himself which usually leads to a big mess. Fun, but messy. Again, once the picture thingamabob starts working again, i'll show you what i'm talking about.

Uncle Ross is upset

He's angry about a perceived lack of blog postings... and you know, he's right.
But he really shouldn't be talking about blogs, considering that his blog hasn't been updated SINCE APRIL!
Meanwhile, i'll get back on the blog train soon.
In other news, Jared is home! he's healing up and feeling better.
More soon.

Sunday is for football

Jacob had a couple friends over for the game last Sunday. Janie and Olivia were here and they really enjoyed watching the Pats destroy the Bills (sorry Elektra's dad). It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time. Here are a few more
Pictures

1st Birthday Party

Jacob had a great time at his birthday party on Sunday! He loved spending time with all of his guests and all the fantastic gifts that he got. He also wanted to pass along a special thank-you to his "ma-ma" (a word he started saying this week), for putting the party together.
There will be more photos too follow soon.

Guess who's 1?

Raise your hand if you can beleive this little guy is ONE YEAR OLD (my hand is not up). It just doesn't seem possible that one year ago today we were spending our first day as parents with our brand new little man. Sadly the birthday boy has been sick this week and didn't feel great on his special day. He toughed it out however and at least tried the cupcake that we got for him. We think he's on the mend thankfully... this morning he woke up without a fever. He should be in good shape for his big birthday bash coming up next weekend.

Thanks for stopping by...

Last weekend Alyson's college roommate, Kate, came in from LA. She got to meet Jacob and spend some quality time with her pal, Al. We dragged Kate up to Maine, and we think she had a great time, even with everything based on Jacob's schedule. We stopped at Flo's, were denied facility access by the folks at Ultimate Tan & Cat n' Nine Tail convenience, and had lobsters on the porch at Barnicle Billy's. Good times.

Another Bath!?

So we hear that its a good idea to bathe the kid from time to time. We had been on an every-other night schedule however, we might have to make bath-time a nightly occurance given Jacob's new-found mobility. He crawls like he means it now. Here, there, and everywhere. It won't be long before he catches up with Corey.
We've seen him even make attempts at standing, right in the middle of the room, with nothing to hold onto... He may be considering leaving crawling behind. I'll keep you up to date.
Here's a few more pictures from the bath as well as tonight's visit from Olivia. She was mesmorised by my corn-shucking skills, so much so that she wouldn't rest until I gave her one of my freshly shucked corns... As you'll see, the corn's raw-osity (great scrabble word) did not present much of a problem to young Miss Kaplan.

Lookin GOOOD!

Harry took this picture of Alyson and Me at Wendy and Dan's wedding last weekend. We had a great time at the wedding which was held at the Hyatt Harborside which is across the harbor from Downtown Boston. The location was perfect for a wedding, and some nice photographs as well. If you were curious, Jacob spent the night with his Nana & Papa, and as is his current MO, he was a perfect gentleman.

Maine for a day

We took a quick day-trip to Maine today. We checked in on the progress of Nana & Papa's house, not surprisingly, Jacob approved. We had some lunch, and even spent some time on the beach... We really enjoy the beach in the early evening... After a quick ocean side dinner (where Mommy and Daddy carefully calculated their Points, jacob jammed his mouth full of chicken fingers and french fries), we returned to the car for the trek back to Newton. On the way home a certain smell indicated we needed to make an unscheduled stop in the parking lot of the Masconomet Regional High School in Topsfield, MA. It happens to be an enormous school, but I digress. The point of the story is Jacob (once the odor problem had been remediated), made a move for the driver's seat and posed for the picture you see here.

Here's the first (of many) new feature(s) that I will be adding to the blog as Jacob (and the blog) approach their first birthdays.
Its a link to more pix that fit with this post... Enjoy!

Trip to Maine 8-17-2007

Get in my belly!

Have I mentioned my son's love of watermelon? It has quickly shot up to the top of his favorite foods list. He's started to get a little picky around meal time lately, but if you offer him watermelon, he'll eat it right up. Perhaps watermelon fresh from the fridge feels really good on his tiny teeth, whatever it is, the kid loves it, as you can clearly see in this movie.

Sorta walking...

Even before the crawling started, Jacob started walking/marching with 'some' help. Its fun to watch.

Stop bawlin and get crawlin!

Jacob learned to crawl today. He's been working on it for a few weeks now, and today he figured out that if he moves his hands, he can go anywhere he wants... We're in trouble now. More video to follow soon!

Front Porch Playhouse

Jacob and Olivia have moved into their new house. Some people may think its a little early, and that they are a little young to have a place together. But, being the progressive parents that we are, we decided it was OK.

It took hours of back-breaking work in nasty weather but the daddies braved the elements and completed construction of the one room domicile on Saturday afternoon.

As you can clearly see in the picture, Jacob loves to sit on the front porch and Olivia wants to know when he'll get off his tush and get started on his chores.

The Beach

In yet another of the "Jacob's First..." we took the little man down to Narragansett to visit the beach and to see Bubbe and Zaide and ALL the relatives who meet up down there every summer. It was great. Jacob loved the sand and the surf. He also had a lot of fun playing with his big cousins Molly, Hannah, and Shaina.

More Mazel...

Alyson's pal (and Ross' former boss) Hedy had a baby last week... Baby Emma and mom are doing great and are now home with dad. Jacob is looking forward to meeting Emma very soon!

Indo-nesia eh?

Is that near Natick? (I don't get out much)

Deep Thoughts

So this 'crawling' you speak of... is this how you do it?

Mazel tov

Jacob would like to congratulate his uncle Marc Shedroff on his recent engagement to Tracy! As you can see, its been a while since Jacob has met them, but he remembers them fondly.

They learn early.

Did I mention that he loves to send text messages?

so close

Our little man is so close to crawling, forward anyway. He's been going backward pretty well for more than a week now. He also doing this thing where he spins around on his bum if he's sitting on the floor. Lots of fun to watch.

Clapping

Jacob started clapping yesterday, he loves it. The best part is that
frequently we can tell him to clap... And he does it!

Sent from my iPhone

Bubbe Day

Jacob, by the way, is doing well, looks like he's finally over the cold he's had for the past week. Today is Bubbe day, they are spending the whole day together, just the two of them... and who ever else Bubbe wants to show him off to...

Speaking of off to, i'm off to work, lunch time is over.

Been a while.

Here's what our pal Jacob has been up to in the last month since I've posted...
- 9-month Dr. Appt: Everything looks great - he's 19lbs 4 oz, 28.5 inches
- First swim in a pool... that was fun.
- Celebrated his bubbe's birthday, and it was a big one.
- First father's day, oh, that was for me, not him. But he was very generous.
- Saw uncle Rossy off to VT, again.
- Second trip to a pool, even more fun.
- Welcomed his new cousin Hannah Ellis Goodman, Uncle Mark and Auntie Abi's new daughter, Born 6/18, 7lbs 1 oz, 18.5 inches.
- Started eating all kinds of new foods, including mac n' cheese!
- Suffered through a relentless fever and the accompanying repetitive thermometer insertions. "Can't they stick that thing anywhere else?" he asked.
- Watched the Red Sox lead in the East balloon to 14.5 games, only to dip to 7.5 then stretch back out to 10.5.
He's been very busy. Pictures to follow soon.

Backyard

Our backyard project is FINALLY done. Well, almost, we're still waiting on the fence. We now have a wonderfully LUSH lawn to play on (in?).
Olivia seems to have found herself a comfortable seat from which she can take in the beauty of our new backyard... or make a phonecall. Jacob is happy he could help.

A month later

I can't believe its been a month since I've added anything to the blog. What has Jacob been up to? Take a look at these pictures and see for yourself. (click his face below to see a bunch of recent photos)

Jacob Gus April-May 2007

He's now over 8 months old. Its wild to think its already been 8 months. He's around 19 pounds, we have a Dr. appointment next month and we'll get some accurate stats.
He hasn't started crawling yet, but he's certainly working on it. The biggest thing lately has been the teething. Thats no fun for anyone. It also makes photography more difficult because he usually has drool on his chin as well as a dirty shirt. In the last couple days, a tooth has finally broken through. We can't quite see it yet, but we can feel it... He can certainly feel it.
Yesterday he had a bit of a fever and was pretty cranky, so what did we do? Well, mommy and daddy went out to dinner and the movies, leaving the little cranky (but adorable) man with his bubbe and zaide... Good trick, eh? He seems to be better today.
Ok, sounds like nap time is over (I'm guessing thats what the screaming is about), which means blog time is over too... I'll try to be better about updating.

More From the Floor

Body Surfing

Here's Jake on the floor of our bedroom. He's trying to learn to crawl, we think.

Go Sox.

Quick Lunch-time post

Generally I'm the guy behind the camera... but, Alyson took such a great picture of my little man and me, I had to quickly get it up here in the interwebs.

Jake's friend Eric

I'm not sure who is more excited in this picture? Clearly not Olivia, she just wants to know when the screaming will stop.
Jacob really likes his uncle Eric, in other news, he also like bananas (from a baby food jar). I also tried feeding him squished up real bananas, that didn't go as well. We'll try that again in a few weeks.
The only other food we've introduced (that i can think of) is pears. Which, as we've come to learn, have magic powers similar to pears... Powers which were on display this morning as Daddy was trying to get ready for work... P!U!

Giggly Boy

Jacob was having a good time playing on the floor with Bubbe, Zaide, Aunt Selma and Uncle Bernie, Mommy and Daddy.

I'm saving it for later.

As previously reported, and as you can clearly see this kid likes to eat. He's expanded his diet to include the following: oatmeal, sweet potato, carrots, peas, winter squash, apples (and apple sauce, but I'm still waiting for someone to explain the difference), and prunes, for 'medicinal' purposes only. He's also been experimenting with a sippee cup, however right now that's a work in progress. We'll introduce another food this week, what's it going to be? Here's a hint, it rhymes with 'fananas'.

Last week J-Gus, as he's known in his 'crib', had his 6 month visit to the doctor. Here are the stats: 16 lbs 8oz; 26.5 inches 'tall', and a head circumference of 42.7 cm, (why they switch to metric for this one is another mystery). Doc says that he is well proportioned, more good news.
He's doing well with his motor skills as well. The doctor asked if he reached out for his toys, we told her that he does. She asked if he can transfer items from one hand to the other, we said that we hadn't seen him do that... so she handed him a tongue depressor... he reached for it, grabbed it and immediately transferred it to his other hand. He's quite the showman.