a shortsie

cutest ever? i think so.....

Karin's a mom! I'm an aunty! My sister and her husband Rob welcomed Erik Scott Ratchinsky into the world at 11:48 on Thursday night, and it was a welcome arrival indeed. Mom is recovering after a not-so-smooth (understatement perhaps?) first birth experience, and I have yet to talk to her BUT baby is happy and healthy and in 20 months plus 2 weeks they'll be experiencing what we are now and it is amazing and magical and hilarious (as is all of the time in between). Okay, except for some of the poop blowouts and sleepless nights and yadda yadda yadda but you know what I mean. Here he is:

Over the past few days we've wondered if we're getting a glimpse into the world of the terrible-twos... but wait you say... Hendrik? Terrible? He has his toes in the by-my-self stage, but the problem is this: he'll insist on doing something he's completely capable of ... but then not do it! The best example of this is his car seat buckle; the deal is that mom or dad does the bottom buckle and Hendrik does the top one, except that now, he'll only do it half-way and then just stand there until we feel like we've spent too much time  coaxing him to finish the job (which he won't do) and do it ourselves. Cries (tears) and screamy whines ensue "Hendrik do it! Hendrik do it!" and then we give him another chance and the same thing happens... over and over and over. So this afternoon - wait, no, twice today - I only gave him two shots and did my best at explaining that he had to do up the buckle all the way, until it clicked, and he still didn't do it. There's no doubt in my mind that he knows what he's trying to wrangle - so my patience is nearing its expiration date, yes sir.

Anyways, onwards (I am ti-red)... the above matchbox cars were Steve's when he was little, and Hendrik loves them - looooves them.

One of the things on our to-do list was to go through all of our clothes, and that we did the other day. It was a bit of a disaster zone in our room (Hendrik was napping), and Steve came across this fabulous YMCA worker-man vest... classsssssss! Anyways, the list is getting shorter thank goodness, but somehow for some reason there's always more. Is there just always more? Probs.

testing out his sister's new blankie from Zella, Elspeth and Duncan... love!

37 weeks - eek!

I'm going to hit up some ice cream, get something else knocked off the list and then go to bed. There are only so many through-the-night sleeps we will be enjoying before we welcome our girl into the world - !!