What Cheer, Netop?

My sister told me tonight that my nephew, who is pictured here eating a peanut butter cup:

( yup )

saw the movie Cars. A few days later, Ezra he asked my sister, "What's a loser?" She explained the basic concept and asked him why he asked. "Lightning McQueen said, 'I eat losers for breakfast!'" OK. (I am a little charmed that this was the first time he had encountered the concept.)

A few days after that, he was having some cereal for breakfast, and he pointed to the cereal and said, "These are losers!"

THE END.

My sister and her family live across the street from my father and stepmother in Massachusetts, so I drove up and visited them this past weekend and took a bunch of pictures.

( Lots of pictures behind the cut )

I had lunch with my friends Sarah and Meg today, so I took the opportunity to take some pictures of them wearing the ponchos I made for them for Christmas (using a colinette kit I bought from killerwolf):

And for no particular reason here's a( picture of my nephew Ezra )

My sister Char, her husband Joe, and their five month old son Ezra came to visit this weekend. I was slightly disorganized about it, as originally the plan was for them to stay at a hotel but at some point this changed to them staying with me, which I missed somehow. It wasn't a problem but I would have spent a bit more time cleaning up the place had I known that that was what was happening.

Unfortunately Ezra was a little sick with a cold and a fever, so they ended up not staying as long as they had hoped to, and Ezra was fussier than usual, especially around bedtime. It was still great to see them, and particularly Ezra, who I hadn't seen in more than a month. I got to see him eat solid food! And he seems like he's very close to being able to crawl -- the one thing he hasn't quite figured out is that you have to keep your belly off the floor to reduce friction. Instead, he sticks his belly out so it becomes a sort of a pivot -- he can spin around from side to side quite easily but for forward and backward motion it just doesn't work that well. Very cute! He can also pick things up, which I don't think he had quite perfected the last time I saw him. (He can also put things in his mouth but it isn't yet the case that that's automatically what he does with everything, I don't think.)

Friday night I got us all pizza for dinner and we got in a game of Scrabble (I came in second, with Joe ending up with a quite decisive 30-point lead). Saturday we went to a couple of bookstores and a yarn place, where I got some funky new yarn to incorporate into the gigantic scarf I'm working on. Mmmm, scarf.

I got us some Thai takeout for dinner last night and they drove back to New Hampshire this morning.

Hopefully I'll go visit them soon!

Probably after this weekend (when I hope to visit my sister and her family) I will finally shut up about the baby. But until then, you're stuck with it!

My father wrote to a bunch of family folks:

His name is Ezra Benjamin and was born last night at about seven at night. He weighs nine pounds one ounce and is twenty one inches long. His hair is brown, but so was [my sister] Charlotte's when she was born, so there's no telling.

Char had a long labor which ended with a c section, but she is very happy and doing ok.

[Her husband] Joe was great during the whole thing...very supportive and upbeat. We were visiting them while all this was going on and got to spend some time with them Sunday, but spent most of Monday by the phone waiting for news. It was all worth it, because before Chris and I left, we got to see Char, Joe, and the new baby who was only a couple of hours old.

Someone at work asked me today if being a grandfather made me feel old. I told them that the opposite was true. And when I told dad, he said that "as crazy as it sounds, this makes me feel young." I am totally enraptured with this little baby. You should have seen the way he grasped my finger and gazed up at me...

My father's wife took some pictures of my father and my nephew which he included in his message.

I'm really looking forward to seeing them this weekend. I hope they're up for it!

My father just called to let me know that I am now an uncle. Woohoo!