Getting Settled..

Almost a full week has gone by at home all together and we seem to be adjusting quite well. Adrien is realizing he is still our favorite son and there is plenty of love and attention to go around. Not that this extra effort comes easily - the problem is that everyone needs mommy...baby needs to eat and Adrien needs cuddles and reassurance. Amy is doing a great job - but sometimes I feel like she is in the midst of an adventure race...feed Aliena, then get Adrien down for a  nap (special request for mommy time), then run back down for another feeding and repeat! Grandma-Pam and I are doing what we can, but there are some things that mommy can do that we just can't! Adrien has been enjoying the added attention of us all being home, visits from friends (Leoni and kids, Brittny) and the last weekend before school starts with the village kids (ones who spend some time here during vacation). In fact, just yesterday he invited them all into the house to play with his toys...which then migrated to the fountain out front...and morphed into a water-fight. On the upside for us, some of the more annoying noisy toys he has made it into the fountain and are now functional as 'quite' toys only!

Aliena hasn't been up to much new stuff -- eat, sleep, poop, repeat.... Sometimes she seems to be a bit restless when she needs to poop (I guess this is a learned skill??). The other day, Amy used a magical technique they suggested at the hospital - Aliena was restless and squirmy in my arms, and Amy said that they told her she could massage the feet lightly - like so - and...."thhhwwwwweeet" a poop explosion! Amazing! I wouldn't have believed it except that the evidence was starting to sting my eyes (even in my slightly groggy state, I know better than to share photos of this evidence to the scientists out there). Since that first time, the success rate of this technique has been less impressive - but let this serve as a warning to all you foot massage fans out there...

Aliena does have some great awake time though. I took advantage of one of these awake times to try to get passport photos taken -- I fired off a good 50 photos and managed to get one where she was looking head on, had her eyes open, and a neutral expression (all required elements). I still don't understand the point of this since babies keep their passport for over 5 years and don't look anything like their photo after a few months. Well, I guess it does create business for photographers (who told me that my photos might not work and that they could do it for me....until I told them that the same technique worked for Adrien 3 years ago...). Here is the photo....

Home-comming!

OK, so I'm a bit behind....and will try to break up the text a bit with a few posts in one day.

On Monday, all tests ran clear and Amy and the Aliena were released from the hospital. Turns out there are no real formalities for going home in our little back-woods hospital. They say - "OK, you cna go home when you're ready". Then you walk out. We ralized a few days before that they don't really worry much about security - Adrien was fitted with a baby-LoJack system soon after birth that set off alarms when you walked out the upstairs door (don't ask how we learned about that...), but for Aliena, there were no alarms...really no bracelets at all. The nurse even suggested that if we wanted to go outside to walk around a get some fresh air, we should just make sure that Aliena was well covered and to no go too far! So we packed up, walked out, and headed home! The only regret was leaving behind the air-conditioning and Adrien's chateau.

Papi and Bonne Maman headed back to Lyon at the same time as Amy's release, Grandma Pam was at home waiting with her arms cradled for a little baby to land in them, and Adrien came back from day-care all excited about having Mommy and Baby home. He was very proud to get to hold her on his knees (supervised...still) - and practice holding baby in a wrap (well...with a doll...). In general Adrien is doing quite well with the new addition/ competition - he needs a bit more attention and reassurance, wants to pretend he is a baby, and tries to push the limits a bit more, but that's pretty mild stuff compared to stories I have heard. We're keeping our fingers crossed that things keep getting better!

The first night was a little tricky - and the following nights have taught us a new lesson in raising kids... Aliena slept just fine - she gives quiet little squeeks when she is hungy, then falls asleep again. Adrien (our champion sleeper...??), on the other hand, kept us up all night. The problem is that he wanted to be with us and cuddle with his little sister...which is not such a hot idea! We tried to let him stay with us (with a good barrier between him and his sister), but he sleeps so lightly that at every squeek and gurgle, he would wake up. After a medium sized crises, we finally cried ourselves (Papa and Adrien) to sleep in Adrien's room. Turns out our little one is a pretty good sleeper (no, she does not yet sleep through the night...sure, your baby did!!), but our big boy is the one responsible for our lack of sleep! I guess even big boys need to be cuddled like a baby.

One last note for the day, Alexis' day started with a trip to city hall to drop of the birth declaration and get a birth certificate made. Its a small town hall not far from the hospital and it provided a quintessential french adminstrative experience. I arrived at 9:30am and began by waiting for the secretary to finish something 'important' (reading the morning paper online). She then took my paperwork, told me I forgot to add and accent on Aliena's name (it took a while to convince her we were boldly going accent-less), and then she typed things in for about 15min and got ready to print out copies of the declaration for her own office and for us. In true ecological fashion, she prints out declarations on the official paper for her office as double-sided: my baby on one side, someone else's on the other. The problem is that she fed the paper wrong, and someone else's poor baby got over-written. That introduced a good 10min hesitation about how to recover the pther baby, if the second printout for Aliena should go on the back (or front) of the previous baby's record (you know, to keep things im the same order), etc... I finally left afer 1hour in one of the less busy city-halls in France with 8 copies of Aliena's birth certificate (to send to insurance, my employer, social secuirty, etc....). Lets hope the US consulate is a bit easier to deal with!

US Delegation Arrives (Grandma-Pam)

Amy and Aliena are doing well -- turns out they will stay at the hospital a little longer to keep an eye on Aliena since she has elevated anti-body levels - Amy's water broke the night before (at the time it seemed like a really big pee...but who questions that at 4am??) which increases a risk of infection (it goes by some technical term that basically means a risk of inhaling some of your first poop). This means we are all doing laps back and forth to the hospital, Amy is starting to go a bit stir-crazy (although the room is getting very clean and organized), and Adrien gets to run outside around the hopsital grounds to get excess energy out.
Papi and Bonne Maman got to spend some good awake time with Aliena on Saturday while Adrien and Alexis when to welcome Grandma-Pam at the airport. Grandma-Pam got in a good visit with her newest grandchild while Alexis and Adrien ran around the hospital grounds (again....but now there is a major castle under constuction that invloves shoving sticks into the ground). Everyone re-convened at the hospital...adopting their usual roles...Papi carrying champagne, Bonne Maman a 'croustade' (a local tart), Pam holding the little baby, and we had the first official toast to Aliena's arrival.

Like all parents, we were a bit worried that Adrien would feel displaced or jealous - but so far that seems not to be the case. He gives his sister lots of kisses and cuddles (under supervision to prevent a squished baby) and tells everyone in the hospital halls about his little sister (and his is a 'big sister'...no no Adrien, you are the big brother). Yesterday morning Amy saw us coming from the parking lot and made a special point to put down Aliena to be there to give Adrien a big hug and keep jealousy at bay. Adrien ran towards her with a big smile, then at the last minute he faked left, spun right, and went straight to the bed to give his sister a kiss. Guess he is doing fine.

On a final note for the day, Aliena is already quite exceptional (in our completely unbiased and scientific opinion). She smiles (is it really just gas?), cries, flails her arms around, fills diapers like nobody's business, and looks just fine in pink. Pretty amazing for the first few days in the big wild world! We hope to get her home on Monday along with her mommy.

Birth of Aliena

The 4th A is here....
Aliena Phoebe Chaine was born on August 19th at 7:10pm in the French Pyrenees.
It was a pretty sudden start -- we had the usual 9 months warning, but Amy didn't have her first contraction until about 1pm or so on the 19th. She called Alexis at work around 3pm to let him know what was going on and that he might consider coming home. Contractions were 4-5 minutes apart.

After a nice relaxing bath and trying to stay calm and hypnobithing-relaxed for the long-haul (Adrien introduced us to the 48-hours-of-labor view of birth), we realized that contractions every 2-3 minutes was a good time to consider loading the car and heading into the hospital. By the time the car was loaded (10 minutes?), Amy reported contractions being pretty much one continuous contraction a said (less politely) - "screw this relaxation thing, I want an epidural".

We drove quickly (but safely, mom) to the hospital, parked, made a mental note to grab the camera and the bag on the next trip to the car, ran in, and were ushered directly to the birthing room. Hmmmm...that's an odd place to check on the status....well...things are different in France...! Amy wanted to go pee....and the midwife said "sure...but make sure you don't push"....hmmmmm.....why did she say that?

Baby was born soon after. The records show that we checked in at 7pm, and Aliena was born at 7:10. But who really had time to look at their watch? First photos were from the cell phone...crappy photos, but that's what happens when you forget to call the videographer. Anyways...it was pretty different from the first child...but it all worked out great in the end. Amy scored the (only) air-conditioned maternity room (it was about 33C or 92F), settled in, and Papa fetched Adrien for a little visit. That was about the time we realized that this was not where we expected to celebrate our wedding anniversary....which we had forgotten about completely.

Aliena was born at 2.98kg (Google it if your math skills can't handle x2.2 to get lbs) and some still undetermined length. She seems healthy, gorgeous (that is a completely unbiased assessment using the standard beaut-ometer...we are scientists...you must believe our objectivity...), and is keeping her mommy busy with demands for "boobies" (as Adrien put it).

Papi and Bonne Maman got here on Thursday night (while Adrien and Papa were having a dance party at home), got a few peeks at the newest A. Chaine, and have been spoiling their grandson in the spare hours. Having a sister is great! In their hurry to get down here, Papi left his bag on the front porch in Lyon and had to shop in the fashion mecca known as St. Girons (Adrien took them to all the hip spots...which surprisingly involved numerous toy stores).

Getting started....

OK....so its been three years since we dropped the ball on our chaine.net website -- excuses abound - but now we are ready to embrace 2006 technology, drop the old dreamweaver pages, and give the this new fangled "blog"-thing a go. Yeah, we know....blogging is old-school. Ya'll are all face-booking your-space with twats (or tweets?), but stuck in our backwoods...a blog is pretty darn new! So here goes nothing... Hope it lasts more than the 6 months the website did!
What you can expect to find -- news about our family and what we see around us. Don't expect deep thoughts...unless, by deep, you mean the pile of diapers, and by thoughts you mean "uuuhhhh...I could use more sleep".