Keeping In Touch from Abroad

So, the holidays were great and involved lots of travel.  Here is a recap:

Missy came to visit.  This was lots of fun.  She’s going crazy because while school is fun, she’s living with several college students and surrounded by college students.  The problem here is that these are average college students doing average college-aged stupid things like going drinking all the time.  Missy, no longer as young as her new peers, misses the ability to have adult conversations.  Further, the crew we hang out with in Atlanta is definately NOT average.  So she is not being challenged mentally by the converesations offerred.  Also, she and her beau have been in constant battles with each other.  Considering they are thousands of miles apart, you can see this isn’t easy on her.  So, her visit entailed lots of hanging out and conversing which was just what we wanted too.

After this, Lori, Thomas and I packed up and headed to Coventry to visit Sean and Stella.  On Thursday, Lori and I packed our bag and I took this to work with me.  On Friday, Lori packed the things Thomas needed and that evening she met me at the train station at 6:30 pm.  However, Lori did forget one critical thing: her passport!  (I had Thomas’ passport.)  So, I checked into the last train (8pm) and bought our tickets.

I then took a cab across town (we live on the north side) and back to Gare du Midi (South station) with a great cabbie who originaly came from the Congo.  I had a GREAT conversation about the origins of Hutu and Tutsi groupings (relatively arbitrarily designated based on wealth by the European colonists) and about much of the political environment of the past 80ish years there.  We had time because we were taking a cab through the center of town to the north side during rush-hour on a Friday near Xmas.  Hopefully, I’ll write a post on this - the converstation was THAT good.

After returning to the station, Lori and I made our way to Coventry.  The last time we did this, the tickets were less expensive from London to Coventry (but more to London so it worked out to a similar price all told).  Also, and more importantly, the last time we took the 7pm train from Brussels and arrived in Coventry at roughly 11pm (midnight Belgian time). This time, because we took the 8pm train from Brussels and due to changes made in the Virgin train system (Virgin system because England removed the government assistance with trains so prices spiked and… read the complaints on other blogs as I don’t really care), we arrived in Coventry at roughly 1:30am (2:30 Belgian).  This was pretty rough on Lori and I, though Thomas traveled well.

Upon arrival, Stella, Lori and Thomas went to sleep while Sean and I went out for a drink.  Sean, just back from his company’s Christmas party, was fairly toasty and had a couple of colleagues with him.  Given our late start, we ended up at a pool hall / dive bar.  At the end of the night (4am local) we headed out of the bar and were accosted by 4 Chavs (local asshats).  For some reason that eludes me, these guys ignored me.  As the most sober and largest of our group, this was retarded; but then all Chavs are retarded.  Anyway, one of the Chavs headbutted one of Sean’s colleagues breaking his nose and then removed his belt to use as a weapon.  Sean stepped in to calm things down and was rewarded with a belt to the knuckles.  He was able to calm things down because he didn’t want to be deported.  I am glad he did because I too was about to be deported. (For Eric, I think I better undersatnd how you felt in HS with Wally, John and I with that ‘coffee talk’ moment.  I was about to take out two guys on may way to the guy with the belt… and I *know* I could have done it because they had ignored me and I had positioned myself well… and I’m much bigger than they are.)

The rest of the trip was much less eventful.  We went to eat at Stella’s resteraunt which further cemented my view that England is in many cultural ways half way between the rest of the European continent and the US.  The food was great; the service was not.  Specifically, the initial service was disjointed because the maitre de was a chav.  He didn’t tell the downstairs crew (the bar crew) that we were seated down stairs so they were not prepared.  He wanted us downstairs because of Thomas (who was decent for this outing).  He also failed to inform the kitchen (and Stella specifically) that we had arrived.  Once seated, the service was fine (great from the perspective of Belgium).  The food (as expected) was excellent.

On the way out, I had taken Monday off of work.  Lori, having been to Englad a few times now, still had not seen the white cliffs of Dover so we decided to go via the ferry instead of the Chunnel on our way back.  We were delayed in getting to the ferry because of canceled trains and our need to pick up a changing mat for Thomas which we had left in the car museum (see it!).  The weather was VERY cold and windy so the missed trains sucked.  Because of these delays, we caught a late(ish) ferry to Calais, France landing at around 6pm.  We showed up with some touring Americans who called a cab.  The cab appeared at the same time as the bus to the train station: 6:30pm.  We were at the train station maybe 5 minutes later and learned the last train left at 6:20pm and they were closing.  In typical French fashion, the bitch then shut the window and walked out without providing any assistance (like where another, neighboring trainstation may be located or pointing out *any* train schedules to allow us to map our morning out).  If I had been thinking more clearly, I’d have taken a cab from there to Lille where we could have then boarded the high-speed train to Brussels and shared it with the other Americans (who were headed to Belgium too).  Since I was not thinking clearly, we stayed the night in Calais.  So Thomas has been to 4 countries (with the definition being having eaten and slept in said country)!

Once we returned to our apartment, we started preparing for our trip to Atlanta.  The flight to Atlanta went well.  The plane was packed but thankfully we had the bulkhead seats so we had the cradle for Thomas.  There were about 6 other kids under 2yrs old on the flight and for the few times Thomas was crying, one of the others was already crying so he was drowned out and not noticed.

Atlanta was wonderful.  Thomas got to meet his second cousins Flynn Jr and Avery.  My son is the cutest of the three (but not the best behaved).   Thomas got to meet his aunts Caitlin and Alex and his Uncles Ben, Keith and Hunter (he’d already met Glen).  He also got to meet his grandfathers Ray and Tom.  Thomas did briefly meet William, but as William is a bit older and Thomas isn’t a cartoon nor someone who can play rough games, they didn’t hang out.  I am sure that like my cousin Brian and I, they will in the future.

For the whole week I was there, we constantly went from one family function to another.  We had a blast.  I did get to see a few friends as we stayed with Hunter and Glen as well as running into several for lunch.  Tom Miller was in town so I got to introduce him to my son as well.  Thomas got a ton of gifts (yay).  He has attempted to eat most of them by way of thanks.

I flew back to Brussels on Saturday (landing Sunday).  I think I picked up some minor cold on the plane because I never recovered from the jet lag and felt like crap at all hours for the next week.  This was particularly rough because this included the New Year celebration.  I bailed on hanging out with Davy because he was in Antwerp and there would be no way for me to make it home between about 1am and 5am and I didn’t want to be stuck (barring a 100 Euro cab ride).  I also didn’t want to make friends ill so I didn’t look up anyone else either.  I went down to Grand Plac and wandered around until around 1am and was asleep by 1:30.  I did get a call at 7:30am to talk to the crew in ATL who were having a blast.  Thomas stayed with his grandmother Cathy who had a blast.

The next weekend, Lori and Thomas flew to D.C. to see Nicole and meet John.  They had great amounts of fun together and thoughtfully sent me pics.  Apparently Lori figured out that Thomas flies well in the morning but not evening as he was good on the way out but not the way back.  I kept a low key for the weekend because I still wasn’t feeling top notch.  I got to hang out with Angelo and Titsiana who cooked for Vito, Juliana one of their friends and I.  Juliana is about to pop so Vito also has been keeping in lately so this worked well for us.

Also, the two work weeks really were not great for me.  Along with not feeling well, there were some scheduling issues and I got to perform lots of teir 1 work (I’m teir 3 normally).  Having to judge which escalations to take and ignore always is rough (and common during this period) but combined with the extra (busy) work of teir 1, I dropped a couple of things.  I did manage to clear my queue nicely before returning to ATL though.

Back in Atlanta, I focused this trip (for me) on seeing friends and getting prepared for Sean’s wedding.  Saturday (I flew in on Friday) was the bachelor party and at my strong recommendation, the best man (Eric Price) started us early with Whirly Ball.  WOW this was fun!  Unfortunately, I was on the loosing side most often (we freely swapped around) and even more unfortunately, I have the most memorable moment because I attempted a high speed no look pass which ended with the ball traveling approximately 1 inch into Ben’s eye.  And he was a teammate!  I’m still sorry Ben!  Thankfully, it was a wiffle ball and he was ok.  Also unfortunately, PRice was ill that day and I ended up as DD for the evening part which otherwise was lots of fun.  The bachelorette party came over at the tail end of the evening and we all partied hard (I bailed at 4am and it was still going strong - groom and bride too which is impressive as they had come from England).  Lori and I spent the night at my mom’s this evening because she was babysitting for us so we could party.

During the next week, Lori and I either worked on preparations for our return (emptied out the storage shed into our house, etc) or preperations for Sean and Stella’s wedding (or, for the evenings, related parties).  Lori, Thomas and I attened a party on the following nights: Sunday (dinner party at the Bender household), Thursday (wedding party at Rutledge’s house), Friday (Rehersal dinner at the Depeaux in Decature - recommended) and Saturday (wedding itself at the trolly barn downtown).  The wedding was a beautiful affair with the best wedding food I’ve head (and best service too - those people were great).  I’ll try to write a whole post on this later…

Wednesday was a great evening.  Glen and Hunter babysat whilst Lori and I went on a date.  We ate at the Vortex because I have been craving a good burger for a while.  Since they brought Lori her cider before the food, she was actually fairly buzzed and was able to maintain this easily but didn’t have a hangover the next day.  Basically, this venue worked out really great for both of us!  This showed us why we really want to get back to Atlanta - trusted babysitters with minimal notice will allow us better abilities to date again.  Note - the massive amounts of parties didn’t hurt either .

On Sunday, mom had a dinner party so we could hang out with family.  Alex, Keith, William, Caitlin, Andrew Frits (in town for the wedding), Glen, Hunter, Cathy and Tom all came out to make a great final night in town.

The flight back to Belgium was not as good as the flight in.  The plane was mostly empty (yay) but unfortunately, Thomas didn’t sleep during take-off and landing as he had the first time.  We still had the awesome cradle for Thomas, but he really wanted to be held while we walked around.  This had the double disadvantage of not allowing us any sleep either.  We made it through customs and baggage claim in very very short order and were back in our house by around 8:30 or 9am (I think - I was very brain dead).

Unfortunately, our day was not over.  Our landlord had arranged to have our floor repaired this day and had sent me an email which I had not yet seen.  So, as a surprise, we got to clear out of our bedroom (and therefore prevent any napping to allow sanity) while they worked on the floor.  Just about the time this was complete, the leasing agent from Century 21 came by to ensure we were able to show the apartment and then came right back with people who wanted to see the it.  I later found out that these people are moving in Feb so I’m a bit upset since we are moving in March…  In any event, we were able to nap for a few hours… 11am to 4pm.  This was needed as we had not slept in about 21 hours.  However, this didn’t help with the jet lag at all.

Finally, whoever said that babies don’t get jet lag is fucking retarded.  In my current state of mind, do not say this in my presence as I may retort via physical violence.  Somehow, this is not the psuedo-blissful sleep deprivation state I had entered when he was born.   My son had a decently great sleeping schedule in Atlanta.  Since our return here, he wants to play between 2:30am and 5am.  If he isn’t playing then he has this high pitched scream that he emits to present his displeasure.  This scream does not indicate he is scared, hungry, has a wet/dirty diaper or anything else.  This is a scream he uses almost exclusively to indicate boredom.  Unfortunately, since our return, it is morphing into a scream he uses when tired too.  This has been playing merry hell with my ability to work because I have been a zombie at work.

I have found *a* solution as of last night… I go to sleep at 9pm (?!?) and this way I can get 6 hrs of sleep before the 3am mark when he will wake up…  Lori is taking him for a doctor’s visit today so hopefully we’ll get some advice on how to speed the process of moving his hours.  Also, Lori is waking him up earlier every day to help ensure that his schedule moves quicker.  However, since he naps during the day (which Lori needs him to do as she is also packing up our household etc), his schedule does not move quickly.

Also, I’ll be working on the home PC this weekend and transfering the many pictures to that PC for Lori to work on.  Once this is complete, we’ll be uploading pictures.  Sorry for the delay, but Lori and I have both been mind dead due to lack of sleep this week and have been a bit busy since Missy’s visit previously.

So, lots has happened since my last update.  Life has changed radically - but then, becoming a parent is a change that is expected.  In any event, I am much better about getting home on time and I greatly look forward to playing with my boy.  I try to get Lori out of the house without him, but as the days are growing so very short, this doesn’t happen too much.  A quick list of things that have happened:

Glen had to go home.  We were sorry to see her go.
Cathy had to go home. Again, we were sorry to see her go.
My mom came to visit.  This was perhaps the best visit I’ve ever had with my mom (and I *know* a large part of this was due to her effort - thanks mom!).  My mom also gave us our first (and thus far only) night out without Thomas. We went out for dinner and were gone for four hours which was one hour too long.
Lori’s Aunt Debb and Uncle Ken came for a week.  A good time was had.

And most recently, Sean came to visit for Thanksgiving!!  Stella (his fiance) is back in Atlanta getting stuff for their wedding prepared and enjoying the holiday with family (since she moved to Coventry with Sean).  As such, he didn’t have anyone local to him and we were glad to host!  Lori cooked a 6lb turkey, greenbean casserole, cranberry sauce (homemade) and stuffing!  It was delicious.  We actually did all this on Saturday because I worked Thursday and Sean arrived Friday.  Also, Sean and I went to the American bar with Dimitar and Phillipa and watched GT beat UGA 45-42.  Go Jackets!!  I think several of the non-americans in the bar were surprised to hear me yell at the TV.  Afterwards, we went to the Delirium Tremors for another round.  Today, we headed into town and went to the museum of musical instruments.  We didn’t bring our camera but Sean did so check his picassa if you want to see some of this.

What parent doesn’t talk about their children?  Thomas has his passport and first round of immunizations (which are not delivered immediately post birth).  He smiles now and really enjoys some of the classic games like peek-a-boo.  I never thought playing that game would be so much fun for me!  He’s growing and it’s great to watch.  The quick pattern is: gets fatter and then gets longer (though more svelt) then back to getting fatter.  He has the beginnings of a laugh, but it’s not fully developed.  Also, he is sleeping through most of the night with a fairly consistent midnight to 5:30 schedule and sometimes earlier and/or for longer!  Lori is a trooper for this!!

Finally, with the fixing of major issues of Ubuntu previously, I didn’t think about how the name changes would affect the spare drive.  Having correctly made this realization, we now are using all our drives again.  Yay for brains.  Because of this in combination with the corrections to the system allowing us to post more than 5 photos at a time, I have started uploading massive swaths of our old photos.  So, many photos for 2007 are up and I am adding hundreds more.  I still have to be on the machine because if it goes into power save, it drops the network connection… However, with a week of effort, I expect them all to be up.  Here are some quick links:

In 2007, Lori and I went to the Brussels Celtics (Rugby Club)’s ball.

Gumps visited Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Candy.  While there, I got to go on a wine tour with Aunt Candy!
This will take  you on our first tour of the king’s garden in 2007 which is only open for a couple of weeks per year.

Ghent was a blast with David Hannum and Stephen Saar (both coworkers from Atlanta) back in 2007 (we went to Ghent imediately after the gardens).

In May 2007, Sean and Stella met us here and we all went to see Spain.  Specifically, we went to Granada (and the fort Alhambra) and Sevilla.  I am loading these now so check back for more.

I also loaded some of the shots of Cliff’s visit after Sean and Stella came in May of 2007.

More later!

Bath time arrived.  My son has been doing a good job of creating room in his stomach.  Also, his aunt has managed to attempt changes about 5 minutes early causing him to become extra dirty (due to temperature changes - you know, same as the whole ‘hand in water’ trick…). So, in an effort to keep him clean, we bathed him today.  After the excitement (which he didn’t enjoy - while the water wasn’t hot, I think it was still a bit warm for his comfort), he slept and has only awaken to get some food.  Otherwise, it’s been a nice, uneventful day in watching LOTR.

Last night, Glen and I joined Philippa and we headed downtown where we met Jason, Leslie, Vito, Juliana and Luca.  They were eating at Cosi, but as Philippa, Glen and I had eaten, we had a drink and joined them for desert.  After this, we headed out for a drink - though it took going through about 4 places to find one that could seat the eight of us together.  It was nice to see the crew and talk about my son and basically be out of the house.  I also informed them that we like having visitors, but they need to arrive early-ish (before 7pm).  Unfortunately, none have taken us up on this offer (barring Philippa who came earlier in the week, not today).

I have managed to fix some of the issues with Ubuntu on the home system, but not all of them.  At this time, it boots fine after changing the fstab and the grub options to point to hd0,0 instead of hd1,0.  Basically, Ubuntu decided to call SATA drives sda instead of hda.  So, now I have a stable boot and can consitently get into Ubuntu and my keyboard is fully functional, but I still have some issues with VLC (which can read files off of the DVD player but not open the disk?!) and sound in general (old problem - I am unsure if this is really a ‘problem’ or simply a config issue with using the wrong line out… but not a big deal).  Also, I’m having wireless problems (which seems to happen every time I have guests) though I am unsure if this is related to the update.

Finally, once again, I’m uploading some pics into the gallery right after I finish this.

So, several people have asked what the birthing pool is and how it works etc.  Here are the non-gory details.

First, the birthing pool itself is a glorified, special purpose hot tub.  By special purpose, I mean it has a specific shape and isn’t designed for a party.  Here is a picture of the one Lori was in.

Now, before you can get into the pool, you have to ensure that everything else is going very well.  Specifically, Lori was hooked up to the baby monitor which validates heart rate and various other stuff.  Here is a picture of the machine (I didn’t photo the monitor itself, which is connected by one long wire and is waterproof and therefore usable in the tub).

Once monitored, Lori climbed into the pool.  She did not lay the way the tub was designed because it is far more comfortable for her (and probably most pregnant women) to be on her knees with the weight out front.  Laying on your back causes the baby to put extra pressure on the back and can cause them to align that way which is also a more painful birthing.  The midwives (Patty as well as the hospital one, Marilyn) wanted more water but Lori didn’t have a place to rest her head between contractions.  Remember, it was 4-5am and we were tired before considering contractions etc.  So, I climbed in and sat in the area near the door which displaced enough water to get it to an acceptable height.  Lori rested on my leg and was able to hang onto me while the midwives could more easily monitor the baby etc.

However, as stated previously, we did have to leave the tub for the final contractions and birth.  For this, Patty had brought with her a birthing stool.  This is the perfect shape and design for an upright position and was GREATLY helpful.  The traditional scenes on TV now look so painful to me as I have seen what this is about!!  Allowing gravity to assist is definately a boon.  This is the stool.

Finally, after our son was delivered, he has to be weighed and measured.  This is done under a heat lamp to ensure he doesn’t get cold.  It’s also on a changing table which is padded etc.  Here is what this looks like for us:

So everyone has told me that sleeping is the impossible task with newborns.  I have seen multiple new parents who look sleep deprived.  Yesterday, I slept well, and was wondering… however, last night I learned what this is all about.

About 3am, Thomas started crying.  And not the quiet whimpers he normally lets out when hungry or needing a nappy change.  No, these were the full out bouts of an upset newborn indicating that yes, he is my son and will be loud like me.  Did I mention this as at 3am and he hasn’t cried like this during the day?  I assume that now ALL my neighbors know there is a newborn on the block .

So, after trying all the standard things (hungry? nappy change? scenery change?) Kathy picked him up and confirmed he needed to burp!  Man, that much noise over a full stomach!  Let me be the first to suggest a burp is far quieter and more comfortable.

For most of the night (both before and after this encounter) he woke us about every 1.5 hrs.  This isn’t too bad as we get most of a sleep cycle.  This morning, at 8am he actually let us get a full two hours!  So, at this point, Lori and I are still doing pretty good.

Today’s fun and exciting tasks include going to the pharmacy, working on the laundry and trying to get some food out instead of in the apt.  We’ll see…

:-D

So, on Sunday, Lori and I updated our Ubuntu to 8.04…  I wish we hadn’t.

On the upside, this updated apparently fixed two issues I was trying to pin down.  First, our wireless keyboard’s space bar was not working properly.  It did work fine when hooked up to my winblows laptop, but not on this system.  I am unsure if this is/was due to a keyboard driver or the USB driver, but it now works fine.  This is a MAJOR fix for us as keyboard uselessness is a serious problem.  Also, on the minor side, I was encountering JAVA core dumps when opening gallery remote.  Now, that program works as advertised.

However, something happened to either the IDE driver or something.  I haven’t found the culprit yet, but the symptoms are serious.  They are:

1) Cannot watch DVDs.  The codecs are there (I re-added them) and VLC is present, but I’m having issues.  I’ve not tried watching the movies on our HDD yet, (see below for why), but I think this is limited to those in the CDRom.

2)  I have two HDDs in the system.  The primary is a 500gb SATA drive.  However, the oldest is a 200gb drive that I have been using for archival purposes.  It houses my music, movies, tv shows and pictures.  Fortunately, most of this is backed up in multiple other locations, but not all of the photos are backed up (which is the part I cannot live without).  I CANNOT USE FDISK TO SEE THE PARTITION TABLE AND I DO NOT KNOW WHY!  I have changed it from secondary on the IDE chain to primary.  The bios sees it just fine, however, I kept getting errors at boot indicating fsck cannot find /dev/hdb5 (or /dev/hda5 after I moved it in the IDE chain indicating SOMETHING was working).  At that time it would still boot.

I removed the drive and put it into an external drive bay to try to mount it from another system.  However, even though the other system claimed the USB connection to the external drive bay worked, I never see another HDD show up (even if it couldn’t figure out the partition, it should let me format etc) …

Also, now GRUB says it is missing something from boot and cannot see the wireless keyboard so I cannot boot back into the otherwise working Ubuntu 8!!!  I have to get another keyboard.

3)  Something about this upgrade / update dropped several sets of preferences.  For example, I built Ubuntu with the 200 GB drive as a separately mounted non-critical drive that was not needed.  I have verified that the bios sees SATA as primary boot device.  Yet, something now points to the 200 GB drive for boot purposes!!  Further, I have lost preferences in several programs. I know firefox updated itself to v3 (which I like) and some plugins no longer work (which is ok) but for all my preferences to reset is irritating.

Ugh!

And, since this is right after my boy is born, this worries me as I am placing my pics on my work computer where I have less HDD space and archival space.  Further, the picture editing tools I have on the laptop are not what I prefer.  I did not want to spend time fixing my systems right as I get to meet my son.  I guess I shouldn’t have updated, but I honestly have not ever had such issues with Ubuntu updates in the past nor with the lab systems I updated at work (which all have 1 drive and no wireless keyboards…).

Several hours after my son was born, Lori continued to look very pale and was not comfortable standing (she passed out the one time we tried for any real length of time).  Based on this, we decided she’d stay in the hospital (with Thomas of course).  Unfortunately, as there was no real immediate concern for health, I had to go home.  At least this meant that I got a good night’s sleep.

The next morning, I picked up Glen and Kathy from the airport.  I was so dazed they found me even though I apparently stared right at them.  Once we loaded the car up (as they brought our stroller and other stuff we requested along with their luggage), we headed back to the apartment for an unloading pitstop.  From there, we headed off to the hospital where Lori had just gotten ready for the day.  We stayed there briefly (perhaps an hour?) which gave the doc just long enough to again declare our son was healthy and hale and mom was recovering nicely.  We headed home by way of McDonalds.  Ugh.  At least it has been a very long time since we ate there last. On the ride, our son (as with ALL babies) slept soundly.

Once  home, we took plenty of photos and hung the mobile Lori made (from all the cards we have received - it’s awesome) over the changing table so Thomas can see the love.  We basically puttered around the house in a restful way.  Kathy and I went grocery shopping and came home with dinner.  Philippa came over briefly to meet Thomas.  We finally crashed pretty early (around 10:30).

Throughout the night, Thomas woke us.  Lori handled most of this, though we all pitched in a few times.  The girls actually let me sleep the most (and I am thankful!).  This morning, I tried to say thanks by cooking breakfast, my specialty.  I think it worked ok.

Today, we have received flowers from my team at work and several calls from friends and family.  Today is Kathy’s birthday so we’re celebrating tonight with a steak meal that should be great!

I’ve uploaded more new pictures and I moved the old ones into a subfolder to try to keep things clear.  I’ll try to keep the updates coming.

Thomas Alexander Dechman IV was born today (Sept 2, 2008) at 5am in St. Martin’s hospital in Mechelin, Belgium.  He weighed 2.990 Kg (6.59 lbs for those of you on that imperialistic and outdated scale ).  He is 49cm long (19 & a quarter inches) and has a crown of 34cm (13.4 inches).

Wow!  This is incredible!  He’s cute!

Lori didn’t sleep well yesterday and rested poorly from 3am until I got up (7am) to get ready for work. She had her first contraction (for this set - we did have false starts previously) while I was in the shower but didn’t say anything due to previous contractions.  She said she continued to have contractions roughly hourly throughout the day and she called me at around 4pm saying she was sure this was it.  Upon reaching home, I was a bundle of nerves so she sent me out to run some last minute errands. After getting back from this, we settled and watched Lord of the Rings (first disc) and ate some pizza.  The contractions were coming regularly by this time and she was not able to keep conversation up during these contractions.  During this time, we called the midwife a few times and called our imediate family.  At midnight, our midwife, Patty, came over to our house.  At 2:30 (I think - maybe 3?) Lori decided it was time to head to the hospital.  We called our hospital of choice, St. Elizabeth’s in downtown Brussels, but someone else was in the birthing pool and apparently another woman was waiting for once the first was done.  Patty asked if we would mind changing the hospital / doctor and we stated we did not mind as the birthing pool was what was important to Lori.  Based on this, Patty called another hospital that she is familar with and we headed off there!

We came in the night entrance and were led upstairs to our room.  Lori got into the birthing pool and everything went smooth as clockwork.  As Lori’s water never broke naturally, Patty opened it once she was fully dialated and we found meconium.  Due to this, we got out of the birthing pool.  The delivery was performed by Patty with the hospital midwife in assistance.  The doctor was still down the hall and was not needed (though she came in later to ensure all was well).

Since his birth, Thomas has been eating, sleeping, staring wide-eyed at everything and crying when frustrated.   Boy is he cute.  Pics are in the gallery!

This is only the first run.  I have more (pictures and info) to post from today, but I am too tired.

So, I’ve not updated in a bit because my life has been very busy. I’ll try to write some posts, but a brief recap includes:

I went to Greenock Scottland for a work trip.

Lorinda and I attended our birthing classes which were very useful!

Lorinda and I learned baby CPR and other health issues around babies.

Lorinda is very tired and not up for walking as much - which is expected.

We are anxiously awaiting our little one!

Stephanie and Holly (A family friend of the Nortons and Lorinda’s Aunt) visited - we had a blast!

We got a new camera.

I went out drinking (heavily) for the last time in a while (since we are expecting - I’m not going to the hospital drunk for the birth of my son!!!).

Work has been VERY busy lately.

I jumped off of the atomium .

The one part of this that I will talk about now is the last. Friday was a public holiday here and I needed it. The work load has been high partially due to the European holidays (which are in late July and August). Because of this, the team has been pretty stressed and it’s taken a toll on my stress levels too. Added to this is Lori’s inability to get out and therefore do somewhat normal things. Thankfully, she’s figured out how to order groceries online (YAY) so that’s one less thing we worry about. Also, we’ve rented a car for a month to ensure we can get to the hospital without issue. But… I needed the break.

So, on Friday, we had a pretty relaxing day. We went into town and saw the flower spread at the Grand Plac with Philippa. That was beautiful! We took plenty of pictures, so I’ll try to post those soon. We wanted to go out to a movie, but after eating (ribs at a new place for us - good dry rub ribs too), it was too late. So we went on Saturday and saw Hancock which was pretty good. While there, we noted that people were rappelling off the Atomium. I’d heard this was going on, but I had thought it would be traditional rappelling. It wasn’t. Instead, it was a zip line! But, it was too late after the movie so we decided we would come back the next day.

On Sunday, we packed up and headed off at the bright time of around 4:30pm. Philippa met us there with her dogs and we settled in. The guy took our 25 euros and told us the line was about an hour. Unfortunately, one lady in front of us got stuck on the line and they had to get her down (move the truck which acted as anchor slowly up until she was down) which took an extra 10 minutes and then it rained on us which delayed things another half hour or so. However, after our long wait, Philippa and I slid down! It was a blast! The height was a bit over 100 meters, which actually trumps the bungee jump in Queenstown. Here is one picture:

(Right click and view image to get a better view)
Also, here is the Video (sideways) that Lorinda took of Philippa’s run. All in all, we had a blast!  Lorinda wanted to do this too, but I guess she’ll have to do so on a vacation in the future.

So, with several people moving close and others visiting, here is the easy ways to get to my house.

1) Cab.
A) Find the cab stop. Most are relatively straight forward locations.
From the airport (Zaventem or National - The most common and I think the only one for transatlantic). If you need money, as you walk out of baggage claim, down the hall on the right are some ATMs.

When you walk out of the baggage claim, the first door (near the Relay newsstand) leads to a line for Taxis. Normally, this is pretty fast. Depending on the season, it costs around 35 Euro from the Airport (that’s the high price).

From other places, you’ll have to find a cab or taxi stand. The cost is probably about 40 from Gare du Midi (South Train Station) but I am not sure. It is under 20 from Gare du Nord.

B) Tell the driver to go to:
Avenue des Croix du Feu 289B in Laeken
This is near the Chinese Pavilion and the Japanese Tower and also near to De Wand (see below). The building is Blue and White.
C) When you walk to the door (on the left of the building near 3 garages) you will see call buttons. Mine is the top left. If my nameplate has fallen off, then mine is 99% likely the only one without a label.

2) Take public transit (1.10 Euro if pre-paid or up to around 4 Euro from the Airport or 2 Euro from other places).

From the airport (Zaventem).
If you need money, as you walk out of baggage claim, down the hall on the right are some ATMs.

To do this, when you walk out of baggage claim, turn right (but not sharply) and head to the elevators and stairs.
A) Go down to level 0 (I think, check the signs and look for a bus).
B) Take the #12 (or, if it is not running, the #11 is the non-express line to the same places).
C) Get off at Diamant and go down the escalator/stairs to the Tram line.
D) Take the #23 Tram north towards Heysel / Heizel.
E) Get off at De Wand (near the end of the line - 4th stop from the end).

NOTE!! This is the stop after Pavillon Chinois. There are two stops VERY close to each other and you want the first. This stop is the first where you go under a tunnel (under a road) and then the station has mural paintings! If you miss it, you can get off about 100 yards away at the next stop, but it is irritating to carry the luggage the extra distance.

F) Walk up the stairwell (not the pathed stairs) to the corner of the road. There should be buildings in the front on the left, but not on the right (that is a one-way road which just exited from a limited access road).
G) Cross the street and proceed one block (but do not cross the street again). The blue and white building on the end is mine.
H) When you walk to the door (on the left of the building near 3 garages) you will see call buttons. Mine is the top left. If my nameplate has fallen off, then mine is 99% likely the only one without a label.

Here are some helpful links about the Bus/Tram/Metro system:

Airport bus route is here.
Complete system map is here. Warning, this is a large file and only accurate at end of June (30th).
Generic site for STIB/MIVB in English is here.

From Train Station:

First, there are two main train stations. Thankfully, the north station (Noordstation or Gare du Nord) and the South Station (Gare du Midi or ZuidStation) are both on the same Tram line. NOTE, the South station is also on the #23 Tram (as for airport) which will work but is slower. So, follow the signs to the Tram lines from the train station.
A) Find the #4 North towards Esplanade.
B) Get off at De Wand (near the end of the line - 4th stop from the end).

NOTE!! This is the stop after Pavillon Chinois. There are two stops VERY close to each other and you want the first. This stop is the first where you go under a tunnel (under a road) and then the station has mural paintings! If you miss it, you can get off about 100 yards away at the next stop, but it is irritating to carry the luggage the extra distance.

C) Walk up the stairwell (not the pathed stairs) to the corner of the road. There should be buildings in the front on the left, but not on the right (that is a one-way road which just exited from a limited access road).
D) Cross the street and proceed one block (but do not cross the street again). The blue and white building on the end is mine.
E) When you walk to the door (on the left of the building near 3 garages) you will see call buttons. Mine is the top left. If my nameplate has fallen off, then mine is 99% likely the only one without a label.

If you are coming from the other Airport (Charleroi) then take the bus (22 Euro round trip I think) to Gare du Midi (South train station) and follow directions above (either cab or tram).