FRANKLIN!

Finally, the much overdue post, announcing the arrival of one chunky monkey: Franklin! 

Scroll down for the text of the email describing his entrance. 

Dear all,

We are very excited to announce the birth of Franklin Chen Ehrenkranz at 9:52pm (South Africa time) Tuesday, May 14, 2013.  He is 50cm (19.7 in) long and 3.54 kgs (7.8 lbs).  

His first name honors Peter's grandmother Frances, with whom Peter traveled all over the world (and is also a shout out to Philadelphia native Ben Franklin).  His Hebrew name is Matan Shmuel, honoring Peter's other grandmother Miriam and grandfather Samuel.  A Chinese name is yet to be determined, but we will keep you posted.  Since it is the Year of the Snake, one suggestion was that his name should be inspired by Harry Potter's nemeses in the House of Slytherin, but then again that may not be the most positive connotation for a newborn. 

We had long predicted that Franklin would appear 3 days before his actual due date (on the fairly weak evidence that Aviva also chose to arrive 3 days before hers), and that is exactly what happened.  He also shared Aviva's initial reluctance to join us in the big wide world, but, on the bright side, appears to be slightly less stubborn than his big sister.  With Aviva, Callista labored for 18 hours only to be taken to C-section.  With Franklin, we waited almost 10 hours after Callista's water broke for contractions to begin.  Then (at least until the very last minute when he appeared to be having second thoughts), his path – exit via the traditional route – was set.  Having now delivered babies via two methods, Callista can now confidently affirm that both are flawed.

Here is Aviva is practicing a big sister hug with her baby doll (from inside Franklin's bassineta.)

My (Callista's) parents had arrived a week earlier to greet their first grandson (!) and to help take care of Aviva.

Our first non-family visitor, Carrie, showed up with lots of presents and smiles for Franklin (and Aviva!)

Aviva helps to feed Franklin.

We have been back in Swaziland for a bit more than a week, where the internet is faster and more consistent (a really sad statement about the quality of our connection in Pretoria), and I hope to get lots more pictures up in the coming days.