11 Weeks old- Starting to play and "talk," and working on obtaining citizenship.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010 1 comments
Once again, I have to apologize for not keeping you updated with what is new.
Over the last couple of weeks, Eric had his first visit from his grandfather on my side of the family. So, we have been keeping busy.
My aunts from Spain and Venezuela also came to visit us, and everybody came with gifts.  So Eric has some new clothes and toys to play with, and they have come at just about the right time because Eric is just starting to notice the things around him, and how he can interact with them. For example, he has started to notice and play with the toys that hang down from his bouncer chair. He also has been smiling a lot more than before, and he wakes up smiling and laughing when you talk to him.
In the last couple of days, though, he started something else new...
He now likes to have "conversations" with you. More and more often he makes ooh and aah sounds, and if you answer him, he sometimes answers you back. Other times, he laughs at you.
It's very cute, of course.
During my "free time" lately, I've been working on reporting his birth to the US consulate to obtain US citizenship for him. I need to show that I have been in the US for 5 years, two of which have been since I was 14 years old. Living most of my life in the US, this shouldn't be a problem. Still, they make it much more difficult than I think it should be. The forms, of course, give estimated times of 20 and 30 minutes to fill them out. I, however, have spent hours on them for days at a time, and still haven't finished them. The worst part is the affidavit of physical presence in the US. It asks for precise dates in and out of the country for your entire life. If you have rarely travelled, it might take the short time they estimate to fill it out. If you have constantly travelled during your entire life like me, though, it is pretty much impossible to do as they ask. They expect you to record every single day you have ever been in or outside of the US, even if it's a day trip. Good thing I didn't go to school in Canada daily!!
Anyways, I don't have that information saved anywhere. Without being able to find old passports, which I don't have access to here, I have no other way of being able to find out when I travelled anywhere. After hours of searching the internet, I found that there was a way to obtain entry and exit travel records, but now it looks like it will take a long time. For anyone else trying to find the information, it is here: https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/976/related/1 I have to send a letter to the US and wait for them to get to my request and send me the information, I guess. If they have all of the information, why do they ask me for it anyways?? I have to prove my presence with transcripts and such anyways, so, shouldn't that be enough?? the CBP complains about how time consuming this is for them (It's been much more time consuming for me, I can assure them. And I'm sure they aren't trying to do it all with a newborn at home.) If it bothers them so much, maybe they shouldn't ask for such specific information that is almost impossible to obtain without their help!
OK, I guess I've complained enough about that. At least I have found out that I can do it all in Valencia, and don't need to travel to Madrid as I originally thought. That makes me much happier. Not only did I not look forward to traveling to Madrid with a baby, but I have to admit that I hate going to the US embassy there. The consulate is much less cold and unfriendly.
I've also been attempting to get baby pictures for a baby passport, part of the process of reporting the birth. After looking for information about baby passport pictures online, I found several services that help you do it yourself to save yourself the headache of having someone try to take pictures of your fidgety, fussy baby. Still, it isn't as simple as you might think. The best way is to lay your baby on a white cloth, sheet or blanket because you can't show your hands in the picture, so using your hands to support the baby's head would be too difficult. You're supposed to make sure there are no visible wrinkles, but this is almost impossible, too, with a moving baby, especially if you place that blanket on a cushion to help keep your baby comfortable. You can get rid of the wrinkles, but as soon as your baby moves his or her head again, you get a new wrinkle behind it.
In the end, after deciding that my first day's worth of pictures were worthless (because the best pictures of Eric had background wrinkles), I ended up getting a couple that I think might work.

For free, I can print them out myself, or can download them and have them printed out on 10X15cm pictures to get the right passport picture size. I'm debating, though, possibly uploading them to one of the passport picture websites that will check the pictures, and then print them out and send them to you. We'll see. No matter what, I have to say that baby passport pictures are cute!!
Well, I'd better try to get some sleep for now.
I'll catch up with pictures of the new toys soon, and will also try to get some videos of Eric playing and talking as soon as I get a chance.  Off to bed!!

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