Yesterday, after only 7 weeks, we were FINALLY able to register Caleb's birth with the London Borough of Croydon. This means that he finally has a record of his existance (aka: a birth certificate). I'm hoping this means that people will now begin referring to him as Caleb instead of "baby." However, though I thought that seven weeks was a ridiculously long period of time, I have recently learned that my dad's birth was not registered for over two years after he was born. Maybe this is a hereditary problem!

In any case, with excitement that I had a birth certificate in hand, I called the American Embassy in London to schedule an appointment to register his birth there. This will provide us with another certificate of his existance, his passport, his visa, and his Social Security number. Wouldn't you know... they don't have any available appointments until DECEMBER! How many Americans are having babies over here?! Had I known that we would have to wait this long I would have booked the appointment a long time ago. Now I'm worried that we won't have his passport back in time to go somewhere with my family at Christmastime! We'll definitely have to see if we can fast-track the process.

And in other ridiculous time frames over here in England, I called yesterday to schedule one of Caleb's shots. Now, I don't know about you, but in my experience it takes maybe a total of a minute to get a shot. All they have to do is suck the immunization up in the needle, let out the air, and then jab you. Pretty simple. Why, then, when I called to schedule an appointment for his immunization did they tell me that they had no available appointments until JANUARY 2007! If you can just walk in to have blood drawn and wait only a few minutes (which takes longer because they have to apply the tourniquet and find a vein), why does it take so long to get a needed vaccine! Seriously, I don't understand all these time frames.