Whale Watching

Mom will have everyone know that this blog entry title was a suggestion from Dad, and is related to Dad's new nickname for Mom: Beachy. Guess that speaks volumes about Mom's general physical existence these days. Sigh.

Yesterday we braved a solicitation event. Yes, we took a break from work to voluntarily attend a "Baby Show" in town. i.e., pimping out your home address in exchange for some free stuff and chances at door prizes. The Show actually wasn't all that big, maybe 15 vendors total, lending further support to the small-town we-don't-have-any-maternity-clothes nature of Nanaimo. But it was nice to see other big bellies, beyond the 6 we've been seeing regularly in prenatal class. And there were a couple interesting booths.

• One was a professor from UBC Nursing who was recruiting pregnant women for a study on sleep patterns in their final month - she didn't need to work very hard to recruit academic Mom.
• The other was a Federal Government booth, which was good for figuring out all the RESP, CESP, Universal Child Care Benefit stuff - also had forms for child passports. One of the things at the top of Mom's postpartum-to-do list is to introduce baby to Great-Grandma Maga in Pennsylvannia (photo of her in Sept 3rd blog entry). Unfortunately, baby now needs a passport to travel to the States (can you say "rediculous?"), which first requires a SIN#, which in turn requires a birth certificate. Given that time is of the essence, we were relieved to find out that turn around time for the latter is 1 week. SIN#s can be processed immediately. It's the passport that takes a while, though a trip to the nearest passport office (Victoria) will speed up the process and they *can* issue emergency passports....for an extra fee, of course.