Waiting For My Real Life To Begin

Today (Thursday, September 30) I spent most of my day dealing with the bureaucratic red tape that goes along with having a baby in Japan. Because of this, I left the camera in the hands of the Huggins women for the day. Unfortunately, the ONLY pictures they took were a few shots of Emi sleeping on Siobhan, like the one below.

I guess in retrospect it was quite fortuitous that I forgot to include the videos that I took yesterday in my previous post. Here’s some more eye candy to keep your appetites for Emi-chan sated.

It’s amazing to me how much she is already picking up her head and becoming more mobile. She’s a strong little girl, which is a good sign. Strong babies are healthy babies.

So, as I mentioned previously, I went to Matsuyama City Hall today to get Emiko’s birth registration taken care of. I was under the impression that the form that was required to do all of this was the Certification of Birth that we received from the hospital, and which Yuki helped me complete the day before to ensure everything was in order. I brought the form to the Foreign Affairs desk, and they were very helpful and quite pleased that the form was completed. They then proceeded to give me SIX OTHER FORMS that also needed to be completed for various other things.

The kicker? All of these other forms had the EXACT SAME INFORMATION as was present on the birth certification.

I finally got through all of the paperwork, though because I didn’t have my bank account information with me, I will have to bring that with me when I return tomorrow to pick up the certified copies of the birth certificate that we need in order to acquire a passport for Emiko. Before anyone asks, no, I never have my bank information on me. Sara keeps my ATM card and bank book with her at all times. Secret to a happy marriage, right there.

Anyway, I’ll be back up at City Hall tomorrow for round two of the paperwork game. Wish me luck. Or a swift end. Either works for me.

-Matt