Here He Comes... Mr. America

It's official, Jack has an eensy weensy passport and record of a birth abroad so he's officially a US citizen. Originally we thought he would have to give up his Canadian citizenship when he reached adulthood but, upon further reading, this isn't the case. Poor guy, I think he's really conflicted about who to cheer for in the Olympics this year. Despite that hardship, the nice thing for us now is that since now Jack is a passport holder, we can fly in and out of the country instead of having to hoof it across the border and fly out of Seattle.

As a side note, if anyone else is thinking of having a baby out of country may I suggest that you start the paperwork for the report of birth abroad now. Surprisingly, it's not particularly long or complex but you must list (and I'm not kidding) the PRECISE dates of your physical presence in the US. Doesn't seem too hard at first glance until you realize that any vacations you have taken, any time studying abroad, any mad dashes to Montreal in college -- you're supposed to have all those times filed away somewhere to the day. We did find out from our friendly consulate worker, however, that the State Department has "ways" of checking on these things (I think this was supposed to make us feel better and he was telling us that as long as we got the bulk of dates in the right ballpark, we were okay. I'm not sure I felt better, though. I'm pretty sure I felt Big Brother staring down at me). In any event, start that list now or save all your old passports.

Here is the shiny new American... smiling the only way he ever does, with his mouth wide open.