Baby shower and filling out forms

My mother, sister, and two nephews are here to help throw the baby shower tomorrow. I got my appetite back just in time! I had that stomach bug all week and could hardly eat a thing.

(It's a sad commentary on society that "I could hardly eat a thing" is followed closely by "I wonder if I lost weight." I should not be having that train of thought! Bad, overly easily influenced me! Illness is not a viable weight loss technique!)

There will be a lot of good food, much of it Italian, none of it Chinese, and I can't bear to miss any of it. (Don't worry, lots of future family events will be Chinese/Italian instead of Chinese OR Italian.) My mother is very concerned about fitting everyone into our small house. It's an unfortunate fact that although there are many large houses on the Cape, we bought a small house. It's a great-sized house for a new family of three, and in fact we chose it over several larger houses. However, my mother is right - it's just a bit too small for hosting parties of 15 people or more.

We will do it anyway! Nothing will stop us. Not even rain.

Our LOSC forms arrived a bit late, but they did arrive. I was staring at the LOSC while my mother was asking me shower-related questions earlier. It's fascinating to look at. It's an approval letter that has two boxes at the bottom: one for "I accept this child" and one for "I do not accept this child (give reasons below)."

It's kind of weird to think that one of the steps to take on the long journey to my Noble Cloud is a checkbox.

It's really tiny - barely big enough for a flick of the pen.

It amazes me that something so important can be so tiny.

And under that letter of acceptance is a stack of government forms with many more fields to fill out - big, ponderous forms that feel more properly official in the manner to which we've become accustomed - inquiring after our dates of birth and other personal identifying information.
If you'll excuse me, I think I'll stop typing blog entries on the internet and start filling out those forms.