March Tides

Well, a month has passed and Gabe seems to be adjusting to preschool. Or at least that's what they tell me. Yesterday was the only day he didn't cry when I left him, and he's always crying when I pick him up, but they say he is great in the interim.

He talks a ton, I just don't know what he says. I don't know if they are new words in Spanish he is learning at Jardin, or made up words, or English words I'm not disciphering?? I'm sure it will all becoms clear soon enough. My favorite new word is "cac-lat" as in chocolate. He also loves to eat any kind of dough, like the above pictured pizza dough. Mario is totally grossed out by it and attempts to stop him, but I do not. He is so my son.
We've spent a lot of time this month joing to the park playing with the croquet set that Allison and Jimmy sent us for Christmas, however, I managed not to get a single picture of that.

Mario and I at a wedding.

And with the finalization of this document, I am now ready to travel to the US with Gabe next Monday to spend a month with my family. This is a travel authorization granting Mario's permission for me to take Gabe out of the country. This was the process for obtaining it: go to the courthouse and wait in line for a form-filler-outer. I don't know what else to call him. You cannot get this form on your own and bring it already filled out, this person must do it. He neatly writes all the details (Mario, id # xxx gives permission for Adrianne, id # xxx to take Gabe, id # xxx, determined to be their legal child by xx document, testifying that in book x of the city of rosario it is declared...to the United States of North America. I'm not lying, he literally added "north" because people here seriously take issue with the fact that we call ourselves "americans" in general.) Anyway, the form guy fills all this out, making little scribbles and lines through any space he did not write in should I try add information later or something. He then hand writes all of this information in a book, and notes on this form the number of the book and page, and Mario has to sign both the book and the form.

When this is done, Mario can go back to work and I go wait in another line to pay for this service. After I have paid, I wait in another line for the official lawyer of the forms section of the courthouse to sign and stamp the form. All that done, I then go to the bank and pay for a "seal". Once I have that paid for, I go to another place in the courthouse to get an authorization of legality of my document. There's some more stamping going on all the while.

Three hours and 8 stamps later, I am good to go. I am totally annoyed by this process, obviously, and know I could effectively streamline it should they ever put me in charge. But I'm also curious as to why the US doesn't require ANY KIND of permission for one parent to take a child out of the country. Is it just not an issue?? I realize that both parents have to sign the passport application, but after that, open season on abduction??