New Passport

Today's thrills and spills include going to the post office to apply for a new US passport for PuffyFingers. Officially, I'm sat here printing the passport forms. Unofficially, I'm typing up this entry (telling the OH the blog address could have been a mistake). The old passport runs out in December and we hope to make it over the border into Canada for Christmas. PuffyFingers could leave the US and get into Canada on her British passport, but trying to get her back into the US might be somewhat problematic.

The first step was to get an accurate height to fill in on the form. I was totally prepared to add a bit on to the height from the last hospital trip, but OH took great delight in producing a tape measure and marshalling* the troops to stand at attention against a wall. 47 inches was the result.

The passport application process is amazing, as she's under 16 we have to produce all the same documentation you do for applying for a first time passport. Obviously, US officialdom believes that at some point in the last 5 years my own birth certificate or the OH's or, indeed, our marriage certificate could have changed. Plus, we all have to appear in person; PuffyFingers, me and the OH.

I realise all that all of the red tape is probably a very sensible precaution to make sure children aren't being smuggled out of the country when families break up. But, right now in the Fingers household, the trauma of trying to find various bits of paper, that prove we are who we say we are, is a tad too much. And I'm blaming George Bush (why not? I haven't blamed him for anything else since I woke up).

We haven't even got to the photo stage yet. It's going to be a long morning...

The Naproxen is going down well. It's obviously heavily laced with something attractive to children (apart from being virulent orange). Puffy consumes it with delight. LMI is rather jealous that she's not getting any medicine.

* Spell check doesn't like "marshalling", am I wrong? Or am I being strangely British again?