In 4-6 weeks, we will be able to go visit Canada or Mexico.. or anywhere else, really. We applied for Tristan’s passport today. That meant dragging our asses out of bed far earlier than we wanted to (read: 9am for James and Tristan and 10am for me, since it was my “night” off from overnight baby care).
We found the post office without any problem, thankfully, since hours are quite limited on Saturdays. If both parents aren’t present, there needs to be some sort of notarized affidavit from the other parent, so we figured it would be best to just both go – and that meant that Saturday would be the best day. This is about the second rainy day since the weather summerized this year, and we played “rush the baby out of the rain” while transfering from the car to the building. Upon getting inside, we saw signs that proclaimed a change in passport acceptance hours as of the middle of October sometime – and Saturdays were not on that sign. We almost turned around, cursing, and left, but then we decided to go into the main post office and ask what the hell was up with that. A gentleman and a kid were in line in front of us with passport forms, and the lady behind the counter did not tell them to go fuck off, so we knew we were in luck!
The guy in front of us had apparently not properly filled out his forms, so we were scooted to the front of the line. We had to get Tristan’s picture taken, so we were ushered off to a room on the side where they have the camera. In order to take an infant’s passport picture, a white towel is put down in the carrier as a backdrop. Tristan performed well for the camera, managed to focus on it and get a nice eye-contacty picture. I think we take cuter pictures of him at home but the picture wasn’t bad at all – he is more photogenic than his parents, for sure. Anyway, once the photo was taken and we got the towel out from underneath him, we put him back and he spit up all over the place. Thankfully, we know better and we carry burp cloths with us!
After the photo process was done, we went back into the post office main area, presented the forms and our passports to prove who we all were, and paid too much money. It’ll be worth it if we ever need them, though. I am really glad this got done – I tend to like having identification and paperwork all in order. And Tristan doesn’t have a FOID to whip out at the Canadian border, so his passport will have to do.