So I am trying to get Topher a passport. I think it would be easier for me to get my Ph.D...
My sister and Sungu are in Toronto right now. Jeehon got a cheap ticket from a friend of her's that still works at US Airways (Jeehon used to work there.) The friend thought Jeehon needed two tickets, and so that's what she got her, though Jeehon only needed one (cause even though Sungu may look like a two year old, he is still considered a lap-child). All of a sudden the possibility of me and a child going to Toronto came up.
My dad still has not seen Topher yet, so he was my number one choice (plus he is lighter, still breast-feeding, and less fussy than Lily... but that's besides the point). But he doesn't have a passport yet. So I started looking into getting him one...
Last year we got a passport quite easily for Lily. Her birth certificate was mailed to us, so that was easy. The only sucky thing was that both Chris and I had to be at the passport-getting appointment together, but that wasn't too bad. It was kinda the same scenario where I was going to go to Toronto kinda soon, but it all depended on the availability of a cheap ticket from a friend of Jeehon's, and of course when the passport for Lily would arrive. The passport is already kinda expensive- over $80. But there are a extra fees you can pay if you want the service expedited. They told me that if I did it at a 'normal speed' then it would come out in about three to four MONTHS. But if I paid an arm and a leg and my appendix, I might be so lucky as to get it in two weeks. We decided it wasn't worth amputating most of my extremities for a passport, so we decided to pay the base price and wait it out. The passport came in about two weeks.
And now my little Tophman needs a passport too. We do not have his birth certificate for some reason. I looked in our safe where all our important documents are, and I came up short. In fact I came up super-short because I noticed my passport wasn't in there either. Hysteria ensued. Then I looked all over the place for mine, and it was in the junk drawer in the kitchen. Oh that blasted/blessed junk drawer. But now I have to drive up to Phoenix one day and get this missing birth certificate. (Bless Barb's heart, she is going to watch the baby's one day so I can make the trip solo.) Then I made an appointment for us to go apply for this pain-in-the-butt passport, and the earliest date I got was for Wednesday next week, but of course Chris is working, so I have to get this other document notarized saying that Chris consents to his son getting a passport. And then I have to pay about $100 when everything is said and done. Boo.
A word to the wise who may need to get a passport at some point in the distant future for their baby: do it now while you have no pressure to do it. Get everything ready at a nice and leisurely pace so that you don't give yourself a heart attack. And whatever you do, do NOT pay the extra fees, or give them your kidney, or the right pinky on your left foot (even though you are pretty sure you aren't going to miss it). It's not worth it.
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