A Two Week Old and a Passport

There are a lot of things that all new parents have to contend with when a new baby is introduced into the picture.  Add a foreign country into the mix, and the list of “new things” grows exponentially.  Take for example, registering the birth of said baby.  We started on that for Shiloh last week Monday, five days after she was born.  We happened to be downtown on a few other errands, and Dave suggested we pop into City Hall to see what we would need to bring back to register her birth.  Apparently, all we needed was Shiloh, a working pen to fill out some forms, £16 (about $25) and we received two copies of the “long” birth certificate and one copy of the “short” birth certificate.  Our next step involved getting Shiloh a passport.  We made an appointment for this past Wednesday at the U.S. Consulate General to obtain a copy of her social security card, register her birth overseas, and apply for her passport.  Before we could go to the consulate, though, we needed two passport pictures of her.  Off to the chemist’s (aka pharmacy) we went where they take the picture and were impressed to see that the person behind the counter knew enough about taking infant passport photos to lay Shiloh down on her back and put the camera right above her face so we didn’t have to try and hold her up.  With Dave holding down Shiloh’s hands and me holding a finger in her mouth to try and sooth her until the camera went *click*, we managed to get two good-enough passport photos to take with us to the consulate.  The next day was our consulate appointment.  It was my first time visiting a consulate, and the security was the first thing that made an impression on me.  In addition to the 13 foot iron gates surrounding the compound were also reinforced barricades in the motor vehicle entry way, reminding anyone who thought of trying to storm the gates that great harm would be incurred to their car.  We got buzzed into the guard’s box to declare any and all electronics (which meant I had to surrender the camera I was going to use to document Shiloh’s first passport experience), go through a metal detector and have ID badges hung around our necks.  As we exited the guard’s box and made our way up the pedestrian path to the Big Consulate Building, Dave told Shiloh “Inhale deeply, Shiloh.  This here’s ‘Merican air.”  We made sure to put our “business” faces on as we walked into the Big Consulate Building so as not to arise any suspicion that we were actually having a little fun with the fact that our two week old daughter was already applying for her first passport.  We were pleasantly surprised when we entered the Big Consulate Building that there was no line and they started to process our paperwork immediately.  About a half hour later, with fees paid and signatures signed and paper work secured to renew Dave’s passport, we went back down to the guard’s box to reclaim our electronics and turn in our ID badges and wait for our ride home.  In two to three weeks, we should have Shiloh’s passport in our possession and our little pixie girl will be well on her way to following in her parent’s world traveling footsteps.