Welcome to Round three of the Parenting Roundabout podcast for the week of May twenty
second. I'm Nicol Artics. I'm here with Katherine A. Lecco Hello,
and Terry Morrow. Hello. We're moms of teens and young adults, and
when it comes to parenting, we've been there, done that, bought the
T shirt. Who are still waiting for that day when we'll reach the finish
line and have no further need to lay down in a dark room with a
wet rag over our eyes wearing about something or other. Wednesday is complaint Day
here on Parenting round About, and today we are complaining about getting passports,
and not just not we so much as Nicole, and not so much as
passports in general, but like emergency passports, and I think I think it's
just more of a commentary on just how inefficient some systems are, oh gosh.
And the other part of that, too is how thankful I am that
my kids are older and I don't need to drag them around to stuff like
this anymore. They can go do it on their own, So they are
taking care business on their own. I'm taking care of my business. So
yes, when I became an American citizen. It suddenly dawned on me that
I need to travel out of the country in you know, within two and
a half weeks to my daughter's graduation, and so I needed an American passport
to get back into the country, and I didn't have one. So I
gosh, I like, I honestly don't understand how people who are multilingual,
you know, whose English isn't their first language, how they are able to
decipher all the steps that you need to follow to do things like this,
Like these are really important things, and it is just so consuming and like
there's so many different pieces to remember. But the crux of the whole thing
was is that there's only a handful of passport emergency passport offices in the US,
So the one closest to me is LA. But if there hadn't been
an available appointment, I could have been asked to go to Denver or Virginia,
Virginia, Mexico. Yes, yes, it was so stressful. So
I had to get up at like four am and call this live phone number.
But I went on to read it folks, and I got like a
few little hacks on how to hack the phone system and get to an age
in past. Nice of that. Smart. But yeah, so I ended
up driving into La yesterday three hours to get there because of traffic. It's
seventy five miles. Took me three hours. Yeah, And just like I
understand the whole security piece of it, but it was like a two hour
lineup to get into the building, into the building, into the building,
folks, And then from there there was a hour lineup to get to the
check in window. Jeez. And then once you get to the check in
window, you go sit in the seat like you do at the DMV,
and you wait for your number to be called. So that was another hour
and you didn't have an appointment. I did, and you still had to
do all this. Everybody has to do that regardless. Gosh, you have
to have an appointment to be there. My appointment was for eleven thirty,
and I finally saw my lady at like two thirty or three or something like
that, and I was there like an hour beforehand, right, And then
she says, well, you're not going to be flying for a couple of
days, so you can come back on Monday and pick it up. What
because I was hoping to get the same day, right, Yeah, And
I'm like oh my gods now, and then it took me three and a
half hours to get home because of traffic. So I've got to do this
all over again on Monday. And so let me tell you. Like,
so the other part of that was like watching the kids in there. Oh
my word, I was just like part of me felt so empathetic, and
then part of me was like, I'm just going to tune out and not
watch. I can't. Not my problem, not my circus, not my
money, is not my problem, like I just But then there was one
dad in there who was probably well, he looked pretty probably in his thirties,
with his kid and his nanny who was looking after the kid. Maybe
he was getting a passport for the nanny. No she because she was off
entertaining the kids. Mhm, why didn't they stay home? He must have
been getting a passport for the kids because the kids. Yeah, because you
have to get out, you got to go on for your kids, and
they have to be there right right. There was a lot of kids there.
Oh my word. It was madness in there. So yeah, do
you remember the days when you had to drag your kids around all kinds of
things and wait, like doctor's offices, and yes, all kinds of painful,
yes, events like that. I'm just thinking about when we were in
Russia. We had to get us passports for the kids before they could so
you could take them home with us. Yeah, they had Russian passports,
but we had to go to the US embassy in Moscow and go through all.
It wasn't quite that excruciating, but it was a lot of waiting with
kids who had, you know, been out of an orphanage for like three
days and everything was new to them. And my son had zero interest in
sitting still on a bench, so at one point he pulled away from us
and hit his head on the wall. So I think his passport picture has
like a big lumpet like, yeah, we're really good parents here. He's
only got one bus, that's fine. So yeah, I remember that being
just sort of like a you know, it would be hard enough if we'd
had them for years and we had lots of toys and stuff for them to
do, but as it was, it was just like, you know,
bitch, you're glad to be out of that playpen boy, please do not
leave my lap for the next three hours. Why that was but the best
passport passport. Thing I ever had was my daughter's marching band went to Quebec.
There was like a lot of the kids didn't have passports, a lot
of the chaperones didn't have passports. So they had like a passport event at
the high school and all every bunny who was going to go on this trip
could come, and you could bring your family members as well, even if
they weren't going, just because and they had somebody from the passport office there
and just did everybody at once. Wow, that's services super good. Keep
your ears open if there's some some organization in your town it's going going out
of the country, Say did I just pop by? Are you having a
passport at that there in the cafeteria? I just wander by, wouldn't hurt.
I'll wait till last. Yeah, that was awesome. I had to
get my son's passport renewed and when he was over sixteen but under eighteen but
did not have a driver's license, And it was like the person at the
post office who was handling it just had to spend like half an hour consulting
all of her references and resources trying to figure out like what types of ID
were permissible in this highly irregular situation to them like, surely he's not the
only one. So it eventually was was done, but boy, it wasn't.
She also rejected the passport pictures that we took at Walgreens. She was
like, no, these aren't. But then she took her own, so
she said, you can get your money back from Walgreens, but I will
now charge you, you know whatever, ten more dollars to do it here.
So wow, because they were turning people away, like they had to
leave to go get their photos done elsewhere. They weren't doing them there because
there were people who were turned away because their photos. Yeah, this was
at the post office, not like a passport agency. But if I guess,
if I had known that they would just do it themselves, I wanted
to be even bothered going to Waller Brains, Like why wouldn't I just have
you take it? I you know, I thought it would speed up the
process obviously if we brought our own, but no, not if they're you're
not adequate. Wow, but we did get it, get it done,
good, good, good, good glad you get another one for like ten
years? Ten years, Yeah, awesome, as as bad as it gets.
Just remember you don't have kids with you exactly. A long boring thing
by yourself is stressful enough, but man, getting through a long boring wait
with kids. I used to used to have a pediatrician who there was always
at least an hour wait, even if we had an appointment, And I
just finally left and found a different pediatrician because it's like, I really like
you, I like your office, I like your nurses. Everything's great,
except I cannot ask this boy to wait for an hour. By the time
he gets in there, he is so hyped up that everybody's like, why
won't you just sit still? It's like he's been setting still right, so
yeah, and picking up who knows what in the waiting room. Yeah,
you know, that was awful. I felt so bad. I wrote them
a letter after we left, saying, right, this is why I wish
you continued success, but maybe not quite so much so that. Yeah.
So it's nice when the kids can stay home when you go out and do
Oh, it's the best deal with it. Even better when they get old
enough to do it on their own right, or at least have a phone
that they can sit and look out for two hours while we're waiting for things.
Well it was the other thing too, right, Like, well,
my kids are young, we didn't have them. Yeah, looking at cell
phones. Yeah. I used to have a purse full of minor amusements.
They could be broken out at any time. At Decca cards, some dice,
let's see, oh flash cards for your test tomorrow. Just be able
to pull them out one after the other untill the way was over. If
I ran out, that was I would take coins out of my purse and
my son could line the coins up like there were cars. Many times,
the credit cards we would line up the credit cards on it would be right,
what else do I have? Look, the purse can be a hat
after I jump out all of this, all of the stuff that times,
after I juggled the cart wheels and sing for you, right man, If
we had had iPads, then my life would have been so much easier.
All you people who sneer at screens, have mercy. We were walking,
walk a mile in your shoes. We would do the ice spy game,
and the you know how many colors can you name in this room? And
oh my gosh, there was endless thing list of things I would come up
with. They all lasted such a short time work with me here. But
yeah, it's nice now that they can stay home and amuse themselves if they
and if they have to go out and do things, they're just bored on
their own without me having or deal with it or entertainment danum, Oh,
you have to wait for your appointment, so sorry, well you never have
to wait to hear what we have to say because we're here every dar and
day, right on time. But that is it for today's Round three.
Tune in tomorrow when we'll obsess about superhero skills, and then on Friday to
see what we've come up with for our Roundabout Round up picks this week.
Find all our episodes at Parenting roundabout dot com and talk back in the comments
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