Sunday, January 13, 2008

the one in which Selma gets her passport and I get scolded by an Italian stewardess

we learned our lesson with Malachai - - when you go all the way to the US embassy in Madrid to get a passport for your newborn, don't wait till you get there to try and get passport pictures in the photo booth - - your baby ends up with permanently screaming legal identity.

So this time around, with Selma, we did it right - - we actually went to a photo studio and got her passport picture taken by a pro-fesh-o-nal. yep. it was perfect. she was facing the camera straight on, here eyes were open, there were no parent hands or shoulders sticking in the picture, all six already pre-cut to passport size . it was perfect.

well, we showed up to the US embassy with the perfect picture, and apparently, standard Spanish passport photos are smaller than US standard size passport photos. so off we trudged to the infamous photo booth. here's what we got:
we actually used that passport as we traveled last week, and had no problems making it through passport controls (probably because she was crying as we went through most of them, and she looked just like her photo).

Selma's socks came off as we made a plane change in the toasty warm Milan Airport , and before we reboarded I searched my pockets for her socks. (five years in Europe has taught me enough to know that I shouldn't be too long in public with a sockless baby) I checked all my pockets; no socks. They ushered us down the walkway into the airplane (Joshua doesn't have the socks, Rachel doesn't have the socks . . . ) There was the stylish little Italian stewardess welcoming us all onto the airplane - - and I didn't didn't understand a word she said, but I know perfectly well I was chastised for my sweet baby's cold feet.

5 comments:

Jacquelyn said...

I don't know which I like better ... the cute earing on Selma or the look on your face as you are holding her!

Cat said...

i swear, those socks walk off by themselves.
when leaving to go to Australia, I gathered up all the socks I could find everywhere, all the washing, behind dressers, behind drawers, everything. Then my mum and I sat to sort through them. Out of all those socks, I only got 5 pairs between the two girls. How crazy is that?
Did they just up and decide they wanted other feet?

Heather Pelczar said...

It doesn't help at ALL that the manufacturers put those little rubber grippy things on the bottom of baby socks (as if the baby needs better footing on the bottom to walk around. All they do is help the little ones rub them off while rubbing their tiny feet together. sigh...I have lost many a sock in public. only one at a time though...

Megan @ SimplyThrifty said...

I laughed at your rendition of the passport photo saga. Poor Selma...at least you have a good story to go with it. I read Heather's post about the rubber on the bottom of the socks. Perhaps they should put little rubber rings inside the socks to keep them on. :)

Anonymous said...

This picture makes me laugh! I think that socks end up in the same void where all of my missing pens are!