“Out of my way good sirs, for I have an appointment at the Embassy!”

(Passport photo or tiny mugshot?)

I am of the opinion that a good portion of immigration application and procedure was thought up by two guys working until the wee hours of the morning whilst smoking a joint and high-fiveing each other over some of the ridiculous requirements they thought up, all the while pondering just how many hoops an immigrant will jump through in order to obtain the final goal.

Maybe that’s stretching it.

I was finally able to schedule an appointment for Maddie at the Embassy in London after being told quite rudely by an Embassy phone jockey  that I HAD to use the online booking system and that I HAD to be on at 9am sharp if I wanted a chance in hell at getting one of the appointment slots… already two months out.  It’s harder than trying to snipe the last bid on an ending eBay auction, by the way.

Anyways, the appointment will take care of a number of things:  We need to register her birth as a US citizen, apply for her social security card, and also apply for her first passport.    After slogging through the forms, reading and rereading the document requirements online, and after picking my jaw up off the floor at the realization that yes, they really do plan on charging us $100 to register the birth and a further $105 for the passport application… I made my way to the passport photo requirements.

The passport photo is by far the most ridiculous portion of the whole sodding process.

Among the rules and regulations for how a baby passport photo should look is the baby needs to be facing forward.  If you need to support the head you may do so, providing none of the arm or hand of the supporter is showing. They recommend going to a professional photographer… yeah, on top of paying over 200 bucks for the privilege of making the applications. And the hilarity of it all is child passports are good for five years… so 4 and a half years from now we will be flying somewhere and they will accept her passport as required ID EVEN THOUGH she will be 4 and a half years old and the photo will be of her as an infant.  Secure.

So I took the photo myself.  We bought some white poster board, followed the guidelines on the Embassy website, and took the photo that you see above.  Luckily, I found a site called paspic.com .  You can submit your photo to them, they will review it and make sure it meets all the requirements, and once it’s approved they will print it for you in the correct size and number of copies and mail them to you… all for only 5 pounds.  Score.

Now, at the tender age of 7 weeks, Miss Maddie Moo has an appointment, in her name, with the US Embassy.  Ambassador Maddie Moo, international lady of travel.   Come October she will have a passport of her very own, something 90% of Americans don’t have.  Of course all the trouble is worth it in the end, not only for the obvious reason of having a passport to travel but being a dual citizen will mean the world is, literally, her oyster.  Being a British citizen opens up the UK and all countries in the EU, plus her American citizenship for the US.  Maddie will be able to live, work, or study anywhere she fancies, opening up a world of possibilities for her.

And she can’t even hold her own head up yet.