I have a passport. It is not expired, I have not changed my name, the picture is current and looks like me. There is no reason that this passport is unusable. Well, there is one reason. It is lost. How does one lose a passport? I don’t carry it around in my purse. I don’t store it on the counter or in the junk drawer. I don’t let it anywhere near the black hole of missing socks. I keep it safely in a box. An important box. On a shelf. A high, important shelf. The don’t-touch-this-don’t-mess-with-this box. The box that I’ve instructed Fr. Pickwick we have to grab if the house catches on fire because it has Everything In It. Nothing else in this box has ever gone missing. Just my passport.

The fact that my passport was missing nagged vaguely at the back of my mind for (ahem) some time. Keeping the Pickwicks fed and clothed is enough front-burner worry for anyone. So I let it ferment in the same cobwebby corners that I leave open for problems too big to tackle- like where all the spoons went and politics. And now, suddenly, four years later, I need it. Because the Pickwicks are going to SERBIA! Or at least, the Pickwicks with current, not expired, not lost Passports. So, just Fr. Pickwick. Now, I know, at the bottom of his wanderlusting heart, what Fr. Pickwick really wants to take to Serbia is not his full and unencumbered wallet, but rather a panic-stricken Mrs. Pickwick, suffering from severe travel anxiety and wielding the budget print-out in one hand, Baby P in the other. Yes, indeed.

Clearly, I needed to join the ranks of passport-bearing Pickwicks ASAP, not to mention apply for one for Baby, too. I did some preliminary Google research and compiled a list of All the Documents I would need. I went to the post office for two stamps and decided to double-check my research and came home with a (slightly different) list of All the Documents on the back of receipt.

The real work then began. We made a full Pickwick pilgrimage to Rite Aid for photos. It would have been easier to leave Fr Pickwick home with the littles (who are Not getting passports and Not going to Serbia with us. That’s right, we have been driven to actually flee the country just to escape the children). However, as an official photo was involved, I knew that I needed moral support. My usual photo procedure (artistically arranging as many adorable little Pickwicks in front of myself as possible) is frowned upon in the passport application process. Alas, they actually want the applicant visible. I was also worried that if I made a “neutral expression,” no one looking for me lost in a foreign country, frantic and weeping, would recognize me from my passport. No worries! It would appear my Posing for Photo Face is very similar to my Extremely Distressed Face. So I’m safe. If I happen to be relaxed or happy at customs they might not recognize me, but I figure the chances of that are rather slim.

Next up, Baby P. It would appear that Baby’s Posing for Photo Face is very similar to Baby P Fast Asleep. Baby P, being only about three months old, also had an objection to appearing alone in a photo. Once we managed to wake her (just short of tossing a cup of water on her face in a kind of bureaucratic second baptism), we took several shots of her falling back asleep while I tried to balance her above my head or off to my side and keep her centered on the white background screen. At this point, alone in my troubles, I probably would have given up and gone home. But the entire car full of Pickwicks had been promised a treat if I came out of that Rite Aid with photos in hand. So rather than face the wrath of the ice cream deprived, I persevered. We swiped some white poster-board from the arts and crafts aisle and tried photographing Baby P from above. The final product, thanks to a strange camera angle and Baby P’s strong opinions about this idea, ranged from screaming Baby to small alien Baby to Baby fast asleep. I made my selection, quietly wished that Rite Aid’s employee orientation involved basic photography classes, and hoped we would not be held at the border for trying to smuggle an extraterrestrial in or out of the country.

I triumphantly returned to the patient Pickwicks, two of whom had escaped through the sunroof by this time, one of whom was making a valiant effort to join them, and one of whom was wearing several sets of earplugs and holding a cup of coffee to his head. Job well done Mrs. P! Had we known then what we know now about what the rest of the application process would demand of us, would we have been so joyful in our celebratory ice cream? Or would we have just quietly ordered a second scoop with extra sprinkles to fortify us for the task to come? Readers are encouraged to wager just how many trips to the post office are required before Mrs. Pickwick gets a passport.

Continued in Mrs. Pickwick Gets a Passport, Part the Second