New clothes and passports and lizards and things

My sister Josie sent a Grogu-themed sweatsuit for Phoebe. She was overjoyed when we finally opened the package and wanted to try it on right away. I asked Phoebe to strike a pose for Auntie Josie and this is what she did:

We told her to pose with her hands on her hips and this is what we got:

My kids are notoriously bad at knowing where their hips are at age four, apparently. Whatever the case, Phoebe was excited for her new sweats and Josie was happy that Phoebe was excited.

I don't have a good picture of Phoebe in her old Grogu sweat pants...that Andrew bought for her when she was...ummmm...a year old. They're size "18 months" and still going strong as...capris...for this little lady. 

I can't find a recent picture of her wearing them that truly demonstrates their length on her, but she did recently wear them on an evening stroll when she was very excited about the pink sky:

And here she is wearing them while getting a sad piggyback ride from Miriam:

You can see they're about at her knees now. 

(For the record, she was sad because Alexander and Zoë challenged me to race to the next mailbox so I took off running with them, which is basically the same thing as abandoning Phoebe to the wolves. In fact, I can see no difference. I mean, there were no wolves and Miriam was still walking with Phoebe and the next mailbox was literally one house away...but it's basically the same thing as being abandoned to the wolves, right?).

Anyway, now Phoebe has a summer pair of Grogu pants and a winter pair of Grogu pants. She's very excited about that.

Today I abandoned my children again...in Miriam's care once again (so not much comfort, if you ask Phoebe)...but I abandoned them watching Rick Steve's episode on Hungary, as promised (so it felt a little less like wolves were involved, I suppose). Phoebe was much happier to be abandoned at home, snuggled up on the couch with her siblings watching TV, than she was to be abandoned to literal wolves, as it were.

Anyway, enough about wolves and melodramatic children.

I stuck around long enough to learn that Budapest was once two three cities: Buda and Pest (and Óbuda, according to Wikipedia). That explains why it's hyphenated in Dracula. Who knew? Probably lots of people. I didn't. 

After learning that I headed off to get my picture taken for my passport. Josie and I are planning a trip to visit Patrick next year and when I pulled out my passport to check the dates I found that it was set to expire right in the middle of our planned trip (oops), so clearly I had to renew it quickly! The online process is so easy, but I still needed a picture and although we have all the equipment to take our own pictures we also lack time to, like...breathe...or whatever (we've truly been burning the candle from both ends and are ready for a break)...so Andrew said to just go have it professionally done (you know, at, like, CVS—the pinnacle of photography). 

I was going to do it this morning because he was supposed to be home. But then he ended up needing to be on campus so he wasn't home. But Miriam was, so I left her in charge and ran to CVS.

Aggressive drivers were out in force today! 

There's this one intersection that I truly hate, where in one direction there are two busy lanes that are go-straight-or-turn-left right across from each other, which causes all sorts of confusion, as well as two only-turn-right lanes. And then in the other direction there is a go-straight-to-enter-the-highway-or-turn-right-at-the-intersection lane and a go-straight-to-not-enter-the-highway lane and a go-straight-to-later-turn-left lane and a left-turn-only-lane and all of those are coming off of a one-lane round-about so of course all the cars are wildly switching lanes as they approach the intersection so they can be sure to be where they want to be. That means if you're at the intersection waiting to turn right...there's a lot to keep track of. That's all. 

So I'm approaching the intersection to turn right—and the light is solid red—and I stop.

The car behind me just lays on their horn and starts gesticulating angrily and probably shouting rude things.

Fun fact to anyone prone to doing this: This does not help the person in front of you go faster. They can see more of the traffic coming than you can (which is probably why they're stopped) and you're only making them flustered. 

Ugh. 

I turned when I was good and ready. But how rude. 

And then this car was just going to the CVS anyway. So it's not like it was headed anywhere particularly urgently. But it also meant that I wasn't going to just pop out of my car and walk into the CVS, too. I waited for a good long while and then went into the CVS...only to find out that their passport picture station isn't working today and that I should try back later.

So I went home, pulled out our backdrops and reflectors and lights, steamed the backdrop to get the wrinkles out, showed Miriam how to work the camera and...boom. Passport photo accomplished.

This is not the passport photo I went with; it's just one we took while working out the lighting:

Applying online is so easy! We most recently updated all our little kids' passports and it was a huge hassle involving multiple appointments, having to print off pictures, having to fill out all the forms, etc.

This was a breeze compared to that. 

To be fair, I don't think you can do a 5-year passport or a first-time passport online (it's only for renewing a 10-year passport) but, uh, it's a very streamlined process. I highly recommend.

You don't even have to worry about cropping your picture perfectly. I spent a comparatively ridiculous amount of time in Photoshop making sure my photo was cropped to the correct dimensions with my face where it should be and so forth, but you can simply upload a photo and then they have an online editor where you drag your photo and zoom in to center it within the crop marks and...that would have been way easier. I mean, my way worked, but I could have just uploaded the original photo and cropped it using their tools. 

Anyway, passport has been applied for. 

Tangentially related, we're still waiting to hear back about Rachel's Canadian citizenship certificate status—they are telling me three more months now, which I simply do not understand because I applied for hers at the same time as Benjamin and Miriam, who both heard back with in weeks and it has now been months for Rachel. We even submitted the wrong birth certificate for Miriam and had to submit a different one...and she still was processed sooner (look—she has several birth certificates to choose from...the handwritten one from the hospital, which has an official seal on it and which the mugamma used to type their record up, the typed one from the mugamma, also with an official seal, the English translation, her certificate of birth abroad...I mean...how does one pick? The correct answer was the copy from the mugamma with the English translation attached, by the way, but...you can see how we may have guessed wrong).

I'm sure Rachel's application will be processed eventually.

Once I had successfully applied for my passport, the kids wanted to go for a walk. Our days are starting to get chilly (thus the need for longer Grogu pants), though it's not quite chilly enough for the lizards to all have gone into hiding yet. Instead we're seeing more of them out sunning themselves, trying to soak in the heat of the day. This one was sunning itself on our screen door when we went outside for our walk, which reminds me:

Andrew was viciously attacked by a teensy little lizard (a green anole, like the one above...but smaller and even less harmelss) in his office the other day. By "viciously attacked," of course, I mean...there was a lizard in his office the other day. 

"Benjamin!" he called out in an agonized croak.

"I think there's a critter in Dad's office," I said. 

Andrew has a...tone...that indicates lizards and frogs and other intolerable stuff. 

You'd be surprised (or perhaps...not) about the number of critters that manage to infiltrate our home!

I really don't mind the odd lizard or frog...but Andrew does. 

Benjamin and I tried to catch it, but ultimately failed, which meant that Andrew just had to go about his life knowing there was a teensy little—but dreadful and frightening—lizard lurking about his office.

And about two weeks later we heard Andrew's agonized croaking again: "It's baaaaaack!"

This time Benjamin managed to catch it and took it outside. We haven't seen it since.

The one on the screen door is a different one (much bigger than the teensy little office lizard). 

Soon we won't see any reptiles sunning themselves anywhere—even the snapping turtles will sink deep into the mud to hibernate—and then we'll know that fall has morphed into winter. There might not be any snowfall to mark its arrival, but—by golly!—there will be fewer squished snakes on the road, there will be no more dying over pure desperation for a warm patch of pavement.

Anywho...thanks for the warm pants, Auntie Josie! Phoebe wore her new clothes to bed last night and then wore them all day today (and was a little annoyed about them about halfway through our walk because she was too hot in the sun...but they were just right for playing in the shade).