How Hard Can Getting a Child's Passport Be?

The answer? Near impossible apparently! Yesterday I was searching holidays to Spain on a spur of the moment 'I need a summer holiday before I can't fly' moment. I found a great deal and started lusting over the sunny blue skies and perfect pools of the Costa del Sol when I suddenly remembered the forms upstairs in my bedroom drawer that I never filled in.

Cameron has no passport....

So started the epic mission that is getting a child's first passport. First I had to check with his dad that he would let me take him out of the country, then I had to get all of his information and fill in the lengthy and confusing form which for some reason also insists that I provide the information of both sets of grandparents and their marriage dates (what decade are we living in?!) before I could even get to the task of having his photos taken.

This of course was when the real stress began.

Have you ever tried taking a toddlers photo in a photobooth when you are four months pregnant, hot, sweaty and stressed? It is not fun. Even less fun when your son manages to look away from the camera for every shot meaning you spend £10 to get one shot right.... Then after this nightmare you get informed by the snooty cow behind the post offfice screen that the passport will definitely not get accepted with a photo that is 'the wrong size'. How can it be the wrong size? I took it in a passport photobooth for Christ's sake! Apparently children under five should be photographed by a professional photographer....

So off I go to find one of these, by which time I am more than stressed, almost at the point of tears in fact. Cameron then decides to have a huge tantrum and hysterical crying fit when placed in front of the camera. With time running out and even the bribe of chocolate buttons not having the desired effect, I thought all hope was gone but somehow he managed to stand on his own for just long enough to produce a suitable photo, albeit of a snotty, red faced child who barely resembles my usually cheerful son...

I went to collect the photos this morning and am crossing my fingers and toes that they will accept this photo. I cannot face going through this impossible mission again.... It's times like these I wish I wasn't on a wine ban!