Today I decided that, since I had a bit of unallocated time, I should start the passport application process for Japan in 2018.
First step: Identify if anyone still has a valid passport. All the passports are in the Legal Documents file, yay! Looks like my husband's is valid til 2020, so no passport application needed for him. One down, four to go.
Second step: Find birth certificates for those needing passports.
You'd THINK that would be easy, right, given that I HAVE A FILE LABELLED LEGAL DOCUMENTS? That file contained a photocopy (not acceptable for this purpose) of my eldest's certificate, plus a very battered certificate for my secondborn. Bupkiss for the youngest and I.
Then commenced Project Tear the House Apart Because I Know I Goddamn Had These!!! I pulled open my huge storage cupboard that is filled with literally mountains of paper. I ripped through my junk piles near the door, in my room, in my desk.
I chucked out a mahoosive heap of junk so there's that, and for my efforts, I found:
- School photo sets I thought were lost years ago
- The missing year's Santa photo
- Everyone's school reports
- My pregnancy diary from my pregnancy with my secondborn and...
- Three birth certificates!
Yay, you might think - but actually not really. The three I found were mine (so that's one tick) and ... two MORE clean versions of secondborn's. So we can verify the shit out of HER birth, but not the eldest's or the youngest's.
I know perfectly well what happened to them - I had to present them as proof of birth when each started at school (youngest in 2014, eldest for starting high school last year) and I took them out of their safe place in the file and then ... did not return them. I thought this would mean they were skulking about somewhere in school paperwork - that's where the second copy of middle kid's was - but alas, no.
I am now sitting in a veritable sea of paper, scowling at the screen on Births, Deaths & Marriages' online page trying to figure out if there is any way I can get certificates for eldest and youngest without a shit-boring trek into the city and sitting around waiting. As I need to verify my ID to them, I don't think there is. What a nuisance :-( :-(
And to think this could all have been avoided if I wasn't such a slob.
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You can have them verified and drop them off at Sunshine, may be quicker than going in to the city. I did mine that way and it turned up just a few days later.
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, I have sorted and organised all the school reports into labelled folders (for each child) - after that wholesale pulling apart of the cupboards, I find I do actually have a full set for each, despite being sure I had lost some over the years! So it was not a completely pointless exercise I guess.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, I can relate. I've just done Project Tear The House Apart for the past 3 days straight because yunno what I lost? Nothing too important...just my wedding and engagement rings, and the spare keycard thingy for my car. Clearly, I too put them in the Really Important Place when we moved in January. For the love of all things I cannot find that important damn place :(
ReplyDeleteSo, so can relate! I have 2 more unopened boxes from our move so will see what Thursday brings...
I hope you got your new certifs without too much drama/waiting/bureaucracy...
Oh no, lost wedding rings is terrible!! I hope very much that you find them. Thankfully getting the new certificates was not very painful and I am now proceeding with the passport apps.
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