Why in the world did I think planning a dream vacation that requires flying across the world would be simple? Oh, that’s because I was so caught up in just being a normal family that I forgot we still aren’t actually a normal Canadian family.
By that, I mean, we forgot that while Baby MPB’s adoption is finalized, his Canadian citizenship is months away from being finalized, especially because we still have not submitted the second set of required paperwork.
So, why does this matter?
First, his USA passport is set to expire. In adoption situations, prior to finalization, USA passports are only granted for a 1 year term. So, now that his adoption is finalized we are off to our local USA Consulate to get a new passport. This weekend we managed to get USA passport photos done, which was surprisingly difficult since they are not the same size as Canadian passport photos. And I have already scheduled an appointment at the Consulate to submit the passport application. So really, this complication is just annoying and easily fixable.
Second, the not so easy complication – his Canadian immigration. Effective November 2016 all Canadian entering Canada by air on a Canadian passport. This is potentially a very big deal for Baby MPB. Essentially, if we put in his immigration paperwork and it is randomly approved while we are out of the country, Baby MPB will not be allowed back in because he will then be a Canadian citizen without a Canadian passport. And, an international Canadian consulate will not be able to issue him a passport without the citizenship paperwork which cannot be sent to a temporary address out of country. Nor, quite frankly do we want to deal with this while on vacation. So, I called Canadian immigration and actually talked a helpful person after only waiting on hold for about 15 minutes to figure out our best course of action – it turns out the standard wait time for adoption citizenship processing could actually line up with while we are away – so we really could end up in that crummy situation I just described. So, our plan now is to NOT submit the Canadian citizenship paperwork until we are back from our vacation (we have 2 years to submit it, so waiting a few more months really isn’t a big deal). And then not fly anywhere international until his citizenship is granted and we can apply for a Canadian passport. Crazy, right?
And slightly annoyingly, this means we will be traveling on different country passports. I’m really not to sure what that will mean for clearing customs, but I suspect it will probably complicate things. I guess it means we are definitely bringing a copy of the adoption finalization paperwork on our trip just in case we run into problems at the airports.
But, I’ll admit, I’m glad we booked the flights in a moment of normal family thinking where we simply forgot that we may have some complicating factors at play. Because now we cannot use the extra paperwork/red tape processing as an excuse to stay home. The flights are now booked so we are going and we will just deal with any potential airport drama.
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So, Mr. MPB and I have a problem. I cannot begin to even figure out how many hours we’ve spent discussing this problem and we have no solution and we need a solution within the next few days.
Before I tell you the problem, let me first state that I realize there are worse problems in the world to have.
The problem is all about sleeping arrangements for guests in our house. Let me explain our house:
- Upstairs – Master Bedroom, Master Bath, Baby MPB’s bedroom, bathroom, future baby #2’s room that is currently a spare bedroom.
- Mainfloor – kitchen, living room, our office (in a typical home this would be an family room).
- Basement – guest room, large living room with big comfortable couches, bathroom.
So, we essentially have 2 guest rooms – one in the quiet and comfortable basement and one directly between Baby MPB’s room and our room that has an old and uncomfortable bed.
And, have to house Mr. MPB’s parents (whom I don’t particularly like after years of being treated poorly by them) and his brother’s family for approximately 5 nights. His brother’s family consists of his brother, his pregnant wife and their 1.5 year old child. Asking anyone to get a hotel room is simply not an option within his family.
Technically we have 2 guests rooms at the moment – upstairs guest room and basement guestroom. But the basic concerns are:
- Mr. MPB’s snoring combined with my newly a quired light sleeling means recently one of us is sleeping in the upstairs guest room at least part of every night. I’m petrified that giving up that room to guests means that I wont sleep. And logic says, me not sleeping while hosting 5 people for 5 nights = disaster.
- Mr. MPB’s parents are known to check on the babies in the middle of the night. If they are sleeping in the room that is between Baby MPB and us, we fully expect that they will “check” on Baby MPB. We’ve spent the last month working unbelievably hard to help Baby MPB learn to sleep through the night, if anyone dares to mess this up, I’ll lose my s!*t on them. Me losing my shit on Mr. MPB’s family = probably not a good idea.
- If we put Mr. MPB’s brother upstairs, the kids may wake each other up during the night if either one of them cries. This could also spell an end to all our sleep training hard work.
The possible solutions that we see right now are:
- Get rid of the bed in the upstairs spare bed so no guest can sleep there. If Mr. MPB is snoring badly, one of us will just sleep on the floor in the spare room. It’s an old bed and it pretty darn uncomfortable, so getting rid of it isn’t the end of the world. But, most nights the uncomfortable bed is better then nothing. This feels slightly ridiculous, but honestly a large part of me thinks it’s the best plan.
- Put them all in the basement. They can figure out who gets the bedroom and who gets the couches. The thought behind this is that it’s our house, we should be comfortable. But, we can guarantee people will fight us on this – we have another guest room why can’t they just use it? We could lie and pretend one of us is sick so we are sleeping in different rooms, but it’s pretty hard to pretend one of us is sick when we are legitimately healthy (at least for the moment).
- We move to the basement and let them sleep in our room, the guest room and their kid can just use Baby MPB’s crib. I’m opposed to this because I think Baby MPB should sleep in his own bed. And, I like my bed, I don’t really want to give it up.
- Put Mr. MPB’s parents in the upstairs room and give the brother and his family the entire basement. The pregnant wife and baby will probably be most comfortable in the basement room. We will have to read his parents the riot act about not opening Baby MPB’s door during the night. Hope for the best and prepared for a massive argument if they choose to wake him up in the middle of the night.
- Put Mr. MPB’s brother’s family in the upstairs guest room and his parents in the basement. It’ll be a tight squeeze for a family to fit in the upstairs room and I suspect it wont be a great bed for a pregnant lady to sleep in. But, at least Mr. MPB’s parents will be in the basement away from us. Of course, this runs the risk of the kids waking each other up throughout the night. and none of the parents will get much sleep.
So, what should we do? Short of getting rid of the upstairs guestroom bed, I’m leaning towards putting Mr. MPB’s parents up there and making it clear they are not to wake up Baby MPB. Mr. MPB on the other hand is leaning towards putting his brother’s family in that room. Needless to say, we cannot seem to agree on a solution.
Help!
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