Extreme Parenting Part One of many

The baby (Lisanne) awakes with a coo and a smile, ready to greet the day. Isn't that sweet? Yes, unless it is 3:00 a.m.

The alarm goes off at 6:15 a.m. too soon after she finally goes back to sleep. I force myself out of bed and start to gather paper work, birth certificates, photos, applications and the trip manifest. We have to drive all five of us to Norwalk CT by 9:30 a.m. to go to the office where you can get passports in a day.

Why? What would motivate two fairly sane, well educated adults to rush VERY young children through this experience? Not much should ... except a free trip on a private jet to the Bahamas.

My sister has a friend who is more than generous... he is taking all five of us, my sister and her two kids and another friend and kid on his private jet to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas. Rumor has it the "VIP services and Butler team" are awaiting our arrival to a collection of suites, including the penthouse suite (which is twice the size of my HOUSE). Yes, a once in a life time opportunity, how can I say no? I still don't quite believe it is real, I'll believe it when I see it.

So, to get quick passports you need to make an appointment at one of these special offices and prove you need the passport in less than 14 days. A plane ticket would suffice. But we don't have tickets, we are flying on a private jet...so I get a pdf itinerary which at 6:30 a.m. won't print.

Scott works to get the girls up and dressed. I reboot computers and printers for 40 minutes. By the time I get the paper we are now 20 minutes late.

Into the car we rush, no breakfast for any of us except milk for the older girls. Within two minutes, Margaux spits up half of hers...car sick?

30 minutes into the 2+ hour drive Lisanne is now ready for her milk...but she doesn't take a bottle, so we agree to stop some place and Scott will get breakfast for the rest of us while I feed Lisanne. Should take 10 minutes tops, and I'm cruising so we are making up some lost time. We should be OK.

Except after her first bite of breakfast, Margaux again spits up... ok that is really too light a term. She pukes everywhere.

Now 35 minutes later we finally get her and the car cleaned to the point where we can get back on the road, promising her (and ourselves) that we will change her gross clothes when we get to the passport agency. Yuck... and now VERY late.

It becomes apparent we are NOT going to make our 9:30 appointment. Scott calls and gets a 10:30...YEAH! So our journey continues.

We arrive at the passport agency and we are in federal government hell. First airport like security to even get in the door. Then long lines and a security guard who likes to yell at everyone in there "Parents mind your children." "Keep you voices down." "If you miss your turn you have to go back to the end of the line again." I have three kids, four and under. This was crazy talk. Nearly two hours later we left with a promise of passports to our house in two days. Amazingly, my kids did OK.

By the time we were riding home, Josephine was screaming "I WANT OUT OF HERE"...Scott and I were nodding in agreement.

We made it.