Passports, children, etc.

I took Thursday off work and went downtown to the Passport Office. It would have been better if I had dressed warmer because I took the bus and the wind chill was -8 degrees. I got to the Passport Office at about 7:45, which is 15 minutes after they opened. There were only 6 people in line ahead of me and all told it took about 20 minutes. Interestingly, the Passport Office is a special operating agency of the Canadian Government. It must fund all of its operations from the fees it collects, and is allowed to run a slight surplus or deficit in each operating year. Sounds good to me, except that it misses the element of competition. They have a product you need and you can't get from anyone else. So they operate a little bit like the government and little bit like a private company. I guess this is all OK.

I also used Thursday to take the children to the eye doctor. Bethany's prescription has changed, and Joel is still 20/20.

Today I took the children to the library. Joel wanted to take out an "A to Z Mystery" entitled "The Vampire's Vacation". At the checkout I saw what he wanted and said no. The librarian started talking about how some children are very sensitive to scary things, but I didn't tell her that some parents are sensitive to what their children see and do!

On a slightly different note, we are closing in on the end of "The Silver Chair" in the Chronicles of Narnia. Joel always says he doesn't want me to do read alouds with him, and then always begs me to read another chapter.