Becoming British

The week before Christmas, we dropped Emmett off at Matt's mum's and drove to

a nice little town - the name of which completely escapes me - where I took my Life in UK test.

I'd been cramming for a week or two - taking test quizzes and going over my flash cards whenever I had a moment. I felt fairly confident but had to stop in Boots for something to cure my nervous heartburn.

The test questions are a mixed bag of difficult things like how the government is structured to ridiculous questions like what holiday is on February 14th. Seriously. I can only remember one of my questions and it asked what time pubs without special licenses were supposed to close. You know, because knowing they close at eleven pm is incredibly important and proves that you're British. Ridiculous.

Anyhow, I passed, thankfully, and spent all day on December 23rd gathering the dozens of things the settlement application requires, including filling out my debit card information so that they could charge me an outrageous fee of £972. Ouch. Strangely, there's nothing on the application about any children you and your partner might have. They want mail addressed to you over the two years you've resided together to prove you live under the same roof but nothing about the flesh and blood that proves you're not a green card couple. So I included some family photos, Emmett's birth certificate and a letter.

I packaged it all up along with our passports (yikes), mailed it off, came home and opened a bottle of Buck's Fizz (like a mimosa). Now we have to wait for up to six months for the verdict. I'm not too worried but it is quite scary....