The Rosas-Standring Family

Today Ruben and I headed off to Playa del Carmen to tend to some important business. We grabbed the babies, our Burger King coupon (a gift with his paycheck from work)- although a little strange because there is no Burger King, or any fast food chain here (except for Subway & 7-11) But that was fine for us. Any excuse to eat at Burger King was good for us. I was really excited about our business today but Ruben seemed to think of it much more casually.

I reminded him that our babies were about to officially become Mexican Citizens. That is a special thing. Ruben is a man with an incredible amount of pride. And pride for being a "son of Mexico" as he has said often, has always been something that has made him so sexy to me. I do not think that he had even thought about it that way. I mean, it is really just a form of paperwork to get the immigration for the kids taken care of but still.

I do not know the specific rules, but from the research that we did and the people we talked to, this is what we had to do for the kids immigration...
1) we had to get long form copies of each birth certificate. (we found it handy to get a couple copies while at the office of records, just in case) We also got my long form birth certificate and marriage license.

2) these docs also need to be Apostilled. This is the part that I think a lot of people do not do because most people here assumed that we had not done that. This can only be done by the United State at the state office where ever the event took place. The Apostle is, in essence, an international notary. It certifies the validity of the signature on the document. This cannot be done by a normal notary in the USA. It was not expensive or difficult to do it, once I knew what it was. In Oregon we simply drove to Salem, into in the office and away the stamp flew.

In the case of the kids- they were born in San Francisco, so I was lucky that there is an office in SF that can do the apostile. I am sure that this is true for major cities. Anyway. When I was in SF the office told me that I needed to go and get a stamp that certified the validity of the Health Inspector on the birth certificate. - It is memories like these that remind me that the USA is just as red taped and tough as Mexico, we just bitch about it here more. This was now a 3 page document to prove that my kids where born in SF, to Ruben and myself.

3) The next thing we did was fly to Mexico, get stamped on our passport, which gave us 180 days to get stuff done.

4) When we got here we were told that we needed to translate the docs to Spanish. That really did not surprise us but I was sort of tired of hoops by this point. And of course, it had to be a certified translator. Again, expected, but still. I asked around some blogging friends of mine and they came through with flying colors. They directed me towards a website (www.cancuncare.com) I have really enjoyed looking around that site. Anyway. We got the numbers for some certified translators and found a good price in Playa. ** we tried to get this done at one point in the USA and could not-- we could find no one. ***

5) Once the docs were done we took them over to the office of Registro Civil. This office was on Benito Juarez and 45th in Playa del Carmen. We paid the fees, around 800 pesos per kid and their birth certificate were created.

Like I said... a bunch of hoops and really just paper work but I think that it is very cool that my kids are now so much more a part of this country and this culture. More and more every day they are falling in love with it here. The language is the next big focus.


After all of this was done and the kids were officially citizens we headed off for a very special treat. One of the things that I love about Tulum is that is so local. Their are no HUGE chains or overly Americanized... well everything. And I love that. But some times you miss the simple things back home. I was never a huge Burger King fan but a) we had a coupon and it was a good one. and b)It has been a long time since we had a good (remind me of home) burger. The kids were very excited as usual.

After lunch we only had about an hour to spend with Ruben on the beach. It was a nice hour, but way too short. We had a nice time playing and collecting sea shells. And Akilean tried to celebrate a little too much. :)


It was a fun day and I am so happy that my kids are now citizens of this amazing country. I cannot wait until my citizenship journey has ended.

We had a pretty good laugh yesterday. I took the kids up to Playa del Carmen for the day to help Barb and Shannon get into their hotel and we hung on the beach. We found a little spot and sat down and sent the kids off to play in the water. About 45 minutes later a much older woman and her 2 friends came and sat in the beach chairs they had rented behind us. After a few minutes of her bitching to her friends, she leans over to us and says "you know you guys, it was very rude of you to sit here right in front of us." Totally shocked that this person felt some entitlement to the whole beach I simply told her "mame, i am sorry you feel that way but you rented your chairs, you have your chairs, and beyond that you really have no say at all in where we sit." Barb and Shannon were pissed. It was funny to us all at the same time. I got up to go with Lena for a few minutes and this woman moves her chair and covers where I was sitting and all of my stuff. Determined to not let it bother me I said "mame, i am very sorry if we bothered you and disturbed your day." this is where I got pissed. Her response was "well, you did, my whole day is ruined." First of all - not accepting someones apology is just plain rude. all I could say to her is how sorry I felt for her as that is a terrible way to live. Then Barb and Shannon and I went on with our conversation. Barb asked me if a lot of people were like that. I said that Ruben and I have had the experience that people who come on vacation have some sense of entitlement to more then what is true and fair. She interjects with .." I live here. and that I should rent a chair." I told her I live here as well and sitting in the sand is no problem for me. She then suggested that I got to the public beach. I politely reminded her that I was a public beach and that there is no where on the beach that I would sit that would not be in front of someone- she said that that would be fine- but not her. So the real issue was she felt entitled and that her comfort or preference was more important the the other people on the beach. She then repeated that she lived here. I then told her that if she was from her she should be smart enough to not come to 10th and 5th on the busiest week of the year if she does not want people around her.

Not wanting to be around the very negative environment that this woman carried around her, we got up to get a bite. Many of the people around us were simply laughing at this woman who was being so rude and high faulting. I had a good talk with a woman near by, some jewelry store owner who splits her time between New York, Playa del Carmen and Mexico City (where her husband is from) After commenting on how beautiful and obviously special my kids were (which just made my day) she said that she wanted to get up and tell the woman to shut up and stop being a bitch but then she said to herself..."no, do not be a New Yorker" we both chuckled and I simply said thank you for the thought but that the difference between that woman and me is that she lives her life that negative and I simply do not have time for it. After we held back Shannon enough to where she was not going to bitch slap this woman... we decided to send the woman a drink. We sent her over a glass of wine, watched her try to see who had sent it and then I walked over and told her that we meant no offence and that we hope she has a better day. What I was really saying was ..."do you have any idea how much easier it would have been for you to simply be nice." She could have simply said to us in the beginning, hey guys, would you mind scooting over a little bit, we would not even have batted an eye lash. We would have happily moved over, but she chose to be a bitch. If there is one thing that I have learned from my behavior in my younger years and watching some of the people in our lives now, it is that these people do not approach things in a positive way. It is undercut, rude, manipulated and many times just plain bitchy. Oh well. Hopefully that glass of wine chilled her heart a little.

Moral: do not be bitch and always accept someones apology.