Two Whammies

Nothing particularly exciting to write about. We did get the boys' Social Security numbers (finally), no thanks to the Social Security Administration, who failed to recognize the initial application submitted when the boys were naturalized last June. For the second attempt to apply in December (to an SSA office in Manila), we were told to include the adoption certificates which were in Chinese but were accompanied by official translations. We learned in January that the Manila office sent the papers to Baltimore for translation, and we were told it would take around 3 months -- jeopardizing our ability to file our tax return to get the desperately-needed adoption and child care credits.

We informed them that this timeline was not acceptable, considering they had already dropped the ball before. So then they told us that if we had the boys' naturalization certificates (therefore submitting only English-language documents) we could re-re-apply and it should reduce the time required. Why they didn't tell us that for our second application, we may never know. Anyway, we applied for a third time (English only so it stayed in Manila) and received the SSNs within about 3 weeks.

Now we can work on our tax return. Big money, no Whammies... STOP!