I read through all the posts from the past 30 days so I think I have a feel for what's going on.

Our situation...wife and 5 y/o son had to get "renewals" for expiring passports, but we are not planning to travel out of the country until Jan 2022 at the earliest. 18 weeks door-to-door is kinda pushing it (would be last week of December), not to mention that the lady at USPS who authorized our son's passport estimated "up to 6 months" and also warned us that our son's photos were technically not acceptable but that the passport center seems to approve most kids' passports even when they shouldn't. It also makes me nervous cause I'm not sure if I should book flights for early January before knowing we will have the passport.

Well thanks to this thread I'm feeling far less anxiety now. It seems like it would be safe to book travel for January, and if necessary, contact passport office to switch to expedite and/or contact congressperson to help as the date approaches. Probably don't need to worry about that til November. Anything I'm missing?