By Amber
My 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Hurricane Hadley, is the worst picture taker ever. This is not an exaggeration. The only reason I occasionally have quasi-cute pictures of her is because 1) I have a digital camera and take a oodles shots in hopes I can get just one keeper and 2) I bribe, threaten and beg her to "Please, just smile once for Mommy or I will personally remove Dora the Explorer from this earth." Gotta strike 'em where it hurts.
My husband Jamie has always been completely against getting professional pictures taken. So my act of rebellion during his recent business trip was to drag the kids into Kiddie Kandids and submit myself to a nervous breakdown.
We went early, before the store opened, and there was already a line. As I waited, my five-month-old, Bode, chose that small window of eternity to do his irregular poop. You know: the one that has been backed up for a week and is like Mount St. Helen's every time he erupts. Good thing the pictures were full-frontals; there's something kinda unappealing about a lovely brown stain all the way up his back.
The actual photo session was frustrating because we couldn't get the kids positioned correctly and our inept photographer wanted The Hurricane to hold Bode. Because she obviously doesn't value his life as much as I do.
"You mean to tell me out of your gazillion studios across the country that you don't have anything to prop him up?" I asked.
"Not for the ones who can't sit up yet," she said accusingly.
Because it's obviously lazy Bode's fault he's still a baby and can't do sit on his own yet.
It went downhill from there as Hadley defied our efforts to lure anything but scowls, escape attempts and canned smiles. Bode, on the other hand, did marvelously. As we reviewed the photos at the end, I weighed my options.
"Can we just crop her out?"
"You want to cut your daughter out of the picture?"
"Don't you think she deserves it? He was at least making an effort to smile."
The photographer analyzed me, trying to figure out if I was just kidding. I mostly wasn't.
In the end, we ended up choosing the only halfway decent one of Hadley, but unfortunately one of the few where Bode wasn't smiling. I later regretted this decision and wish I had chosen one of his many cute ones with her canned smile.
Just to truly memorialize the occasion, of course.
Amber is a former adventure-travel writer turned adventurous unraveling mother to two-year-old Hurricane Hadley and baby Bode.
My daughter (16 months) is very hard to photograph too! She always blinks her eyes. If I take off the flash, it is never bright enough and she moves too much, so she is a blur. I'm hoping it'll get better in the future. She always poses and smiles, so it'll be good if I ever do get one!
Posted by: Mari | January 25, 2007 at 08:08 PM
Attempting pictures at Kiddie Kandids? I gave up long ago.
Posted by: Monica Schultz | January 25, 2007 at 03:22 PM
I can so relate to this one! We just suffered through the same thing at Christmas and I don't think I'll wage this war for at least another year!
Posted by: Karen | January 25, 2007 at 09:09 AM