Say Cheese!

I called the portrait studio earlier this week and made an appointment for today. Got all of the kids dressed up in nice sweaters, hair brushed & moussed, glue sticked, & ponytailed, teeth brushed, faces scrubbed, and got to the portrait studio 15 minutes early. Go us!

Problem #1: They were running behind. There were still 3 families to go before us. Ok, no biggie. Figured they'd be running late. We came with a plan. We'd go over to the snack bar and get something to munch on.

Problem #2: The munchies didn't last long enough. Ok, so we went to pick up a faceplate for the light switch in our bedroom. We checked out.

Problem #3: All of the kids had to go to the bathroom. Fine. We took them. The boys got done first, of course, because they're boys and they don't have to bother with the little details of bathrooming that girls have to deal with like sitting down and finding a stall with toilet paper and making sure nobody has peed on the seat because we all know moms take their 3 year old little boys into the ladies room and 3 year old boys always pee on the seats and that's just gross and we don't wanna sit in that now, do we? By the time Darcy and I were done in the bathroom, the boys were already in the portrait studio - it was our turn. Oops.

Problem #4: Trainee photographers. This particular trainee had no personality. Or if she did, she hid it very well. Now I don't know if you've ever tried to have pictures taken of ONE child (let alone THREE children!) by a photographer who takes too much time to do anything because she's new and who has no personality, but it's no picnic.

Problem #5: Children do not give charming smiles on command. They just don't. They need something to smile AT. They need a REASON to smile. And "we want a pretty picture" is NOT a viable reason to a child. And when you have a photographer who is new and nervous and not at all giving the children a reason to smile, you're not going to get pretty pictures.

Problem #6: Sometimes children try too hard when they're being barked at to smile. In fact, sometimes little boys named Perrin try SO HARD to smile that you can nearly see his back teeth. The very last molars in his mouth. Because he's got his mouth stretched soooooooo far in his attempt to smile.

Problem #7: Not only does the photographer have to take the picture that you want for your portrait package, she must also take no less than SIX other photographs. Fine. Let me tell you something, though...four out of those last six? Four out of the last six were pictures of just Tai and me. You know why? Because we sit still and smile and don't get frustrated and try to pull each other's hair (as if I could do that anyway) and we can look at the camera when we're told to look at the camera. That's why.

Ok. We finished with the portrait taking. Yay! Tai and the kids went to the car. I sat down with the other ladies (the trainee was now on break) to order the ones I wanted. I swear to God this is what went down after that.

"Oh my God! Do you see these pictures? These are awful! I am so sorry. You just wasted an hour and a half here and didn't get a single decent picture. Do you REALLY want to pay for this portrait package? I mean...the little girl's face isn't even fully IN the picture!" I just stared at the screen. "Tell you what, why don't you come back tomorrow, and ~I~ will take your pictures? Can you come in tomorrow afternoon? We'll just zero out this whole thing here, and we'll act like it never happened."

That sounded great to me, except that we'd have to do it all over again. LOL That, and I *DID* like one of the pictures of Tai and me...so I asked if there was any way to buy that single picture without buying the crappy package picture, too. There wasn't...but there was a way for them to give me an 8x10 of it free, and I certainly wasn't gonna complain about THAT.

So tomorrow, we do it all again. Say cheese!