Pictures

You know what I hate about being a parent? How much of my day revolves around other people's bowel movements. Nobody ever told me about that. If you had told me that I would talk about poop this much--little less on a blog for the whole world to read about--I would have been appalled.

This all has a point, I promise.

So, Rhonda and Ken volunteer to have the kids pictures taken. This is a very generous gift--the amount of stress involved in wrangling my sweet babies is considerable, so offering to help capture this time in their lives is incredibly nice.

Glo has great taste--she is just a fashionable lady. Now me? I wear sweatpants year round (which Michael informed me is apparently inappropriate in the summer--who knew?) and concern myself more with comfort than looking good. So I always appreciate it when Rhonda helps me figure out coordinating outfits for events like this. She picked out absolutely precious clothes in a red, white, and black palette that looked very nice on the kids =)

Gabriel obviously was going to be our biggest obstacle. He's a mover--we can't get him to sit still for anything. At school, he is restrained with a seat belt on his chair; at home, he wears a weighted vest that helps his proprioceptive senses (what tells you where you are in relation to yourself and to your surroundings so that you use appropriate and proportional movements). Unfortunately, neither of those are options here, so I had to get creative.

The photography studio also called to confirm that my appointment was Wednesday at 4.30. Ummm...no? It is Tuesday--Tuesday, as I have stated about four billion times, is the day that Michael only works until 11. Granted, I could have made a mistake when making the appointment and accidentally told them Wednesday, but I am judging by the fact that I set up all the families appointments and we have had probably greater than 50 in the last year (as well as the fact that I made the girl booking the appointment verbally verify three times that it was Tuesday at 4.30 pm), I am going to say it was a mistake on their end. Well, they apologize profusely and say they have an appointment at 5.30. I am not happy about it because it will directly interfere with the kids' dinner time, but I don't want to argue it that much. We accept the 5.30 appointment

The other problem was that the kids take issue with taking naps when Michael is here. I don't know if it is because they are so excited that he is here that they can't wind down, or that he just changes the routine so the kids are testing their boundaries, but either way, it is not uncommon that one or both the kids are too rowdy at rest time on the days that Daddy is here. (Obviously Benjamin sleeps whenever he wants, wherever he wants, and Michael has no effect on that, lol.)

So in all likeliness, the kids are going to be hungry or tired or both. Not exactly ideal conditions for taking pictures.

First, Benjamin: He was precious. I mean, how badly behaved can a baby his size be? He was quiet and didn't require feeding or changing the hour or two we were there. His little body is still pretty floppy, so posing him was easy...he was ideal :)

Now, poor Emerald.

The day of the pictures, Emerald is having some tummy troubles. (I told you that poop-rant paragraph was going somewhere). I was hoping they would resolve themselves before we had to leave, but they didn't. So when we get to the studio, she is physically miserable and sick. All she wants to do is poop, but she most certainly does not want to poop because she is scared...the whole time we were having her pictures made, she was well-behaved and followed directions pretty well. Any time it was somebody else's, she was running off and hiding, holding her stomach and crying.

The other problem she had was that a few days before she had gotten a scrape near her eye. She wouldn't stop picking off the scab, so I put a band-aid over it, hoping that it would heal up a little before the pictures if she didn't pick at it for a day. But she had an allergic reaction to the band-aid, so now instead of just a little scab, there was a rash in the shape of a band-aid. I put benadryl cream on it several times that day, but it never cleared up. In the end, we had to put a little make-up to cover it up, but it was still a little visible.

Gabriel was, as said earlier, our wild card. We knew he wasn't going to sit still. If you look at the picture above, you can see my arm steadying him behind him (we can crop that out, but I didn't bother for this post, since it kind of illustrates my story). Smiling is rare for Gaby, even though he is a happy baby, so we have to get him in a good mood.

The bubbles I brought did not hold his interest. The Veggie Tales Michael put on his iPad went unwatched. The many toys were ignored. It was time for my last ditch effort: Skittles.

Now THAT got his attention! In several of the pictures, you could see him chewing happily away, or else signing 'more', 'please', or 'thank you' to get more. The game Buzz Went the Bee got him smiling as well, so with a little bribery, we were able to get a few good shots of him. With Emerald, we wanted her looking happy; with Gabriel, we were content with him just sitting still.

All in all, it went pretty well and we got some great pictures. Now it is time for me to put the kiddos to nap--goodnight!!

--Andie--