A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

In my never ending quest to fill up our time with sometimes futile activities, I thought it was high time to take the girls to have their pictures formally taken. Part of this decision was driven by a small measure of jealousy of all the formal pictures that populated the walls of our hosts' home in Kansas and part of it was driven by the fact that as fun as my random snaps can be, it's always nice to have someone else do the work and do it well every now and then.

Our experience wasn't quite as seamless as it could have been, but I think the several hours we spent yesterday encapsulated our family so well that I had to share. I should preface the story by saying that Ryan is very anti-portrait. He claims to have had too many bad experiences with the JC Penney portrait studio as a kid that the thought of even having them done makes him crabby. (I think he's just using it as an excuse to be crabby but I do have a certain amount of antipathy myself for the faux pastoral scenes, the hot lights, bad hair, and weird angles of the portrait studios/school pictures of my youth.) So the fact that he agreed to go with me to the mall to take the girls for their session was a feat unto itself. We got to the mall a full hour before it officially opened and sadly, a half hour before our scheduled appointment. I couldn't exactly remember the time of the appointment (case number 336 in point why I should have a blackberry if only I could justify it) so I wanted to make sure we were on time. Tragically, the Picture People failed to consult their appointment book the day before and did not show up until 11 AM. Facing a possible failure in executing the picture session, I was wracked with feelings of insecurity, flakiness, and self-recrimination, all popular themes these days with me as I enter week 2 of the health challenge. Don't worry, this is pretty common until I decide this course of action is not for me. The girls were bummed but were taking it in stride, arguing over who would hold the cat and who the dog stuffed animals they brought along. Both had erupted into spontaneous tears so many times during the hour we were there with nothing to do that I was sure if said photo session were to happen both would look like bloated, red floating heads.

Finally, the lights went on in the Picture People and Izzy and I charged in. Once she decided she wasn't going to be eaten alive by the photographer, she was all for some mugging. After reproaching the woman at the desk for leaving me hanging (and silently for making me feel so bad about myself- how dare she!), the girls and I entered the changing room (aka slightly sleazy bathroom) to change. Iz and I had worked out a complicated formula by which she would take some pictures in her preferred outfit and then switch to mine. Thank god the Picture People has no sitting fee so we could accomplish this with little sweat. And mug and grin and sally about did my little ladies. Lottie, of course, demonstrated none of hesitation Izzy usually displays and marched right into one frame. When we tried to take her out, she sat down. Izzy for hours and hours after talked about how much fun it was to pose. (Note here to the uninitiated: last time I took Iz to have her picture taken, she yelled and cried so much that I had a total of 1, that's right, 1 usable picture after a half an hour of trying.) Unfortunately, Picture People does not release the digital files (at least not for the price I paid!) and without a scanner, I can't show them to you here.

After loitering through the mall and having lunch, we returned to the Picture People to view our photos. Here's where Ryan's funny part comes in. PP "markets" its pictures by choosing some of the prints they think are nice and sticking them in frames to show post session customers. Sadly, Ryan didn't know this. When the PP lady helping us came out with a stack of large, framed photos of the girls, Ryan was this close to falling off his viewing stool. He actually said out loud, "I think I am going to be sick." I had to explain to him in front of PP lady that they were just promotional items and that no, I had not in fact ordered all of them. The PP lady thought it was so funny, she directed him to the changing room/slightly seedy bathroom and then proceeded to tell all of her coworkers who howled in laughter. It was second only to the time when Ryan almost fainted when having his blood drawn for our marriage license. In fact, he was so moved by the PP experience, he had to go home and take a nap to calm down. (I am not making this up.)

So, after all of that, we have some lovely new pictures of the girls. Ryan's calmer today but I think he's living in fear of my idea to have a photographer come to the house in the spring. More on that later...