Picture People Posts

You know those days when there is just so much going on at once with the kids that you’re sweating before you even get in the car and feeling like you’re going to explode with a cursing tirade because you can’t imagine a human being acting quite this annoying???? And you know it was not so nice to tell that human being that they’re acting so.freaking.annoying but giving yourself a silent high-five for controlling yourself enough to not call him annoying but rather his behavior?  Then you mention to said child that if this behavior continues, he will not get a lollipop after his portrait session at Clix (a place you’ve never visited but hope it’s less crowded than Picture People) for your annual holiday card and you will turn this car around and go right home?  But you know you will have to bribe him with that lollipop anyway because he’s going to give that ridiculously fake smile otherwise and you just know already that the session will be a disaster because both kids are tired and you were an idiot and booked your appointment for the late afternoon?  Then you arrive at your portrait session with your Mother in tow because you know ahead of time that you’d need back-up but within the first two minutes you’re using that under-your-breath-voice to try and quietly scream at your child to get.up.off.of.the.floor because you’re.acting.like.a.two.year.old and you know you’ve lost it because nothing out of your mouth sounds the least bit calm and you try feverishly to remember if you’re acting this way because it’s been two days without your meds or because you’re lacking in caffeine but the words just tumble out and don’t stop.  Then you give yourself a break because you’re usually very even-tempered and fair and then you feel simply awful when your son asks if you still love him and then hugs your leg.  Then after a disaster of a portrait session when you just know – even though the photographer tries to convince you otherwise – that there is not one good shot of either child separately or together you begin crying with laughter seated next to your Mother at a computer looking at two dozen outtakes of your kids with tongues hanging out, leaning awkwardly over chairs, trying to escape the room, playing with the backdrop, laying on top of each other, looking generally confused, eyes bulging and you think that maybe it would be funny to make your holiday card a tragedy of errors sort of thing.  But instead you take your dressed-up kids, grab your camera and whisk them off to a park/playground to take pictures of your own.  Then just when you’re starting to get somewhere after a good half hour at the park and 75 pictures later, your stupid flash stops working on your really good camera so you give up and take the weirdly-dressed-for-the-playground-kids on a walk across a field so your daughter can say hi to the girls soccer team she’s been watching instead of posing on the slide.  Then the soccer team ends up leaving the park while you’re walking back to your car and maybe – just maybe - the last one out inexplicably locks the gate to the park while you’re getting the kids buckled in.  You know that they know that you’re there – you were with them three minutes ago and did you think we walked here?  So you’re stuck in the car in the dark with two super hyper and hungry children and you’re due to be at your brother-in-law’s Birthday dinner in an hour.  You call your dear hubby for help and he just happens to be on his way to the park anyway to meet you and joins the party while you call the Parks Department in vain because it’s Sunday and the website obviously says hours are only Monday through Friday.  So you call 911 and declare your emergency that your car is stuck behind a gate that you can easily walk through but your car can’t and no….. you don’t have a freaking clue what the cross-street is and you’re so thankful that your husband runs across the street to find out.  Then you are reminded that you have to be at a fancy restaurant soon and you know that the kids are in no shape to be anywhere that other humans congregate and just when you think the cops aren’t coming because it has been 25 minutes (is there possibly something more important in town than freeing our car from behind a park gate?), your hubby and son team up to bust open the lock and when you call police to tell them you’re free, all they can say is, “I can’t hear you – all I hear is kids screaming.” and you’re like, “No shit – welcome to my life!” and then you realize that the best pictures of the day were not at the portrait session or at the playground but with your grainy cell phone camera – in the dark, in front of the stupid locked gate…