Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Shiny, happy people.


Everybody says that you take millions of photos of your first kid. And they were right. Poor kid probably thought I had a camera for a face for the first 12 months of his life.

But then Munchkin went mobile.

And since then, between him reaching for the camera to press the buttons or racing towards mortal peril as I try to frame the perfect shot, the photo ops have been few and far between.

And people, there have been serious complaints. I never knew grandmothers could be so damn cranky when they are forced to go a few days without new grandbaby photos. Think about the old days people! You might have had to go months! Years, even! Give the mother of a toddler a break, please!

So to quell the screaming hordes, I've been trying harder to pick up the camera, even when I know that doing so is just going to result in my having to leave it in an unsecure place as I go chasing after my kid.

But today, for whatever reason, it was the perfect opportunity to take Munchkin's picture. Despite outdoor antics and eating lunch with a spoon, his shirt remained (mostly) clean, his face didn't have any discernible scratches or food bits and he was sitting still on the couch giving me the cutest, sweetest little boy smile EVAH.

And so I picked up the camera and told him to say, "Cheese!" A few flashes of light, the tell-tale clicks of the shutter and I had not one but several photos of my two-year-old in this near perfect, totally unheard of state.

But then I looked at the photos.

Somehow, someway, every time I said cheese, he made this weird, totally wacked out grimace face. Not the smile I had seen on his face before I got the shot. The little monster had done funny faces ON PURPOSE. It's at moments like these that even though he is the spitting image of his father, I so know he is mostly mine.

The Grandmas are not only getting these photos emailed but embossed and framed.

2 comments:

Marine Wife said...

Think of it this way: you are capturing your child as he actually is during this stage in his life, not some posed picture of perfection that he isn't. And quite frankly, often the pictures of kids just being kids is cuter and tells a more interesting story.

Oh, and telling anyone to say "cheese" always results in some God-awful grimace that doesn't even resemble a smile. My mother is living proof of that!

Butterfly Wife said...

I love it! I have a framed photo of my extended family not quite ready to take the photo so everyone is doing something totally weird. Those are my absolute favorite pictures. And posed pictures of me look retarded so I like to make faces too, even at 35. :D