Picture Perfect

One of the most stressful events of parenthood has to be getting the family pictures taken.  First you try to strategically plan the time of day when everyone will be their happiest (the more family members you have, the more impossible it is to find that magic hour).  Next comes the outfit planning.  You want everyone to coordinate but not be too matchy-matchy.  Finally the big day arrives.  By the time the kids are bathed, dressed, and looking picture perfect you have 5 minutes to make yourself presentable.  In the car on the way there you have everyone practice their smiles, promising rewards and surprises for all who cooperate.  You spend the entire session begging and pleading for a “nice smile, not your silly smile.”  “Hug your sister right now or you don’t get a sucker.”  And it is embarrassing the amount of baby talk that comes out of your mouth to get the little one to smile (“yes it is, peek-a-boo, ah,ah,ah-chooey”).  Why do we do it?  What are we trying to prove by displaying these picture perfect images throughout our home?  Take the picture below. 

 Thirty minutes prior my mom (thank you, Grandma for coming along!) was removing a splinter from Tyler’s finger, twenty minutes prior she was mending a nasty rugburn Madelyn suffered when she was running through the studio and tripped on a threshold.  Ten minutes prior I was actually driving the baby around the block in my car to get him to stop crying.  Ten seconds AFTER this exact picture was taken, the baby had an assplosion that blew out of his diaper saturating the photographer’s white bed spread and leaking onto Tyler’s dress shirt sending Tyler into a panic.  While he was spiraling out of control, Madelyn started crying and begging me to pick her up.  I had just taken the baby’s diaper off and cleaned him up when I tried to get Madelyn to calm down by picking her up but she screamed because apparently some poop had gotten on my finger.  The photographer picked the baby up to put a new diaper on and he peed all over the front of her shirt.  Every time I see this picture I am reminded not of the picture perfect children portrayed in the photo but of the chaos that took place before and after the camera flashed.  The chaos that is a natural part of my life.  The chaos I have come to embrace because it is real.  And that, my friends, is perfect.

P.S.  If you are in the market for a great newborn photographer or DSLR instructor check out the links page of my website at http://www.pilatesbycarrie.com/