Those of you with toddlers will see the title of this posting and probably groan out loud. You know what I am going to say and will take a secret amount of comfort knowing that I have gone through the same horror you have. Let me start out by saying that I was looking forward to having our family pictures taken all week. I shopped and bought coordinated outfits (taking great care to try to create a cohesive theme without being too "matchy-matchy"), made sure Lucky stayed free of lumps, bumps, and bruises all week (not an easy feat with a fearless three year old who seems to have some sort of super magnet in his head that attracts wooden tables, concrete stairs, and the undersides of most counter tops), and carefully planned our schedule out to make sure Lucky would get a good nap before the pictures, thus ensuring a happy, cooperative, perfect little boy for the pictures (I can already hear you snickering).
I could see the perfect pictures in my head -- happy, smiling, all-american family...the kind the photography studios put on their websites and flyers to entice customers. Well, I'm quite certain we won't end up on any flyers or websites, unless our pictures happen to make it over to AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com (which by the way is an awesome site).
The photos went something like this..."Lucky stop jumping around", "Lucky, stop rolling on the floor", "Lucky, stop touching that!", "I'm serious stop touching that!", "Lucky, smile"..."please buddy, smile",... "just one smile?", "Fine, don't smile, but at least look at the camera!" "Fine, you're done - me and Dad are having pictures all by ourselves then!" (insert toddler meltdown here).
And that my friends is family pictures with a three year old. Oh, and if you remember the title of my post also included (and a dog). Well, in all the chaos, we pretty much forgot Penny even came along with us and she didn't end up in any of the pictures.....She's going to be quite upset with us when she sees the proofs.
