Professional Pictures

Well, we set out this morning with the expectation that Kayden would be cooperative with getting his pictures taken, and with me planning it well over a month after his birthday and having Christmas right around the corner, I thought I'd double up on the picture theme and get his five year pictures, family pictures and holiday pictures all done in one fell swoop.

This plan backfired.  Kayden wouldn't cooperate with wearing the clothes I picked out, so we ended up buying him a new shirt, then he refused to walk into the portrait studio, instead deciding to stand, literally, on the carpet transition piece that separated shoe department and the portrait studio.  At this point in our day, after a HUGE tooth brush battle and a sweater fight, I was near tears.  Wishing and hoping that my child could just do one thing that I asked of him today, just one.  I brought a Christmas present that I was hoping he would be excited to open, but instead he insisted he open it in the mall play area.  Sorry, child, not going to happen.

This was the thought going on in my head as his stubbornness shined on: Let me introduce you to bribery.  It is where I bring something to entice you to cooperate and get excited.  And where you welcome the bribe and do as I ask.  This plan, however, backfired in a couple different ways.  It

1. didn't get Kayden excited about getting his pictures taken OR get him to enter the studio willingly and with a smile, and
2. once he opened it he exclaimed, "Mom, I already have this", where his smile and excitement disappeared faster than Reese's peanut butter cups do on Halloween night.

 I tried picking a gift out of our stash of previous birthday presents, one I thought he wouldn't remember because it didn't come from his latest birthday, but I failed...miserably.  Now this could have had a much different outcome had the photographer not saved the session by skipping over Kayden's near meltdown episode and asked for one more picture before ending the session.

So I am grateful for the store manager, without him I doubt we would have been successful with getting any pictures, smiling or otherwise!

So, here are the three pictures that we got that I was somewhat happy with.  It has been a long day and this is the only time I have not been happy with daylight savings giving me an extra hour!  Bedtime couldn't come soon enough. OR maybe I'll use it to my advantage and put Kayden to bed at 7:30, which would really be 8:30 to his body, and with any luck he will be fast asleep by 8:00.  Hey, don't laugh, I need to hold onto hope here.