Ever have an experience that leaves you wondering if you should laugh or cry?
My whole morning was an exercise in absurdity.
We had an appointment at the mall today to have the kids pictures taken. I've been to The Picture People with both kids several times now, and each time the experience has been head and shoulders above the snarling, kid-hating photographer at the Wal-mart Photo Studio. I had both kids up, fed and dressed, and even had time to throw a load of laundry in the washer before we arrived, on time, to the mall.
We were walking through the mall to the picture place when a strap on my sandal broke and I nearly fell on my face. No matter, the store was in sight and we were exactly on time, so I just clenched my toes and dragged my leg and somehow made it inside.
Maureen was wearing a red, white and blue dress and her new white sandals and I brought her red bucket hat along too. Johnny was dressed in khaki shorts, a red, white and blue polo short and sandals. I could barely wait to see the photos of them together and I was interested to see how Maureen's hair would look.
Except that she took one look at the photographer, burst into tears and clung to me, crying, "Mommmmmyyyyy! Nooooooooo!" We tried everything we could think of, but she wouldn't budge from my side. I even tried sitting on the floor next to she and Johnny and then leaning away so the photographer could take a close up of them together, but no dice.
After getting Johnny to stop squinching up his eyes and baring his teeth, we got some cute shots of him.
I've been in this store when it was busy before, but today was more like mass chaos. They schedule appointments every ten minutes, but they didn't have enough staff and no one's kids wanted to cooperate. It took forever to get my pictures transferred from the photo card so I could choose what I wanted, and it took even longer to print them, because the first set had lens spots on them and needed to be redone.
By then, Maureen had climbed out of her stroller and was running around, all smiles. Johnny and a bunch of other kids were all running in circles, screeching, until one little girl tripped over a chair and whacked her head on a table. Big goose egg=no pictures today. I was sort of glad that I wasn't the only mom that was getting frustrated and impatient, and I was glad I wasn't the only mom dragging my kid back to a chair and planting his butt in it with a firm warning not to move a muscle. When my pictures were finally ready, I got to leave, but the poor frazzled staff looked worn out and it was only noon.
Anyway, remember my shoe was still broken, so I had to adopt this shuffle-limp-drag gait to keep my shoe on my foot. Maureen was fussing because she had taken off her sandals to chew on them and I took them away. Johnny was fussing because he couldn't get the seatbelt on the stroller to work. People kept looking at me as I struggled by, and I started to think, "This is so stupid, I don't even know if I should laugh or cry. What should have taken less than an hour had stretched closer to two, and we still had another stop to make. And I couldn't even walk like a normal person. Just then, I caught sight of my reflection in the glass of a store window and realized how incredibly ridiculous I looked, gimping around the mall with two little kids in tow, and started to laugh. Probably slightly hysterically, but still, I was laughing. Johnny started to laugh too, and then Maureen caught it and the three of us stood there in the middle of the mall and just howled. People continued to look, but I remembered an important lesson.
When you're frustrated and tired and nothing is going your way, sometimes the best cure is to laugh at yourself.
We shuffle-limp-dragged to the nearest Payless, where I picked out a new pair of sandals and then we left the mall.
On the way home, we stopped to get Father's Day gifts for my dad and my husband. I can't say where, because it would spoil the surprise, but the bags were heavy and there was no way I could get them back to the van with a baby on my hip and a preschooler hanging on my hand. So I pulled the van up outside the store, one of the employees brought out my purchases and put them in the van for me. He was so nice, I almost didn't mind the amount of money I spent.
I'm bummed about the pictures, but I got a new pair of shoes to soothe my feelings instead.
My whole morning was an exercise in absurdity.
We had an appointment at the mall today to have the kids pictures taken. I've been to The Picture People with both kids several times now, and each time the experience has been head and shoulders above the snarling, kid-hating photographer at the Wal-mart Photo Studio. I had both kids up, fed and dressed, and even had time to throw a load of laundry in the washer before we arrived, on time, to the mall.
We were walking through the mall to the picture place when a strap on my sandal broke and I nearly fell on my face. No matter, the store was in sight and we were exactly on time, so I just clenched my toes and dragged my leg and somehow made it inside.
Maureen was wearing a red, white and blue dress and her new white sandals and I brought her red bucket hat along too. Johnny was dressed in khaki shorts, a red, white and blue polo short and sandals. I could barely wait to see the photos of them together and I was interested to see how Maureen's hair would look.
Except that she took one look at the photographer, burst into tears and clung to me, crying, "Mommmmmyyyyy! Nooooooooo!" We tried everything we could think of, but she wouldn't budge from my side. I even tried sitting on the floor next to she and Johnny and then leaning away so the photographer could take a close up of them together, but no dice.
After getting Johnny to stop squinching up his eyes and baring his teeth, we got some cute shots of him.
I've been in this store when it was busy before, but today was more like mass chaos. They schedule appointments every ten minutes, but they didn't have enough staff and no one's kids wanted to cooperate. It took forever to get my pictures transferred from the photo card so I could choose what I wanted, and it took even longer to print them, because the first set had lens spots on them and needed to be redone.
By then, Maureen had climbed out of her stroller and was running around, all smiles. Johnny and a bunch of other kids were all running in circles, screeching, until one little girl tripped over a chair and whacked her head on a table. Big goose egg=no pictures today. I was sort of glad that I wasn't the only mom that was getting frustrated and impatient, and I was glad I wasn't the only mom dragging my kid back to a chair and planting his butt in it with a firm warning not to move a muscle. When my pictures were finally ready, I got to leave, but the poor frazzled staff looked worn out and it was only noon.
Anyway, remember my shoe was still broken, so I had to adopt this shuffle-limp-drag gait to keep my shoe on my foot. Maureen was fussing because she had taken off her sandals to chew on them and I took them away. Johnny was fussing because he couldn't get the seatbelt on the stroller to work. People kept looking at me as I struggled by, and I started to think, "This is so stupid, I don't even know if I should laugh or cry. What should have taken less than an hour had stretched closer to two, and we still had another stop to make. And I couldn't even walk like a normal person. Just then, I caught sight of my reflection in the glass of a store window and realized how incredibly ridiculous I looked, gimping around the mall with two little kids in tow, and started to laugh. Probably slightly hysterically, but still, I was laughing. Johnny started to laugh too, and then Maureen caught it and the three of us stood there in the middle of the mall and just howled. People continued to look, but I remembered an important lesson.
When you're frustrated and tired and nothing is going your way, sometimes the best cure is to laugh at yourself.
We shuffle-limp-dragged to the nearest Payless, where I picked out a new pair of sandals and then we left the mall.
On the way home, we stopped to get Father's Day gifts for my dad and my husband. I can't say where, because it would spoil the surprise, but the bags were heavy and there was no way I could get them back to the van with a baby on my hip and a preschooler hanging on my hand. So I pulled the van up outside the store, one of the employees brought out my purchases and put them in the van for me. He was so nice, I almost didn't mind the amount of money I spent.
I'm bummed about the pictures, but I got a new pair of shoes to soothe my feelings instead.
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4 comments:
I think you just perfectly demonstrated the phrase, "when presented with lemons...make lemonade"
Oh, I totally want to cry just reading this. I get VERY. STRESSED. by the whole pro photo thing with one kid. Two will just put me over the edge completely!
I feel your pain. Kylie has taken to totally freaking out when we try to take her for pictures lately. We got lucky with her birthday ones, and had a GREAT photographer, that managed to get her smiling betweent he tears. But she was the second photographer for us that day. The first guy we had, all Kylie did was look at him, and started crying and wouldn't stop. Then a few weeks ago we took att 5 of the grandkids to have their pictures taken together. We got one, just one, before she started to howl and wouldn't stop. Then at school last week, on picture day. The got Gabe up on the table and took his picture, then I sat her on the table next to him...instant screaming! I gave up. I'll get three pictures of Gabe instead of one of him, one of her and one of the two together. The worst part is that she won't be in the composite picture for the whole center. But there was no way that child was going to have her picture taken that day!
I feel your pain, when Collin was Maureen's age he was so bad for the photographer that we were asked to reschedule after trying in vain for 20 minutes and never getting even a single shot. We didn't bother rescheduleing.
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