With holiday greeting cards starting to arrive in our mailbox, a ‘To Do’ list a mile long, an impending move and having already previously canceled twice, I had to keep my appointment yesterday at Sears to have Lucas’ 18 month/holiday photos taken.
I purposely picked a time mid-morning when he is usually happy and playful, full from breakfast and hours from lunch or his afternoon nap.
Lucas is really into bargaining right now, or rather being bargained with; eat three more bites and you can have a cracker, help Mommy clean up your toys and then you can watch Elmo, first we need to go to the super market and then we will go to the park, etc. I’m building trust so I never let him down. He seems to “get it”, but he is only 18 months old, so I wonder.
After I told him how long it would take and what to expect, I told him we would go for a ride on the choo choo (his current major obsession) after we got his photos taken.
Big mistake!!
It was all he could focus on.
“Choo choo.”
“Choo choo.”
“Choo choo.”
900 times.
It was insane.
I can laugh about it now, but I wanted to ring his neck during the 45 minutes we wasted in the studio.
He wanted nothing to do with the photographer or her fun antics to get him to smile, show some teeth or demonstrate his sparkling personality. Between the two of us, we must have looked like complete fools as we jumped, danced, sang, fake sneezed and peek-a-booed. Lucas was not amused and not cooperating.
Lucas only wanted “choo choo”.
Of the 45 shots the poor woman (a consummate professional with way more patience than me) took, exactly ONE picture came out. And that’s even debatable.
The rest looked like mug shots. And I am not kidding.
This will definitely be a photo shoot to remember.
Needless to say, I followed through with my promise and took my son on that god damned train and I’m going to have to go with Plan B for the family holiday card.
Sadly, I don’t have a Plan B. 
