I surrender

I've never been a big fan of "studio" portraits. While I surely appreciate the little wallet-sized treasures I receive from friends tucked inside holiday cards and family newsletters (really? newsletters?) I'm sorry to say they usually get tossed following a brief week or two on the fridge or on the counter. I'd love to say I am organized and crafty enough to have a scrap book for these little snippets of peoples kids and families and um...dog, but I have better things to do.

I can tell you the last time I set foot in a JC Penney was because I had to take my daughter to the bathroom during a marathon mall playground outing during a rain storm. There's a Starbucks strategically placed directly behind the colorful patch of kid safe carpet and candy-coated foam animals at our mall and I find it can be the perfect place to catch up on reading or writing in my notebook during a rainy day. Of course, I'd never go there if Ladybug wasn't with me. That would be weird. Right? Yeah, I thought so.

Okay. So two weeks ago I brushed Ladybug's hair and put her in a kelly green knit dress that's now her very favoritist ever in the world and took her to JCPenney for some portraits. I swallowed my pride and decided that I wasn't going to be the mom that didn't have any weirdo posed pictures of my kid in front of brown or white or foresty painted backgrounds surrounded by a halo of frost. I mean, what was I going to show her prom date?

I have plenty of candid photos that truly just reach out and grab her personality and throw the cute right in your face, but those are no good for humiliation purposes. And besides. It's time all those folks who have sent me their gel-haired, plaid- shirt wearing, fluffily dressed kids holding Easter baskets or baseball gloves know exactly how it feels. I mean. Nobody keeps those, right? Right?

Anyway. I've given in. If not for the memories hazed over and posed and completely overpriced, but for the sheer joy of knowing that somewhere there's a girl from my high school who has some butt-ugly kids. And my pictures are wayyy better than the ones she sent me two years ago for Christmas.