The Sole Survivor

“I saw that going so differently in my mind” has now been added to our list of favorite parental coping phrases. You might recall that one of our other favorites is “it could have been so much worse” after Avery gave herself a haircut.

The goal was simple: first birthday portraits for Romey. The stage was set. Romey had had a great start to her morning, and my sister agreed to come over and hang with Avery. And then, little by little, things started to un-ravel. The cumulative effect of the following resulted in no portrait and a lost shoe:

• It was snowing.

• Ave intentionally woke Romey up from her morning nap.

• During Romey's bath she slipped and banged her cheek on the side of the bathtub (resulting in a dime-sized red mark.)

• I spilled some water on Romey’s dress resulting in a last minute wardrobe change.

• My sister was late.

• The mall’s parking lot was packed.

• Somewhere between the car and the portrait studio one of Romey’s shoes disappeared (and she wasn’t wearing socks).

• I looked for the shoe; Dan looked for the shoe. We collectively determined that the shoe had vanished into thin air. Ro knew what happened to the shoe but she wasn't giving us any hints.

• We bagged the idea of trying to find the missing shoe, and decided to buy some new shoes. Gymboree was selling zebra print shoes, and polka-dotted shoes. No thanks—she’ll go barefoot.

• Our number is up, and we take a smiling and charming Ro into the portrait studio.

• I set Romey on the floor, and she freaks. She’s afraid. I pick her up, soothe her, and put her back down. She screams louder. I look at Dan. He looks at me. We hastily grab our things and head for the nearest exit.

The moral of this predictable story is: don’t ask me for professional portraits of the Nelson girls. Instead I’ll happily send you the Kodak Gallery link, and you can order some cute candids. And, speaking of pictures, Avery’s preschool portraits came in this week. She did a great job, and I’ll be posting one here soon. Maybe the key is that someone else needs to take Ave and Ro to the portrait studio. Any takers?