Pictures Anyone??

Today my oldest had picture day at preschool. Taking pictures professionally can be a real uphill battle. I love photos. I love my boys and I love to see photos of my boys. They do not always share this same feeling and thus I dread the taking of photos by professional photographers. Last year's school photo day was one of those battles. It seemed as if every child so willingly followed the photographer and her pet stuffed monkey into the garden to laugh among the daffodils. Try as she might the photographer had no such luck with my little boy who only wanted to play. And she was good too...cool as a cucumber, very reassuring that she would get his photo before the day was out. As soon as she was out of earshot, I of course not so confident would plead with my son, beg, conjole with promises of treats, a happy mommy if he would just please, please take a picture with the nice photographer lady. She worked on him every few children to see if he was ready and finally he agreed to take the photo but not in the garden amongst the daffodils he wanted to take his photo in the chicken coop. The Chicken coop?? Amongst the chicken poop?? What could I say..I just asked for him to take his photo I did not tell him where I wanted him to take the photo...oh geez. She won him over though and also got a nice smiling shot of him by the bench under the giant tree with no chicken poop in sight and that is the photo I proudly have displayed all over his school scrapbook from last year. So this year...as I roll out of bed I think how will this go today?? What will I need to promise?? We talked about how fun today was going to be at the kitchen table at dinner last night., Oh picture day, what joy, what bliss!! How special to get your picture taken to be forever remembered as this happy 3 year old at his beloved preschool. At school I wait, I try to be so confident so cool as a cucumber as I ask, "so would you like to be the first child to have your picture taken or the second?" "Maybe later," replies my son, "I'm too busy playing." Lucky for me the same photographer is back and she is able to slyly convince my son she needs his help making the other children laugh with the stuffed monkey and before I know it he is sitting in the garden taking a lovely photo and that was that. A little too easy?? Thankfully today it was.