Christmas card picture follies

One lesson that we've learned as new parents is that getting a 1-year-old to stand still for a picture is pretty much impossible. Now that she can move, she does. All the time.

Thus began the saga of our attempts to obtain a heartwarming photo of the Peanut to include with our Christmas cards. It's a long story, but suffice it to say that the first time we went to the Sears portrait studio, she screamed continually for an hour while running out of the frame every time the photographer tried to get her to stay put. So we slunk out of Sears without a picture.

A couple of weeks later, we tried again. This time Mr. Fraulein and I stayed in the shot, holding onto her. She was marginally happier than the last time, in that she wasn't actively screaming, but she was still pissed off. As you can see by the look on her face in the picture that we reluctantly purchased just because we were tired of dealing with the whole thing.

So, while my child is actually pretty photogenic most of the time (if I do say so myself) in the Sears picture she just looks angry. Her eyes are all puffy and she doesn't really look like herself. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except that my friends' Christmas cards have been pouring in, and each child looks more angelic than the next. There is little S., wearing a Santa hat and a little plaid vest and beaming cherubically. And there are brothers G. and M., sitting calmly in a Victorian sleigh in matching outfits and matching happy smiles.

Oh well -- there's always next year!