Christmas Portrait Fail.

Yesterday we had scheduled an appointment for our daughter, A, to get Christmas pictures taken. We've been putting them off and now it's sort of last minute because we still need to make, order, and send out Christmas cards using pictures from this shoot.

A looked totally adorbs in her Christmas outfit. She was rocking her dress, spit-shine shoes, and bow. Her hair was perfect - not a curl out of place. She really looked like she could be the poster child for Christmas, well, posters.

We hop in the car and set out to the studio. Two minutes before pulling into the parking lot, the downward spiral of our photo adventure started. She fell asleep. My husband was very optimistic when I told him what had happened ('cause I'm a freak, and even though she's 16 months old, I still sit in the backseat with her, because WHAT IF SHE GETS LONELY?!). He said, "Good, she can have a little power nap!"

No. A power nap is, like, fifteen minutes. Not two.

So when we pulled her out of the car seat, she woke up but was still in a semi-unconscious state. Little A is a people person, though, and when she started seeing other human beings besides dear ol' mom and dad, she perked up. I thought our crisis was averted. We get into the waiting area and there are other little boys and girls there.

This is good. Because as much of a people person as A is, she is even more of a baby and child person. She only eats Yo Baby yogurt because there's a picture of a baby on the front of it. Seriously.

Things were looking pre-tty good for us. "Gah!" she said to a little girl. "Gah" is her general sound of contentment. It can be a question ("Gah?") a statement ("Gah.") or in this case, an expression of joy ("Gah!"). Back in the studio, I suddenly heard sounds of a baby crying. "How badly does that suck for them?" I asked hubster. "Can you imagine paying for portraits only to have your baby scream the entire time?"

"Shhh!" was all he said, because he was paranoid someone in the waiting room was waiting for the unseen screaming baby.

Our dear A just kept playing with the other kiddos, Gah'ing to her hearts content. "Paula, we're ready for you now!" said a smiling lady, appearing from the back (crying baby was no longer crying back there). We gathered our things. You know, just the usual...a stuffed santa doll, stuffed elf, stuffed kitty, booger wipes, diaper bag, several coats, my purse, and other stuff. What? All of the stuffed animals were to make A smile during her pictures. Not that she'd need help, because I was really confident that she was going to do SO well at this picture thing. She can even say "Cheese!" when we take her picture at home.

Remember how I said A loves kids? Well this really came back to bite us. Because after we collected our junk, we attempted to gather our baby. She did NOT want to stop playing with the kids in the waiting room. She started fussing immediately. I thought once we put her in front of the camera, her natural charm would come shining through. But with the dimmed lights and soft fuzzy stuff they had set up, A not only thought we had snatched her away from her new best friends, but we were not trying to make her take a nap. Which she was NOT having.

She kicked and screamed and flailed. We couldn't put her down. I tried. My husband tried. We left her in a heap in the pile of faux snow, hoping she would come to her senses and pose. Yeah, that didn't happen. Our attempts to make her calm down failed miserably. "A, look, it's your stuffed kitty!" Scream. "Look, your stuffed Santa! Ho ho ho!" Kick. Scream. "It's your elf, he's going to tell Santa you've been being bad!" Kick. Scream. SNOT.

The photographer tried to keep her smile plastered on her face, but really we knew what she was thinking.

She said, "A, look at this snowball!" Great, A LOVES playing ball. She gingerly took it from the photographer, sniffled, and then threw it at her. And not in a "Let's play ball!" kind of way. More like a "I hope this hits you and bruises you." way.

We tried in vain. Giant strings of ornaments were presented. Dancing happened. Singing occurred. But you know what didn't happen? This baby didn't stop screaming. We had to reschedule.

As we took our screaming baby out of the photo studio, she saw her little girl friend from before and grinned and said, "Gah!"

Would it have been creepy to ask that girl's mom to borrow her daughter?

Anyway, here's the only picture we got of A before we left for the studio. Hopefully this won't have to go on on the cards. It's her in her favorite spot in the house - the pantry.

Let's start at the very beginning.

...a very good place to start?

I guess that makes it sound like I'm about to tell my entire life story, which is NOT the case. Although every day of my life up until this point something new and noteworthy happens to me, I'm almost certain it has been boring to almost everyone else. This won't be my life story per se, because I'm not telling about when I was 5, just now. The present, and some choice selections from the past.

The beginning of this blog is what the title is referring to. I've made attempts to start blogs in the past, most of which have failed miserably ("...Today was boring, LOLz!!"), but I have a chronic desperation to document my life for some reason. I know I'll never be one of those worldwide phenomenon bloggers. I won't be one of those mommy bloggers who makes money off of their blogs (more power to them, my point is that I am NOT that interesting, entertaining, or crowd-drawing). I am just me, and who knows, maybe one day my daughter (and future children) will be able to look back at my Internet-cached blog and read about their upbringing, rolling their eyes along the way.

So who is "me"? My name is Paula. I'm a young (can I say young when I'm 3 short years away from being 30? I still feel 16. So for now I will stick to that adjective) wife, mother, and teacher. I have a hilarious husband, an adorable daughter, and a horrifying job.

Don't get me wrong, I am incredibly thankful to have a job, it's just way more stressful than I ever imagined working would be when I was in college. I teach 8th graders at an urban high school. You might hear some tales from the classroom on this blog, although I'll have to censor myself when it comes to that, since once something is online, it's there forever.

Side note, when will I ever be able to see/hear the word "forever," and not hear it in my mind as "FOR. EV. ERR!" Thanks, Sandlot.

Anyway, my students are Google hounds and will inevitably stumble across this page one day and be all like, "Oh my gosh, my teacher talked about the time my pants split, I'm suing!" And since I AM a teacher, I'm obviously extremely poor (boo hoo) so I can't afford a lawsuit. Sorry, folks, you won't get most of the juicy stories when it comes to the kiddies.

But you will hear about my freaking awesome daughter, who really IS a genius. Not literally maybe. But if you ask me, yes, she has an IQ of a trillion and is going to graduate college when she is 10, although I hope without the social and emotional issues most child prodigies  face. Look at that, my daughter is 16 months old and I'm already declaring her a child prodigy. For serious, people - I asked her to say "Patti" for a friend last night and she said "Pah." Harvard, here we come!

You will hear about the hysterical things my husband does (sometimes only he thinks they're hysterical). Like the time I bought ugly granny panties for my impending birth and he thought it would be HILARIOUS to spread a pair with Nutella and leave them sitting around. Ok, it was funny. Until I forgot about them, washed them with the other new pair, and happened to accidentally grab them to wear when I did go into labor. The Nutella had been washed off, but a big brown stain remained for all of the doctors and nurses to see. Thanks, hubs.

I hope that you'll stick around to read, and honestly, I hope I stick around to write.