They say never work with children – but that’s quite tricky to avoid if you’re a parent.
When you’re a parent sharing your journey with the interweb, it’s tempting to pursue the perfect pictures.
But like family life, things don’t always go to plan.
Albie’s all-round charm and trademark smile will work wonders in later life if he retains it. In the short term, his ear-to-ear grin helped him win a competition to be a photographic model to showcase a studio’s new Christmas arrangement.
We didn’t feel like frauds for using a picture of him sporting his best beam – it was a decent reflection of everyday life. Yet when he rocked on up to the studio last weekend, despite having clocked up a nap by 11am, his trademark turned into a grumpy gurn.
For good measure, he made several bids for escape, destroying a quaint display of fake glasses of milk and chatting up a giant – and entirely non-Christmassy – rubber duck as he made a beeline for the exit with added (non-mulled) whine for a Grinch-like sound effect.
Thanks to a miracle, the lovely lady who did the shoot turned out to be the photography world’s equivalent of Jesus and we now need to visit her to pick the best of the shoot!
The boy’s not excelled in memorable photographic moments recently.
Given our last fireworks event effort saw us miss the majority of it trying to park before finding a vantage point miles away as the last rocket fizzed into the stratosphere, he should have been delighted we made it to Friday’s display on time.
Instead, the non-plussed look on his face as things kicked off reminded me of the time my Dad ‘treated’ us to an indoor fireworks display. His non-crying/screaming reaction, meanwhile, saw us scarpering for the exit in case he was suffering a heart attack.
In hindsight, failing to acknowledge us talking to him was more likely to do with the giant, multi-coloured headphones he was rocking.
He wasn’t too impressed on Sunday, either, when we tried to set up a scrapbook shot at the local ‘pick-your-own’ pumpkin patch.
Upon exit, he was presented with a ‘number one pumpkin picker’ sticker. Posing for your parents with your haul while sitting in a wheelbarrow can’t have been part of the criteria.
Our fails inspired me to dig out some of our, er, less-classic snaps to prove parenting isn’t always an Instagram-friendly sport!
