Not Cut Out For Modeling

Brandt refuses to have his pictures taken by professionals (I use that term loosely since I'm referring to Sears & Picture People). We tried around Christmas to have Sears do the pictures and he started crying as soon as we sat down with him in front of the camera. We tried for another 10 minutes before finally giving up because by that time his eyes were all red and puffy and his nose was leaking snot. We went to plan B for our Christmas pictures: I sat him on his fire truck in front of our Christmas tree, enlisted the help of the convenient entertainment, took like 30 pictures, and then cropped the fire truck out of the shot. Thank God for digital cameras.

Today I decided to try again so we could have his 2 year old pictures taken. This time we went back to Picture People because Joe seemed to think that Sears' portrait studio was like a dungeon because it was downstairs in this little corner. We were hoping Picture People would be better because we had all of his previous pictures done there and they turned out pretty well. Not to mention every time we walk by Picture People Brandt has to wander inside and play with the chairs, so I figured he would be comfortable in there.

Not so much. He was fine for the first 5 minutes that we waited in the lobby, but then I had to change his shirt and that did NOT go over well. He ran away ... I chased him ... I caught him (tackled him) and tried to lift his shirt over his head only to have him fall on the floor screaming. After I got the shirt on I sat him on a tall chair that he couldn't climb down from, and that seemed to calm him down temporarily.

The photographer then said she was ready for us and as soon as we got into the room Brandt flipped out. Kind of like what transpired at his 2 year check when the doctor walked into the room. Full on crying with tears streaming and intermittent sobbing. It didn't stop. We tried several things (bribes) to calm him down: blocks, a football, juice. Nothing worked, so after 10 minutes of chaos I opted to not have his picture taken due to 100% lack of cooperation. Sadly, I don't think the people at Baby Gap would put up with this. Not that they've ever called ...

I also am very glad I bought more cat food today because Brandt dumped the last of the old cat food into the cat's water dish.