I desperately want a beautiful family portrait. You know the kind where the whole family is seemingly blissfully unaware that a photographer is capturing every wonderful moment they are spending playing in the forest while each member of the family just happens to be perfectly coiffed and wearing a coordinating outfit. Ah, but this is simply a pipe dream in my world. A dream that only becomes more unobtainable with each child we add to the mix.
Today, we had our church directory photo taken. Now, I know this isn't quite the same as having a professional photographer take your family photo out on location, but I still hold tight to the dream. I put a lot of thought into choosing the right color coordinated outfits. I made certain that everyone had a recent but not too recent haircut and I personally styled all of the children's hair the day of the photo. I even went to great lengths to make certain no one spilled his breakfast on his clothes or dribbled his toothpaste down his shirt. Alas, this effort was all for not. Let's face it, the church directory photo session is the wham bam thank you ma'am of photo shoots. There is no time spent getting the kids to loosen up and relax. Heck, the guy simply referenced the kids based on their height rather than taking 2 minutes to learn their names. We were in and out in five minutes so I really didn't expect to end up with the perfect family portrait, the one that captures the true essence of each of my four lovely children and my handsome husband, all the while making me look 15 pounds lighter and 10 years younger. I really didn't even expect to like the portrait, but I certainly didn't think it would be so bad that I would laugh out loud when the salesman tried to coax us into purchasing a package. Really? Was he looking at the same proof that I was or was he drinking 80 proof?
So none of my children have mastered the art of faking a natural smile. It's not their fault. I think I was 19 before I could do it, and I'm a girl with some vanity issues. Awkwardness is in our gene pool. My boys are boys. They don't care about looking cute in photos and my baby girl, well she's still too young to get it and frankly, she's too smart to find the humor in the feather duster the photographer kept waving in her face. So there we were, George and I front and center donning our most genuine fake smiles, a stoic Vivie was seated in my lap while we were flanked by the three boys. Jacob and Nathan came close to genuinely smiling but still not really looking themselves, but Liam, my dear sweet wonderful Liam, can single handedly ruin a picture. I write this with all the love in my heart, because frankly, I love that Liam is his own person. He is wonderfully weird and funny and oh so creative; however, when Liam was in kindergarten, for reasons unknown to me, he decided that his claim to fame would be that he is the one kid who never (and he really shoots for never) smiles in pictures. Well, sometimes to accomplish this goal, this means Liam won't even look in the general direction of the photographer for fear that he may accidentally smile at the photographer. Other times, this means that Liam will contort his mouth into any other expression trying to fight against the appearance of a smile. No matter the technique Liam uses to avoid smiling, the result is always the same...one awkward family photo.
So I had to laugh today when the salesman, who was earnestly trying to persuade me into purchasing a portrait package, simply said, "Maybe that is the best smile he can do."
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