I ran into a friend recently at the JCC who asked me how in the world I manage to capture such "perfect" pictures of my kids. I laughed and told him that I have a few secrets. One is to take 100 pictures and only post the best few - very few! And the second is to ask the kids to be outright silly in some pictures so they get it out of their systems. And the third is to have some silly sayings that make them smile and laugh using their real expressions instead of saying just "smile" and getting their contorted, contrived, and frankly rather frightening fake smiles. My current weapon to produce real grins is to say "Don't think about my butt!" This is apparently really funny to them and usually results in a genuine grin. Of course, this begs the question of what, exactly, is just so funny about my butt.
So for example.... the picture that went to Facebook looks like this (my beautiful happy boy on the beach):
But first I had to endure this (Dash's fake smile results in closed eyes 100% of the time):
And this (purposeful silliness):
And then I told my friend that some days I just get nothing but crummy pictures. And I remind myself that in 20 years what feels like a crappy set of photos to me today will be a precious reminder of a time when these little people were small. So I just keep taking the pictures and hope for a few gems that really capture who they are in this moment.
