Monday, October 29, 2007

And it's not even Christmas

This weekend we trekked to the local mall for what apparently is a parent rite of passage: the studio photos. We picked J.C. Penny's portrait studio, mainly because I'm lazy and that's the coupon I had.

Holy crap. This is one of the worst forms of torture a parent can go through. I would choose waking up to a crying baby every 10 minutes in the middle of the night to this. We had an appointment at 12:20 p.m., and of course, everything that occurred up until that point was designed to get us there on time.

Not sure why we bothered, considering we had to wait a half an hour. It's like they expect you to be there on time, but then they can make you wait as long as they deem appropriate torture. Which is fine, if you're by yourself and not with a baby whose mood changes with the breeze.

My little pea pod did fine waiting, but since she had been changed and fed at home, she started to get tired. And the room got warm with all the people crammed into the waiting room, which made her lull off to sleep even more.

So when it was our turn, we had a bag full of really cute clothes to put her in, a well-dressed mom and dad and ... a sleeping baby. I wanted smiles and happy pictures - instead I got sleepy and borderline crabby baby.

But I have to say, the photographer was amazing. A young woman, she trilled her tongue, clapped, patted my baby and did everything she possibly could to get her attention without making her cry. I was exhausted just watching her. And our shoot lasted about 20 minutes. She had to repeat that same exercise every 20 minutes for eight hours. She should be paid half a million dollars for that job.

Once they're done, you have to wait 30 minutes so they can snazz up all your photos in the hope of getting you to spend more money, versus sticking with the $3.99 a sheet traditional portrait sheets. Ha. You can't get me that easily, J.C. Penny's!! So finally we go back, only to find the amount of children and parents in the waiting room has doubled. We fight our way through, and finally pick our photos, hand over the plastic, and leave. All told, what I thought would be an hour-long venture turned into 3 1/2 hours.

And to think I'll do it all over again in a couple of weeks. Hey, a baby's gotta have Christmas photos, right?