Picture Imperfect

Now that Milo is on the brink of toddlerhood and Isaiah is a bona fide preschooler, I thought it would be a good idea to have their pictures taken professionally. I wanted to make sure that I would have a record of them at this sweet time, before Milo's first step, before Isaiah can write his name, while we can still get them to hug each other without a bribe. And, of course, I would need to have these pictures hanging on the wall when both boys are teenagers. A house is not a home without pictures of kids in decade-old styles adorning the mantlepiece and hallway.

At the photo studio, I was encouraged by the giant framed photos of kids in cute poses, with glinty eyes and big smiles. I couldn't wait to have similar pictures of my own kids. I should have known when I asked Isaiah to do a few practice smiles and was shown the same face he makes to avoid soapy eyes during shampoo time, that things would not go as I had imagined. During our marathon photo session, it was nearly impossible to get both boys to look the same way, let alone smile simultaneously. Milo kept crawling off of the backdrop only to have Isaiah attempt to wrestle him back in place. Screams from the baby followed. Then, Milo decided to poop.

When I looked at the proofs, though, I was like a kid in a candy store. My gorgeous kids shined forth from the computer screen, and I ended up ordering a whole suite of poses, spending mucho bucks on many sheets of photos. When I got them home, however, I admittedly went through a bit of buyer's remorse. Maybe it's because my father is a lifelong editor, or, as the song goes: Maybe I'm just like my mother. She's never satisfied. The critic in me noticed that Isaiah's hair was little messy in all of the shots, the boys' gazes were unnaturally high in another, and Milo's red eyes gave away the fact that he was about to make a giant poop. The pictures sat in their envelope for days.

Then I had a conversation with a friend who said she had tried to take pictures of her kids together recently, and would just settle for them being in the same frame together. Her kids had run in different directions every time she had them posed. I laughed, imagining what that photo would look like: her three-year-old taking off towards the house, mouth wide open as he shrieks in delight at his naughtiness, looking over his shoulder at his little brother, who is already on the sidewalk, arms and legs lifted like a track runner's. You can only see the back of the little one's head, proof that this kid knows exactly where he wants to go.

That got me thinking that our "imperfect" pictures actually captured who my kids really are right now. I took the pictures out of their envelope again and saw Isaiah's three-year-old version of a smile -- pursed lips and squinty eyes. That's a smile we probably won't see ten, or even two, years from now, when it will replaced by one that's more practiced and polished. I studied the close-up of Milo, whose wide blue eyes have a definite deer-in-the-headlights look to them, and I recognized it as the same one he has when he gets caught crawling towards the cat food.

And the one in which both boys are looking upwards a little too noticeably? I realized that they were looking at their father and me. My husband was dancing around like a monkey and I was razzing repeatedly to get them to smile. Our little boys were watching their big goofy parents and were quite amused. Those "imperfect" pictures captured that relationship perfectly. Of course, it would be nice to have at least one shot fit for a catalogue, but the shots we have will fit right in with the rest of the family photos on our wall.