Not so cooperative...

Last Saturday Josh and I took Kaia to get her Christmas pictures taken. We'd found her an adorable dress and new shoes that she loves and insists upon wearing all the time. But we hadn't found bows for her hair. So, we set out an hour before her pictures and went to the mall in search of a red or black bow and a white bow. We seriously went into 5 stores with no luck. Including baby stores, department stores, and Claires. Who doesn't have little girls' hairbows at Christmastime? Apparently the question is who does? We finally went to Gymboree and I found a red bow and a white bow after digging through their sales boxes. I almost hugged the sales lady!! We rushed to her photo appointment and got there on time, but then had to wait for 20 minutes before getting Kaia's picture taken. She was happy and smiling and we were feeling optimistic. Then it was Kaia's turn to get her picture taken and my daughter, who has never sucked her thumb a day in her life, would NOT take her thumb out of her mouth! She would not put her hands down and she refused to smile. I tried bribing her with raisins (her new favorite food) to no avail. She'd eat them and put her hands right back up to her mouth. Josh came over to try to get her to smile, which led to a meltdown and Kaia refusing to let go of Daddy. I finally said forget it and decided to change her outfit for our family picture. She cried and squirmed the entire time I was changing her, but we finally got her other outfit on and were ready to go. We were then told we had to wait for the other room and proceeded to wait another 15 minutes for our next photo. We tried Kaia by herself at first, but she just started crying and refused to let go of me, so we took our family photo. At least she stopped crying, but she refused to smile and I felt very frustrated. We ended up only taking 28 photos and almost all of them were terrible. I felt bad for the photographer when she asked if I wanted to reschedule. I said no-I didn't want to waste another 2 hours of time and not have Kaia smile again. So I finally just ordered a family picture where Kaia was looking but not smiling because I felt it would've been a complete waste of time if I didn't have at least some finished product to show for it. As we were waiting I heard another mom (of a little boy who looked to be about 2) say she wasn't going to order any pictures because her son refused to sit and have his pictures taken. So I felt a little better knowing at least I wasn't the only one with an uncooperative child. What made me most frustrated was that she is normally such a happy girl and loves to smile, and I've never had a problem getting her picture taken. I guess it's a sign of things to come in these toddler years. The following is a picture that I took which makes me laugh because it just completely sums up the whole experience....