Our first professional Isaac photo

Isaac has had his school picture taken professionally, but that was all behind-the-scenes work as far as I was concerned. While we are home, my mom wanted to capture the baby beauty once more for posterity, now that he is older and has "personality." We decided to go to Target, who is running some killer specials from their picture studio right now. And since J.C. Penney was going to make us wait until tomorrow. We just can't plan that far ahead until Isaac gets his own Palm Pilot. We also decided we should go as early as possible, and as soon as Isaac had eaten, to minimize the possibility of fussiness.

Can you ever really be prepared for the melee that is having your almost-9-month-old's picture taken? We brought two outfits to choose from, thinking naively that we might have gotten pictures of both -- his three-piece-suit and a new number from Grandma Jane, a red corduroy Tommy Hilfiger shirt with navy corduroy pants. This also required two pairs of shoes and socks. We left the house with him in the corduroy pants and a place-holder shirt, trying to keep one step ahead of the spit-ups/runny nose. He fell asleep in the car, not five minutes before we pulled into the Target parking lot. As he slept, we realized that the brown shoes we had for him, which fit him okay a month ago, were now too small, so Grandma Jane went and bought some new shoes for him as I sat in the in-Target Starbucks with a sleeping baby on my shoulder, 20 minutes away from our picture appointment. We woke him up 5 minutes before P-time to change him into his special Tommy shirt, and lo and behold he has an enormous line on his face from sleeping on the seam of my sleeve. But we do get his shoes and shirt on, we are ready to go. Isaac is rested, fed, and looking cute as can be (minus the line on his cheek, anyway).

Candy, our photographer, however, is not ready to go. She is photographing a family of four, whose 20 minute appointment before ours ran 20 minutes over. Meanwhile, I am chasing a delighted Isaac all over the floor of the studio, but I know that the window of opportunity can't possibly last long. And it doesn't. He was cool with this Candy person until she, like an idiot, tries to pick him up. I mean, duh. He doesn't know her, and he's nearly 9 months old, in the throes of separation anxiety. He can't even stand being held by Dad when there's a perfectly good Mom standing right over there that can hold him. So he breaks down into a screaming fit and won't let go of my hair and shoulder until Grandma, the genius she is, runs out to the car and gets one of his newly-acquired ADD toys. This distracts him enough so we can get two fabulous shots of him standing up, but then he melts down again. Candy suggests we strip him down for a nekked baby shot, but he again won't let go of me. Another brilliant Candy suggestion -- let's get me and baby in the picture then. Since I've not brushed my teeth and don't have any make-up on or anything. We got a couple of shots off with me, then, including an actually cute one where you can see Isaac in his favorite pose, clinging to my shoulder like a monkey, happily teething on my hair. When we eventually went back to the house, Dad was trying to give us some lip about how we didn't get a picture of him in the outfit we bought solely for pictures, and I told him to bite me. Let him try this whole picture nastiness himself, I said, and see what he gets done.

In 10-14 business days, his pictures will be available to see on the web, and I'll post the info on how to look at them for all y'all. In the meantime, I *won't* be counting the days till it's picture time again.