Howard Family, Party of 5

"The attachment to expectation is a root cause of human suffering."

That quote rang true with me when I heard it a long time ago....but I can't remember who said it.  Then I found the quote on the internet, but it still wasn't attributed to anyone.

But anyways, life showed me how true it is, twice in one weekend!

Once at a Dollar Tree store, and then at the temple where I was trying to take some sweet photos of Mallory to use for her baptism invitations/program/etc.

I expected it would be fast & easy,

I expected that the lighting would be perfect,

I expected I'd be able to get super sweet close-up shots of Mallory with the entire temple in the background,

I expected Mallory would look precious and serene for a full 45 minutes,

and

I expected she would not throw a fit.

So instead of dealing with things as they were, I was all flustered and upset because I pictured it being one way and it was not turning out that way.

Clearly I can't put that picture on an invitation with the words "you BETTER come to my baptism".

And for the first 10 minutes, every shot was like that.  Well some were worse..... in some she was literally crying, in others the shadows were bad like they are there, and the more upset I got, the more upset SHE got (go figure).

 

Evnetually we both had to take a break and regroup.

 

During our break, I was telling myself "I cannot spank my kid at the temple, I cannot spank my kid at the temple...."

And, miraculously, I did not.

What I DID do, is:

I moved to a different spot where the lighting wasn't at harsh.

I gave up trying to get the temple in the shots, even though that's what we drove 30 minutes up there for.

(That building is huge and from anywhere on the temple grounds it's impossible to capture the whole thing, at all.  Plus if you're able to get enough of the building in the shot to be able to tell WHAT it is, Mallory would have to be so far away that you couldn't even tell WHO she is.  Which defeated the purpose.)

I let go of caring that her hair had un-curled and gotten messy during the 20 minutes it took us to get on track.

(Well I still kind of cared about that, because I had her hair curled really cute!!)

I stopped telling her how to pose, I stopped trying to get her to pretend that she is a different kid than she is.  Because "serene" is not a word I would use to describe her, BUT that doesn't mean she isn't sweet and loving and kind and funny and perfect in her own way.

 

  

 

So don't feel bad for me (or her)....I took a total of 386 pictures, 3/4 of which were not only "useable" but lovely and sweet and "baptism-y" as could be.

At the end, I was happy with the shots I got, and Mallory was happy....that it was finally over.  :)