This chaotic picture of a Christmas Card photo shoot gone terribly wrong is really funny today -- despite the looks on our faces, neither Chuck nor I found it all that amusing in the moment. I had recently left political office after having lots of folks criticize nearly every decision around parenting & work I made -- or at least it felt that way. I clearly, if this picture is to be believed, had gotten really good at faking normalcy! And Chuck has always been good at not saying "I told you so." This particular day I had somehow decided that driving over an hour to get a professional photographer in Great Barrington (I don't even remember where I found this guy) to do a family Christmas card was a good idea. Now, there are two other really bad/sad/almost funny if they weren't true parts of this story. 1. On the drive home after the photographer blessedly gave up trying to get a good shot, we were almost killed by a driver who probably fell asleep but crossed the road and narrowly missed our minivan. At the time, I was thinking it would have put us out of our misery. 2. We got this picture and about 40 other glossy prints just like it -- not a single one with the Hallmark shot I had envisioned -- with a bill for somewhere around $1000 in the mail about a week later. Yikes. I had also neglected to ask Mr. Fancy Photographer what this photo shoot was going to cost. To this day I have no idea if that was his going rate or combat pay, but Chuck was not so amused to pay $1k we didn't have in discretionary income for a bunch of pictures we couldn't use. Truth be told, with an almost 5 year old and twin 2 plus year olds, we had quite a few hours, days, weeks, months and even a few years that looked like this. And the thing that used to make me as mad as Chuck was at the $1k bill were the well intentioned women with grown children who would look at me with 'that' look on their face and say, wistfully, "Enjoy it, it goes so fast." I never punched one of them -- that is the real Christmas miracle.
So, today, I finalized purchasing the digital rights to these:
Yup, we actually did survive. Found a better Christmas photographer (@jennifermardus !) who will laugh and not be surprised by the chaotic shot above -- we definitely gave her a run for her money some years! She never charged us $1k (I hope she won't start now!!!) even though I am certain we were her most difficult family photo many a year. And, she did a phenomenal job on our oldest, Elizabeth's senior picture, and now for Lauren and Sarah's senior in High School pictures. And guess what? Those damn wistful moms were right!
Because I have been blessed professionally with the honor of working with many, many talented young women and so many of them have welcomed me into their lives I have had the pleasure of watching them become mothers. Many of them are working the work/life integration so elegantly that it takes my breath away but they still often ask for my advice at times. It is, I must confess, all I can do, not to tell them to enjoy it because it goes so fast. The closest that I have come is in equating parenting to political campaigns -- the longest days of your life which added together become the shortest months of your life. So the time compression in the midst of the chaos is real.
But behind those wistful observations, at least for me, is something else. It is wishing you could help those harried moms with some perfect advice to glide less frantically through those botched photo sessions. To feel less guilty about the missed piano lesson because you stayed cuddled on the couch too long on a rainy day. Or to go ahead and raise your hand and volunteer to chaperone another field trip that is going to make your work colleagues crazy about an early departure again on a beautiful fall Tuesday. And to know even when you do all those things wrong and they have told you more than once in a day in more ways than you thought was possible that they hate you and the horse you rode in on, that it will all be worth it and it will still be the best, hardest and most soul wrenching and rewarding job you have ever done.
My friend Kathy sent me this picture to wish me a Happy Halloween:
The three 'medium' sized girls are sophomores in college. Pink and Yellow are the seniors above. The statue of liberty is a college GRADUATE. And the littlest one is in the middle of her college search. My text reply was something to the effect of hoping we realized how FUN those days were and that we were enjoying it. Kathy reminded me her sink pulled off the wall that night and Chuck had to fix it (temporarily for the party, then came back the next day I think) and Sarah saw the picture (pink) and asked how could I have let her place her wig so poorly???? So, yeah, we were probably as frazzled as we looked in the Christmas photo, the kids just behaved a little better because they knew the picture was all that stood between them and candy. I hope the moments, as frazzled as they were, are part of why my daughters still love not only Halloween, but living back in our hometown and why it has such a feeling of 'home' and community. And at least we occasionally get some good pictures to post, right?
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