Finishing Summer Part 5: One Year (Almost) Photos

I distinctly remember taking Firstborn to get her one year picture made. She had just found her tongue. Cute pictures, mostly with a visible tongue. When baby #2 hit one year old, I was about 7 months pregnant. The one year photo never happened. Then baby #3 turned 1, and the kids were 3,2, and 1. It never happened either because I don't think we ever actually left the house at that point. Baby #4 really had a fighting chance to get her one year photo made, but at that point we lived in Turkey. In a Turkish studio, they do some strange things in photo shoots. We've had freckles (which we think are adorable) erased. We've had the photographer put the girls in a gangsta-rapper pose. (Suprisingly, my spell check has not vetoed 'gangsta-rapper'. That's noteworthy.) Without a doubt, we usually get some type of psychedelic background put behind them when the final pictures are printed. So, no, she didn't get a professional one year photo either. My disclaimer in all this: I take LOTS of my own photos of them. But the day before we flew out of the US, I determined to take my boy outside for a photo shoot. The sailor suit was his papa's, from 40 years ago. The rocker was bought especially for this boy. It's seat was out, so his grandparents took it to a blind man who re-caned it. I couldn't even cane a chair with a sinus infection. I have absolutely no idea how he did this. I couldn't take the rocker with me, obviously, but I wanted his one year photo in these heirlooms.

And the baseball outfit with the bat in the background was my idea of a good background. Come to think of it, he would look sort of cute in that gangsta-rapper pose, if only he could balance on those legs...