Sunday was a beautiful day. Chilly, but beautiful. As I drove to church that morning and then to the grocery store that afternoon, I passed red, orange and golden trees raining down their leaves against one of those achingly gorgeous bright blue October skies.
It was the perfect day to take autumn photos of my two boys.
So, I dressed them in green sweaters and blue jeans and said “Let’s go outside and take some photos!”
Logan threw a fit.
“I’m watching this!” he howled, indicating Monsters, Inc., which he was watching on DVD for the fifth time of the weekend.
Whatever.
I grabbed Jordan and took him out for some solo photos to start with, telling Logan I’d be back in for him in a few minutes.
We headed to the neighbor’s yard, where there is a maple tree that was filling the yard with red leaves, and I plopped Jordan down in the leaves. He looked so precious! I fired up the camera and started snapping photos.
But all Jordan wanted to do is eat the leaves.
And I mean EAT the leaves. Like, “My mom never feeds me so I’m going to sit here and stuff my face with these dead leaves that can not possibly taste good.”
The more I took the leaves away, the angrier he got. Then he got cold and snot started running down his face in shiny streams that showed up like crazy in every photo. I could have cried.
I scooped him up, used the inside of my own sweater to wipe his nose and changed locations, this time under our birch tree, with his Halloween pumpkin. That meant carrying a squirming 18 pound baby in one arm and a giant, slippery dead-weight pumpkin in the other arm.
So then Jordan discovered the stem of the pumpkin and worked on getting that in his mouth. He wouldn’t look up for anything. Then he spotted dead birch leaves and had to eat some of those.
Finally, I took him back to the neat U-shaped pine tree in the back of our yard and I stood him up holding the tree. Then I danced and cooed like a fool trying to get him to look at me. No such luck.
The snot reappeared.
My camera battery died because of the cold.
I gave up and went inside.
I let Jordan warm up for a few then I took him and Logan outside. Back to the red leaves we went. I tried to get a photo of the two of them. Didn’t work. Then Logan started running around in the leaves. I tried to take a photo of a running child with a digital camera that has a delay. I got a great shot of his elbow. At least, I think it’s his elbow.
Jordan started cracking up at Logan. I tried to get a good shot of him laughing. He ate more leaves.
I moved the boys and their pumpkins back to the birch tree, this time using the wagon and hitting a pine root in the front yard, causing a huge pumpkin to roll onto Jordan’s legs, causing him to cry.
Enter our old friend, snot.
I placed both boys and their pumpkins in front of the tree. Logan would look at the camera, but Jordan wouldn’t. Logan announced he was done. Jordan ate leaves and my backup camera battery died because of the cold.
I gave up again and we went inside, where I juiced up the battery and later, sat down to review the photos.
There was no sign of that perfect fall photo I had imagined in my mind, of my two boys romping in the leaves, huge grins on their faces.
Instead, I found myself looking at different kinds of perfect photos. Perfect because they showed my boys, plain and simple, as they are every day. I love them despite their imperfections. Actually, I love them because their imperfections are just a part of who they are.
Snot and all.
Here it is: The "outtake" reel!
I'm saving the ones that turned out OK for Wordless Wednesday
So cute !
ReplyDeleteI love the "snot" and all!!!
Beautiful pictures! :D
ReplyDeleteThey are so so cute!