Family Pictures

 

As the poet Robert Burns said, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley.”  Modern people usually say, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” but the idea is exactly the same.  No matter how hard we plan, things frequently don’t go the way we want them to.

Usually because of the kids.

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I take some satisfaction from the fact that I’ve had a little bit to do with encouraging one of my daughters-in-law to get into photography.  It wasn’t long after I loaned her a quality camera that it became obvious her talent far exceeded mine.

It doesn’t hurt my feelings at all.  After all, her talent means Annie and I get some really incredible pictures of a couple of our beautiful grandbabies, Pfiefer and Payden.

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I was tickled recently to find that Erin had uploaded some pictures of those little natural-born models to Facebook.  In the note that accompanied the photos she explained that she hadn’t touched-up the images, despite the fact that Pfief had a particularly obvious case of chapped lips.  As Erin said, chapped lips are part of a kid’s life, right?

I only read a few of the many comments that people had posted but they all pretty well mentioned one or both of two ideas.  One, that my grandkids are absolutely adorable.  I agreed wholeheartedly.  Two, the parents all commented that kids frequently have some kind of “ouchies” or maladies.

As the father of six, I can vouch for that.  We took a lot of pictures of our boys and got family photos taken as frequently as we could.  One day, as we were looking at some of them, Annie commented that, in every single family photo, at least one of the boys had some kind of a scratch, bruise, or scrape on his face.

On his face!

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In those pre-social media days it occurred to us that somebody might think we were abusive parents.

Both her parents and mine assured us otherwise.  They all laughed and responded with some form of, “Kids always have injuries.”

Nonetheless, I set my goal to get a family portrait with no visible injuries.  Anybody who knows boys, especially ours, knows what a major task I had undertaken.

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The very next time we had an appointment to get a family portrait taken, we started the day ouchie-free.  We headed to town for a quick errand with plenty of time before the appointment.  Our two oldest boys, Scotty and Beezer (J.B.) were riding in the truck with us.  As usual, they alternated between arguing and playing in the back seat.

With little more than an hour to go, I felt safe in observing, “Wow, did you realize none of the boys has any kind of injury on his face?”

Annie gave me a mock horrified look and said, “Don’t even SAY that!  You’ll jinx us!”

My sweet wife should get a job working for the Psychic Friends Hotline because at that exact moment, Scotty squealed, “My nose is bleeding!”

I don’t know which she did first but somehow she was instantly unbuckled and twisted around in the seat, grabbing a tub of Hiney Wipes.

In those days we already had four sons…and we ALWAYS had Hiney Wipes.

As she tried to stem the flow and at the same time prevent the blood from dripping on Scotty’s dress shirt, I asked a stupid question, “Why is your nose bleeding?”

My son’s voice was muffled as he spoke through a moving Hiney Wipe, “Beezer hit me.”

“Beezer!” I scolded, “WHY did you hit your brother?!”

J.B. hesitated a moment before he replied, “Because Scotty told me to.”

The response didn’t make me any happier.  “Don’t even THINK I’m stupid enough to believe that.”

I prepared to launch into a good scolding about not only hitting his brother but lying about it too, when Scotty piped in, “I did tell him to, Dad.”

What the…?  What?

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Miraculously, Annie got the blood flow staunched without getting any on Scotty’s shirt except where it would be hidden by the neck tie we had yet to attach.  After I had managed a half-hearted scolding about hitting your brother even if he told you to, and also about telling your brother to hit you, we took stock.  Scotty’s nose was a little red, whether from the punch or from the vigorous cleaning with a Hiney Wipe.  But it should return to its more or less normal color before the scheduled shoot.

About the time we pulled into the driveway Annie had settled back into her seat and sighed, “Whew!  I can’t believe we got out of that without something visible, and we’ll get the pictures done in half-an-hour.”

It was my turn to flash a mock horrified look and exclaim, “Don’t even SAY that!  You’ll jinx us!”

I guess Annie and I could sit side-by-side at the Psychic Friends Hotline.

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We both chuckled at my teasing and, at that exact instant, the boys squeezed out from behind the seat of my Isuzu P’up and raced toward the door of our farmhouse.  Just as I yelled, “Don’t run or you’ll fall down!” Beezer did just that.

J.B. couldn’t trip and fall in just the relatively soft dirt of the yard.  Oh, no.  He couldn’t even land on the relatively smooth concrete of the sidewalk.  Of course not.  No, Beezer fell on the soft dirt of the yard between the sidewalk and the planter by the door…the CONCRETE planter…

The one his face hit.

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Needless to say, the photographer did a good job getting all of the boys to look at the camera and smile.  He captured their absolutely adorable cuteness…as well as the bright, shiney still-seeping scrape on Beezer’s cheek.

“Maybe next time,” I thought.  “Maybe next time we’ll get a picture with no visible injuries.”

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Well, the good news is we finally did get a family photo with no ouchies.  Of course, we had to wait until the oldest boys were nearing their twenties.  But it’ll be a long time before we accomplish that feat again.  After all, we’ve got eight grandkids so far, and they’ve shown that even the girls have taken after their daddies.

Yep, there’s always an ouchie on one cute little face or another.

Right, Pfiefer?

 

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(below) Here’s a bad scan of the family photo we had made that day.  Of course that’s me and Annie and Bobbie and Travis are the twins.  J.B. and Scotty are in the middle.  Can you tell which one is Beezer?