GROUP SHOT!

Back when I was a school yearbook adviser, I absolutely dreaded group photo days. (My blog readers Tara, Sarah, Angela, and Dusti will be shouting, "Amen!" since they were on staff and know how royally bonkers I would get.) There were sooooooo many hassles: kids who showed up late, the clueless who couldn't line up by height, inappropriate messages on T-shirts, slouchy postures, funny faces, "rabbit ears" behind heads, and, the cardinal sin of all yearbook pictures: middle fingers popping up where middle fingers shouldn't be. It was enough to drive me to early retirement!

So, you'd think I would know better than to try to round up my four great nephews and my great niece for a cousins picture on Christmas Day. Right? But old habits die hard, and when I found them all semi-close together, I grabbed my camera and started lining them up. "Bo, you sit down in the chair since you're so much taller than the others. Maddie, you stand next to Bo. Luke, stand on Maddie's other side, and Boomer, you stand in front and between Maddie and Luke." The older four were pretty easy to deal with, but the baby William had a squirmy little mind of his own. He wasn't taking directions, of course, so I told Bo to pick him up, and soon we were ready to go. That was the easy part.

Now for the hard part: getting everybody to look at the camera and smile at the exact time I shot the picture---and I wasn't going to be able to get very many shots because Will was ready to blast off at any second. Oh, lord. First shot, Will wasn't looking at the camera. Shot two: Maddie had her eyes closed. Shot three: Boomer had his eyes half closed. Shot four: Maddie and Luke were looking to the side. Shot five: Maddie was wiping her nose. Shot six: oh, there was no shot six because Sweet William had wriggled away from Bo's clutches. End of photo shoot.

The good news: no one flipped off the photographer.