Well, today began with a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday sung by Jeff and me to our little baby one year old! I can’t believe that Langston is a year old. Although, while feeding him this morning I looked at my watch and cringed remembering that a year ago at that time I was being wheeled into surgery! Eek! But, how could I have known what a super fun and wonderfully amazing little boy I would now know. Yay!After dropping him off at daycare I sped off to In the Image. I took a volunteer opportunity to hand out free shoes to Grand Rapids public school kids this morning. It’s actually a pretty great thing that Steelcase lets its employees do – volunteer on company time. So, I worked with families of school-aged children…helping them each get a new pair of shoes for school. Every family I worked with was Hispanic and in all but one family, only the children could speak English. It was very interesting – and very fun to send off these kids with brand new shoes. Although, it was boiling hot in there and by the end of my shift I was a total sweathog. One poor elderly woman I was working with was literally dripping with sweat. It really isn’t the heat…it’s the humidity….and the heat…that place was stifling.
Which wasn’t a good thing because after the volunteer gig I was going to pick up Langston to go
get his (our) picture taken for his one year birthday! Since 99% of the time I am the one taking the pictures, I am never in them…based on our photo collection any stranger would guess that Jeff is a single parent. I had this wonderful vision of these adorable pictures of Langston (his first professional shots) and then a few thrown in there of him cuddling with his dashing, sophisticated – yet approachable - mommy. So, I stopped at home to perk up. I put on a plain black ¾ length sleeved shirt and a black skirt (see “sophisticated” above)…touched up the make-up to make my eyes pop and diminish my wrinkles (What? You’re his mother? You look MUCH too young!) Then after picking out some outfits for him to wear and his new toy truck (a FAVORITE hand-me-down from his cousin Justin) and a couple of his books I headed off to Appletree to pick up the birthday boy.After an uneventful ride over to Pure photography (http://www.purestudiophotography.com/) we were ready for our close-up! Things started out so great….I had changed him into his totally studly khaki shorts and blue checked linen shirt…he was sitting adorably in front of the backdrop…smiling, cooing, charming the sox off all of us….oh, it was all working out so well….it was just like my vision!! Then the photographer suggested getting out the truck for him to play with. Oh my word! He just lit up…he started playing with that truck and it was like he was on fire he was so excited! Then the photographer suggested a change of scene…maybe a few with mommy (oh…well….only if it’s OK with YOU!!!) and that’s when the wheels fell off the truck, so to speak. He loves the truck so much that his only passion, from that moment on, became locating and reuniting with the truck as soon as possible. He was like the Terminator…nothing could sway him from his mission. So, pretty much any time I picked him up he started writhing and screaming….and basically became Langston crazy man for the rest of the shoot. So, I now call the event Sweathog II as I chased after him, tickling, chasing, cajoling, pulling away from the lights and cords, bribing with teddy-grahams, and then starting all over again. Oh my word…I just hope that she got a decent picture or two….I particularly hope she captured the beautiful moments of me “cuddling” Langston while he squirmed and squealed…really, he does like me…really, I promise.
After loading him back up in the car seat and turning the air conditioning on full blast I started counting down the minutes to the Heath flurry I decided to reward myself with. In the all the hub-bub I forgot about lunch and by 2:00 I was cranky and starving and convinced that every picture I’d just paid an arm and a leg for would now feature a crazed lunatic child with his sweaty, flustered, nutjob mommy.And now…I’m in the peace and quiet of work…I’ve already written to my husband to let him know that I will not be whipping up cashew chicken for him tonight…I just don’t think I’m up for it. Which shouldn’t bother him because He is very excited that the 3 foot Costco birthday cake he bought is ready for pick-up.
I stole an idea from a mall photo studio and we are going to attempt to duplicate it tonight. Get a ginormous cake decorated…dress your kid in his skivvies…plop him in front of the cake…and fire away. They’ll probably end up being cuter pictures than the ones I paid someone to take. Oh well. It should be a pretty big riot at any rate.
So, that’s the day…oh man…I can’t believe it’s already been a year!
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