X-Man’s potty trained. As trained as a three year old boy can be. I heard him run into the bathroom with his chant “gotta go potty, gotta go potty.” And then nothing. I decided to check in on him, only to discover him hunched over. “Look Mama bug!” Yes, it’s a bug. It’s also a puddle……but nice try.

Keeping true to form, I had grand ambitions for this weekend. Grand ambitions which mostly blew up in my face. A friend of mine has a photography business and was offering a family special. So I decided to take advantage of it. I had an image in my head that I wanted captured, as a piece of wall art. But I forgot who exactly comprised my family. Like say….X-Man. And Cinco.

We arrived at the agreed upon location. A beautiful local site with plenty of background options. And also, plenty of runners. We had picked the same date and time as some race. Fortunately, the runners were away from where we planned on shooting the pictures. So we carried on.

X-Man trotted happily down to the location, but once Cinco saw the scene, she began to wail. I don’t know if it was the grass, or the beautiful summer day, or the gentle breeze blowing, or being surrounded by her family, but she was having none of it. She wasn’t interested in sitting; she was very interested in running away. And if she was going to sit, she was going to wail. Nose scrunched up and mouth wide open. A lovely image.

It occurred to X-Man that if Cinco got to run, he should as well. And so he did. But not in the same direction as Cinco, because well…..that’s where mom and dad were going.  And he would only return under very loud protest. I learned then that Cinco and X-Man can cry at the exact same pitch. It’s actually quite an interesting phenomenon.

There are some very nice shots of four of the kids. Any four. Then there are also some shots of four heads looking for Cinco. Or Cinco stretching out her arms crying as X-Man bolts from the frame.  We finally threw in the towel and decided enough of the kids’ shots, let’s get some of the whole family.

So there are some shots of the whole family. In our natural state. Cinco crying because the father figure won’t let her put her fingers up his nose. X-Man writhing and yelling “help help help.” And the older kids attempting to deny that they are related to anyone present. The father figure distracted Cinco with his sunglasses. I distracted X-Man with my bracelet. It was working, up until I heard a disturbing crunch. X-Man had started to bite beads off my bracelet. As so as she figured out that he was eating something, Cinco demanded the bracelet too. And loudly protested the all the injustices.

To top it off, we left right as all the runners finished their race. Right where we parked.  I keep telling myself that I will miss these days, that the days of babies are the easy days. But that just makes me scared. And very tired.