I suck. I really, really do. I don’t know what my problem is, but it is seemingly impossible for me to keep this blog updated. I try… I think about it all the time. But something always happens… something urgent needs to be dealt with with work, I’m too tired, Jack wakes up early from his nap, I need to work out, I want to post photos that I don’t have readily available on my iPhone. –> Have you ever tried to blog with the Word Press iPhone app? It’s cool and all, but holy crap, as long as my posts usually are, it’d take me HOURS to type it all up. But I digress…

Here’s my 2009 Christmas card:

2009 Christmas Card

I personally find it quite hilarious. Especially the story behind it.

For every weekend in November and early December, I had tried to get Jack’s Christmas photos taken. The first weekend I had it planned, Jack was sick. The second weekend, I was sick. The third weekend, Jack had fallen down and had a big scrape across his forehead. The fourth weekend, something happened with Kelly. Finally, two weeks before Christmas, I took him over to Sears to get professional portraits done that they would put inside a photo card (easy-peasy, right?)  Wrong.

Because whenever a small toddler is involved, nothing ever goes according to plan.

We actually made it to Sears. But for some reason I grabbed a cart on the way back. Big mistake. HUGE. Jack wanted to push it, as he always does. So I let him. But the Sears carts are weird and the bottom bar is too close to the ground (so close that Jack couldn’t even push it). He ended up falling over. So I picked him up and took the cart away. And then came the temper tantrum.  OH.MY.GOD. It was the temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums. Within two minutes, his face was bright red, he was burning up, snot was running down his face, his hair was glistening with sweat, and he would NOT calm down.

The photographer actually asked me if I wanted to wait a few minutes and come back. Gee, ya think?  (If I wanted photos of him screaming his little head off, I would have taken him to see Santa, plopped him down in his lap, and walked off. Bwahahaha. That would have been funny, but mean. So I didn’t do it.)

I thought I could still salvage the situation if I could get him to calm down, but no go. He was on a TEAR. So, I just gave up and left. The next day, I told my sister to put him in his sweater and get whatever photos she could get. (Babies are so much easier to photograph… they can’t MOVE. Heh.)

She didn’t get a lot of good up-close candid photos before he melted down again, so I tried myself again the next day. Not happening. Suddenly realized… it was the sweater. It was making him hot, itchy and cranky. So I yanked it off and I tossed it on his head. Which he thought was funny. And as soon as that sweater was off, he was back to his normal self, ready to pose and ham it up—as you can see from two of the photos on the card. Heh!

And I’m sorry I didn’t send a Christmas letter. Or even write a little note. I literally didn’t get those in the mail until the 21st, and I had to address them and send them out the same day. I’m beating myself up about this and how it’s rude not to make notes on cards, but I’m sure I’ll live and you all will have to forgive me.