A Thousand Words

Betty is a happy baby. As devoted The Daily Betty fans know, we have no trouble getting pictures of her beautiful smile (actually smiles--she has lots of different ones). Even so, I was skeptical that we'd be able to capture Happy Betty in her professional 3-month portraits. I was right to be concerned.

The problem is that Farmville doesn't offer much in terms of photo studios. I happen to love JC Penney, so I wanted to go there. Mainly I just wanted to get a pic of Betty on that bed of roses they offer. Sears (in Lynchburg) and WalMart (in Farmville) do not have a bed of roses. The nearest JC Penney with a portrait studio is 70 miles away on the Richmond side of Midlothian. In the end, I should probably have just gone to the local WalMart because what good is a bed of roses when the baby you want to put in it is screaming?

Astonishingly, everything went exactly according to plan: Betty had breakfast, and, when it was time to nap, I put her in the car and off we went. She slept all the way to Midlothian. When we got there, we were the first appointment of the day. She had a bottle. By all estimations, we should then have proceeded to have a fun and smiley photo shoot.

But...these days Betty's been taking a good morning nap in her crib. Napping in the car just isn't as restful. When she finished her bottle she started to cry. Now, you may recall me saying recently that one of the things we love about Betty is how when she cries, she says "wah," and that if she's crying and we pick her up she settles immediately. Neither of these things held true today at the JCPenney studio. Betty screamed and screamed and screamed even with me holding her. She screamed so loud and so much that the lady in the Optics section came over and told me that my baby has colic. (She does not have colic, but thank you for your concern).

The photographer was awesome--so patient and nice. Since she didn't have anyone else booked until noon, she suggested I take Betty around the store in the stroller. This actually did calm her down enough to take some photos. We got a couple of her in a white nightgown against a white tulle backdrop. I ended up holding her in some of them--if/when you see the pics you'll be able to see from my hair that I was not expecting to be photographed. (I did, however, wear a white shirt just in case my arms needed to go in the picture. For that foresight I'm grateful). Then I changed her to her overalls for the bed of roses. Betty soon started crying again though, so we eventually had to give up. In one of the only good bed of roses pics one of my long hairs is stuck on her face and JCPenney doesn't do retouching.

When I went to the kiosk to choose which prints I wanted to order, Betty fell asleep in my arms. We rushed back to the bed of roses to try to get a sleeping baby shot, but Betty woke right back up and cried some more. I didn't really have many pics to choose from, which is fine since it's hard to choose while holding a crying baby. I ended up buying a whole bunch anyway, since it is a milestone--you can expect them as gifts in the near future. And there were a few cute ones, though they don't capture Betty's bettitude the way the daily shots here on the blog do. Here's just one of the many outtakes--I think Betty looks a lot like Hannibal Lecter in this photo. We did, however, get a good picture of her adorable feet (something that has eluded me). And it was good to have an outing together, just Mommy and baby. All in all, I'm glad we went, but I don't know if we have the stamina to do it all again in 3 months.