Picky, Picky

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Sometimes when I get the camera out, Carolyn flees and refuses to let me take her picture. I blame myself for this because I probably did too many "photo moments" as she's been growing up. She's tired of the camera now and views me as a member of the paparazzi. I feared that my days of photographing my children were over, and then Lilia came along, too small to get away from me when I want to take pictures (which is ALL the time) and suddenly Carolyn doesn't mind getting her picture taken anymore. In fact, there are some days she feels that she looks so cute that she insists on getting her picture taken. That was how Carolyn was feeling on Monday, so I got out the camera and we decided to go outside to do our photography. I was pretty excited about this because our tulips (planted by the previous owners of our home, who apparently loved yard work, bless their little hearts) are blooming, and tulips happen to be my very favorite flower. I thought it would be pretty if Carolyn sniffed at the flowers and posed around them. I explained this to Carolyn who seemed to agree with me, but once she got close to the tulip, she started to pick it. Don't pick it, don't pick it, don't pick it!! I begged. But no. It wasn't even that she was being defiant. She was just so entranced with the flower that I don't think she even heard me. She certainly didn't stop until she had the tulip gripped triumphantly in her little fist. I had forgotten that Carolyn thinks that flowers need to be picked, sort of the way people who garden think that weeds just have to go. Unbelievable. I tried to emphasize 'need' and I couldn't get the italics off. Anyway, I should have remembered this because we had daffodils pop up last month, and as soon as they would show their cheery, buttery petals, they were plucked by Carolyn. Every time we go outside Carolyn races to the side of the house where the tulips are slowly blossoming to see what she needs to pick. Yesterday she had picked a couple of tulip buds that were barely showing what color they'd like to be someday before I could stop her. She's relentless. Oh well. I guess flowers are meant to be enjoyed, and it's not like they could make a big difference in our yard at this point. (We are not really good at yard work yet)

Carolyn is going through a stage (please let it just be a stage!!) of being picky with her food too. It is so hard to get her to eat anything besides bread, toasted bread, waffles, pancakes, grilled cheese sandwiches, cookies, candy, cake, brownies, chocolate, chicken nuggets and butter. Oh, and ice cream too. Other food that we can get her to try, she'll chew and spit it out on her plate. In fact, she'll do that with some of her favorites. It is very frustrating. I try being strict, but I just can't make her eat something if she has determined that she won't. She'd rather go hungry. We've tried to force her to try a bite, but she only spits it out on her plate and cries angry tears. I'm not sure at this point what to do. We need to somehow get her to eat a better variety or else she's not going to grow and develop properly and she's going to develop an allergy to those foods. Gah!!!!!!!!

On a happier note, I'm going to get Lilia's 6 month pictures taken today. I am very excited. We're going to try a new photography studio that is fairly close to us. One of my friends from church recommended it to me, with the qualifying advice that I need to be strong when I go there. She said that they are offering a big, one pose package for $9.95, but that they will try to get me to buy more sheets or even...gasp.....a real portrait package. When I made the appointment today, the helpful sales lady that I spoke with told me about a spring value package for only $200. I think JT would kill me dead. But I'm not worried about that because I am strong. I am strong. I am strong. Yes, I shall be power chanting all day and I'll walk out of there with only their one pose portrait package, costing me $9.95 + tax. Wish me luck.

p.s. I think blogger hates me because not only did I struggle with the italics button, but I just tried to paste Lilia's picture at the bottom and it piled it on the top again. :p