sometimes you don't feel like smiling

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Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

This really neat carved stone wheel is at the park that runs alongside the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre in Bangkok. We were there this past Saturday for the purpose of taking Sadie's official one-year photos, with the side agenda of getting a nice shot of the four of us and perhaps one of the girls together. 

I am not sure that photography brings out the best in our family; this year there were a couple of injured psyches by the time we were done, and last year, well there was some bad luck thrown into the mix ...

A year ago, our aim was to have a family photo taken to include in our holiday cards, and I think that our appointment and photo session were only about five days apart. It happened very fast! Sadie was not quite one month old, and suffering from freakishly severe baby acne and eczema. Chris and I both wanted haircuts, but I didn't manage to get that done (four weeks post-partum, you know) and was rather unhappy about my appearance. The photographer suggested that Sadie be photographed naked, which suits my aesthetics in concept, but in practice it was a dangerous decision because I was peed on three times, pooed on once, and the sleepy newborn also managed to pee on her sister once. The worst thing was that halfway through the photo session the photographer realized that her camera had malfunctioned, and the majority of the photos that she had taken at the beginning of the shoot were lost!  Those happened to be the photos of Sadie's little tiny hands/feet/ears/etc. that I was looking to seeing the most. I am still upset about that, and wish that the photographer had suggested re-doing those shots. Or that I had thought of it to suggest. Grr. 

Maybe for 2010 I will just have to learn how to take better photographs myself. At least, the mistakes won't be so expensive.