Sunday, January 24, 2010

Photographing Three Children is Impossible (8 Months)

Taking pictures of two roly poly babies is hard enough, but throw Ada into the mix and I am NEVER going to take another picture of them without at least one blurred out. I was going to post a few examples (Ian and Mira fine, Ada blurry; Ian and Ada fine, Mira blurry; etc) but even when everyone is in focus, I still face the problem of getting them all to even look at me, much less to smile and not wiggle a bunch. (I think I write this every month.)

8 months
See? Only one is looking my way. 
(the Thing 1 and Thing 2 shirts came from Stephanie's mom)

Ada, Mira, Ian (8mo)
Don't even ask how Ada got Ian up like that. 
It made me so nervous I only took the one shot before running over to get him seated again.

Getting in close and taking pictures of the babies individually (and strapped into their stroller) I can get a half-decent picture or two.
Ian, almost 8 mo

Mira, almost 8 mo
Awesome sweaters by Stephanie

The big thing that happened this month is that Mira started to crawl. Actually, this only happened in the past week, but she has been threatening for a while. Mira has been practicing and doing very impressive downward dogs, but now we see forward progress. This weekend I bought a used play yard from a mother of twins whose kids have outgrown this stage. This baby fence will let one adult go upstairs to put one baby in his crib for nap without worrying that the other one will use the opportunity to pull the diaper trash can down on herself, eat the edge of the rug or stick her hand in the VCR. And yes, we do still have a VCR, and yes it basically at baby level. This may be a bit dangerous but I am secretly hoping Mira can help us figure out why the remote stopped working.  

Mira, 8 mo (crawler)

Ian is pretty mobile himself. He's perfected the roll and pivot as his preferred method for getting around. He needs to get around, because his favorite toy is pretty much whatever Mira has in her hands. My father and I laughed ourselves silly watching Mira and Ian in the bath the other day. He slapped the water and lunged at Mira while she calmly sat chewing on a bath toy and watching his machinations.

Ian, 8 mo

Now that the babies are not just nursing and sleeping, they are showing themselves to be more competitive in the race for my parents' attentions. This does not please Ada, who tried various tactics (including separating my mother from Ian and Mira by taking her upstairs) to monopolize the grandparents on their recent visit.

Ian, Mira and Ada all have their charms, and for the most part I am enjoying this period greatly. Chris just poked his head in the room to say, "remember when we were getting up several times a night to feed the babies? That sucked!" Yes, and this is so much better. The babies are fun, funny and messy, and given that Ada is more of the first two than the last thing, I know it only gets better.

9 comments:

  1. your children are gorgeous!! ada has the most darling little profile!

    xoxo

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  2. I am SO JEALOUS of the Thing One and Thing Two shirts! I used to call my twins that--and those were their (very obviously homemade) Halloween costumes when they were 1 1/2!
    And as always, ADORABLE!! All 3! And hang on tight for the competition...it's not going to go away anytime soon ;)

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  3. I say, learn to use photoshop and just stitch together a decent picture of your three babes. Or don't worry about it...the photos you get are real and funny. In 5 years these pics will make you smile way more than a perfectly posed portrait.

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  4. I'm with Kelly above. The nicely posed ones are nice, but these have a realness that I think is charming and cute.

    Also, your kids are SO adorable.

    I'm glad the sweaters fit now...though the twins are bigger than I anticipated they'd be. I assumed the sweaters would fit in, say, March. So, nice job you, making big, healthy babies.

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  5. Gosh, they're growing! I find it nearly impossible with just two, unless the lights good enough for a really fast setting.

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  6. I think you did okay with the pictures. Maybe because you have such cherubic and darling models.

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  7. I need to believe that photographing even a mere two children at the same time is nearly impossible!!! I enjoyed reading your update - eight months is a fun age. And my, that photo of Ian sucking his fingers is stunning!

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  8. Best advice - be prepared and catch them when they are not expecting it.

    Betty

    Betty A. Muscott, Child Photographer

    <a href="http://realkidsphotography.com>RealKidsPhotography.com</a>

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