Turning a negative into a positive

Hello again my lovely readers, I am back again with a tale of frustration with a happy ending.

So in the spirit of all things Christmassy, I wanted to get Miss K's photo taken with Santa this year. We had her photo taken last year at the shopping centre in the next town over, and the woman who took the photos was so wonderful and the pictures came out so beautiful, that I wanted to do it again this year. I should have known that Miss K wouldn't want to play. Already she goes out of her way to hide whenever a camera appears, add a strange fat man with a large beard into the mix and she loses her head.

I actually started preparing Miss K for these photos two weeks ago by going to the same shopping centre and getting her to meet Santa briefly to try and take the fear out of the situation. The company running the photo stall let you talk to Santa for free if you want, and use it as a gauge for whether or not they can get the children to co-operate long enough for a photo. Well Miss K was wary of the jolly man in red last time, but warmed up enough to actually give him a high five, and chatted to him. We then spent the next two weeks pointing out every picture of Santa or stuffed toy with a red hat on in an effort to get her used to seeing Santa everywhere, and hopefully make him a familiar figure. She even says Ho Ho Ho anytime she sees anything remotely Santa-like, which I foolishly took as a positive sign. Well the big day rolled around yesterday, and I spent the whole morning preparing her for the eventuality that she would have to sit on Santa's lap and get her photo taken. We practiced our camera faces and watched other kids get their picture taken for the ten minutes it took to reach the front of the line. But when the big moment came Miss K refused to co-operate, and even tried to throw herself out of my arms and get my big sister to come rescue her. She wouldn't even let me stand next to him while holding her.

In the end I admitted defeat and decided that no photo is worth the grief Miss K was going through and have given up on getting her photo taken with Santa this year. However thanks to the joys of Photoshop, I can still get my photo with a bit of manipulation and a few clicks of the mouse. So the picture that will grace my Facebook page this year, while not as professional as everyone else's is so much quicker and quieter to accomplish.

See? So much easier

Now it doesn't matter that Miss K looks like a giant sitting on that gentleman's lap, the important thing is that I have my Santa photo. But once I finished this picture, I realised the gold mine I was sitting on right here and decided to use my obviously awesome photo manipulation skills to add Miss K into further pictures. 

Everyone always tells me how good a dancer Miss K is, so I decided to put her up against some professionals and see how she fared.

Those are some serious jazz hands right there

I have decided to send her to auditions for real shows as soon as I can. She is clearly the most superior dancer in this photo. But in case the judges don't appreciate her talent as much as I do, I have decided to see how she would look in a proper nine to five job as well. Just so that she has a back up career waiting for her. And what better career than one in construction?

Now who wouldn't hire that??

So I have seen the future, and I'm pretty impressed. I think next thing to do is start planning Miss K's future holidays. I'm thinking Paris, or maybe Fiji. Or even Egypt. What one year old doesn't want to see the great pyramids??

And that is how you make lemonade when your daughter decides to start throwing lemons at all of your plans. 

Well that's all from me for now, I'm off to figure out how to get my daughter into the White House...