A New Look

I was having a particularly trying day last week, and of course told Rob all about it that night.

The low point came when it was time to pick up Emma from school and the little girls did not want to come without shoes on. In spite of the fact that it is literally around the corner, and I was driving there, so shoes were really not necessary. Hannah finally found a matching pair she liked, but Sabrina could only find one of every shoe she has. Hannah put her shoes on the wrong feet, but at least she was ready to go. I finally handed Sabrina a pair of dress up shoes and said, “just wear these.” As soon as Hannah saw that, she had to have dress up shoes too.

“Mom! I don’t want these shoes! I want dress up shoes!”

“No, Hannah. You already have shoes on, I’m not going to look for dress up shoes right now.”

“Mom! I don’t want these shoes!” Wailing and flailing of limbs follows.

“You can look when we get back. Let’s go!”

Hannah is following behind me and Sabrina in bare feet repeatedly yelling, “I want princess shoes!” with tears and stomping as we head through the garage to the van. Sabrina slips and loses her shoe. “Gwass Swipper” she wimpers and starts to cry. Do you think I enjoyed the irony of her losing her glass slipper just like Cinderella? nope. I started my angry Mom voice.

“That’s it! Nobody is wearing any shoes.” And I pick up Sabrina, take her other shoe off and throw it on the ground next to the one that just fell off.

I buckle the girls in their seats while muttering to myself, and we drive the two blocks to the school. Both girls are crying and yelling out various things regarding their shoes, and I am seething. Emma isn’t quite out yet, so we wait a few minutes while the screaming continues and I start telling myself to calm down so I can be pleasant to Emma when she gets in the van. After all, it isn’t her fault. I manage to calm down and be normal to Emma and we have a brief exchange about her day while trying to ignore the noise behind us.

As soon as we pull in the driveway, I inform Hannah and Sabrina that they are both going straight up to their beds for naps, and there will be no stories. I walk them to their beds, watch them get in and close the doors to more screaming. I hear Hannah yell, “Mommy is so mean today!” And I say to myself, “That’s right, and I don’t feel bad about it…”

The next morning Rob gave me strict orders not to look at any emails from Amazon, and then on Mother’s Day I found out why. He ordered me a new camera lens. I’m not sure what it was about my experience that motivated him to get it, but I have been trying it out, and just love it. Maybe he knew I would be taking pictures of the kids and hoped I would remember why I love them so much. So here are some samples. I think I take pictures the same way I was before, but this lens makes them look better. Not sure why or how, but it’s cool: