Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Short Person

Twas the day of the Santa pictures and Short Person was excited to be going. She had an entire list of items she was going to tell him she wanted and papers she wanted to show him. Actually, I think the papers were pictures of Barbie items that she wanted. Things that they advertise with the Barbie movies she loves these days.

And while I'm on the subject of the list of items she desired let me just say that for seven months she'd been telling us that she only wanted two things from Santa-- a scooter and a doll. I asked her about two weeks ago what she wanted (just in case, you know?) and instead of spouting off the two items, she launched into a list that could have rivaled Santa's very own Naughty or Nice List. Holy Cow! That's it! Cancel the commercials and Toys R Us ads.

So, she's prepared. List, papers in hand, she's got on the dress she wanted to wear and she's had me do her hair in a headband.

We arrive at the Fire Department where the Santa pictures were to be taken and Daddy is carrying her in-- it was cold and he was trying to hide her in his coat. We go inside and suddenly Short Person wants nothing to do with Santa and no amount of coaxing is going to persuade her otherwise!

It took some doing, and lots of conversation between LJS about whether we should try another year of drop-shoot-and go! but we finally convinced her to go up with Daddy.



They tried for about five minutes to get her to look at the camera to no avail.

We got our picture and headed into the next room, where I stood Short Person on the edge of a fire truck to talk to her about needing to thank Daddy (who was about as enthusiastic about getting his picture taken as she had been). Once that task had been completed, I looked at her and asked, "Okay... what if we have your best friend Eye come join you. Will you look at the camera and smile then?"

"YEA!!"

*sigh*

So, I went ahead and called Grandma Alice to come and bring Eye. Heck, why not, right?

Eye arrives and it's a whole different little girl that I've got with me. She's excited and jumpy and...



So she and Eye get up and get their picture taken together. Then Eye gets her picture alone and then they are asking if Short Person will go up there. To which I responded, "No. She won't..."

But... She did.



Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Short Person.