Family Pictures...

I have always had such a love hate relationship with professional family pictures. I feel like I stress out more for family pictures then most things in life. It's weird. The other side of the stress is the love I have when I see them, mostly for other families. I love seeing all of the families smiling, happy, running around looking like models in their best dressed clothes. The pictures are truly beautiful and such amazing keepsakes for years to come. After the monumental loss of my brother at the age of 29, I really have a much deeper appreciation for all pictures. Maybe that is why these types of pictures, I put so much weight on? I'm not sure how it works for the inner me but I know it has something to do with the importance of pictures in my eyes.

Rewind a couple years ago, professional family pictures were not on my radar because of Alley. I didn't see how they would be successful, I didn't want to add more stress and frustration to his daily feelings that we already had going on, and honestly I didn't want to pay a ton of money for our family pictures to not look like everyone else's on social media at the time. It's another one of those "things" that I felt our family couldn't do because of Autism. And probably another thing that most families with typical children take for granted that they can say to their child "smile Bobby" and boom Bobby smiles on demand! Wow, that is amazing.

I remember talking to my sister when Alley was about two years old. She explained that her and her family were getting pictures done by this photographer who does wonderful work with children. I was so envious that she had the ability to tell her children to smile, and they would grin from ear to ear. Her take was that I should call her also and just snap some pictures of the family. I again explained how there is 100 things that could go wrong trying to force these pictures on Alley, in which she was ready for her rebuttal and it got me good. She went on to say that maybe out of the 150 pictures she will take, if three come out great, isn't it worth it to have those? Well, they always say older sisters know best right? She was right, and I booked the pictures.

Our first round of pictures when he was about two was just that. About 95% of them were not great, someone was not looking, someone was crying, one of us was trying to parent, they were just what we expected. As a new mom, I didn't realize how quickly toddlers grow out of shoes. I should have tried Alan's "dressier" shoes on a week before, but of course I did not. They were too small on him but we didn't realize it until a meltdown ensued and he was a statue. He wouldn't walk. He wouldn't move. He just stood there crying and yelling. Looking back, I should have just taken the damn shoes off. But I honesty didn't realize that the shoes were the problem in that moment. This was the worst decision I could have made. He literally lasted maybe ten minutes and the rest was awful. However I did get a couple actual good ones. So after that session we kind of got turned off from family pictures. It wasn't worth it to us at the time to upset Alan.

Two years went by, we added Joey to our family in the meantime, and we knew we needed updated family pictures that included all five of us. Just like everything on this journey, you learn, you grow and you pivot. We lucked out with this one. I coach basketball at a local high school and my varsity coach (basically my boss) took up photography as a hobby. She asked me many times to take pictures of our family and I continuously turned her down because I knew they could go so badly and I didn't want to waste her time or effort. She again convinced me to have them done and I knew we should. Alan is familiar with her, and maybe it wouldn't be so much pressure on all of us to get the perfect family photo.This session is actually the picture you see on the top of the page. We went to a local farm, did some pictures and boom, Alley was upset. Scared. Terrified of the big silos and structures on the farm. I didn't see this coming. He wouldn't leave the side of that barn for a little bit. We worked through it, finished the session and she did such an amazing job. She must have taken 300 pictures this time because she knew the more we had the better chance at getting a couple great ones of all five of us.

A year later after this session is now and we just had our family pictures taken again with her. We were brainstorming where to go and both decided it would be best if we did the same location in hopes that the familiarity of the farm would work in our favor. My husband wrote a little social story for him to know what we were going to do and the expectations of the pictures. We felt good about this time around, or should I say hopeful. I was so focused on Alley doing well that I forgot my third child is a level ten tornado at times, and why wouldn't family pictures be one of those times to act out of his mind? Jokes on me. Alan was simply amazing. This was the absolute best he has done. He looked so relaxed, happy and mature to me. We were the proudest parents of him. It just makes me reflect in situations like this that we have tried before and have always always always come up short with Alan. This time was different, I said smile, and he smiled. He listened, he was patient and attentive. And I couldn't ask any more of that young boy then what he gave. Joey on the other hand....he needs work... lots of work.... :) Take the pictures, they ARE worth it.

With grace-

This Autism Mama