This took pretty much all the kids had, in terms of good behavior. By the end, we were reverting to the “smile or you’ll be punished” method of taking pictures. The thing is, how did families get PAINTINGS of their kids 200 years ago? To get a kid to sit still long enough to be painted? No wonder nobody was smiling.

We had to promise the kids we wouldn’t do it again for a long time.

Nobody likes having their pictures taken. Everyone likes seeing the pictures.

A graphic piece repurposed as a family photo. This was originally a template for a quick and dirty series of graphic pieces I created for a restaurant in Honduras.

Anyway – we did a family birthday thing back at the house. As we did for Allison’s birthday, we did a pinata (I’m too tired to find the accent characters). The video, for your viewing pleasure:

We’ve reached that, or at least one of those thresholds. I’ve got three kids. They all used pacifiers (or, as they became, somehow, binkies). In the last week, a momentous thing has happened. Madilyn pretty much gave up her binky of her own accord. She bit through the last one we could find, and we just kinda said “um . ..that’s the last one”.

Things about this that won’t make me sad to leave behind include, but are not limited to:

• Panic at 3:17 a.m. as we realize that a child is crying, and only a small, nearly invisible piece of plastic and rubber inserted into their mouth will quell the insanity. Inevitably, there is no binky to be found at 3:17 a.m. – no matter how far through the house you run looking for one.
• Since we can’t be putting anything dirty into the mouth of our kid, getting to “sanitize” the pacifier that drops on the floor. Yeah. You boil your kids pacifier in water to sterilize it. The first kid at least. For the first month. Besides, my mouth is cleaner than your floor. Or is it that your dog’s floor is cleaner than my mouth? I forget.
• Buying binkies. I asked Shana how many she thought we had purchased over eight-plus years of having them around. She says somewhere in the range of 300. That seems like a lot to me, until you figure that’s a hundred per kid, or about 30 per year. Where did all those stinking things GO? We’ve stopped at innumerable stores on road trips, because one vanished into the ether of our car, and we HAD to have one.
• Always having to have one (or eight) with us. Driving two blocks away and one of us saying “did you grab a binky?

So . . . we’ve been pacified. No complaints. Not like that the movie, either. I’m one to talk, though. I’m the one that can’t have a pen in the office without trying to eat it.