No Dice

The main thing on my agenda for today was to take Nadia and Ian to Sears for Nadia's 2 year portraits. The last time I had pictures taken just of her was 7 months ago. Her picture was taken at Sears with Ian 4 months ago. The last two appointments were with Karen. She told me last month at Ian's appointment that she was switching to a different studio. She recommended we make an appointment with Leah if we decided to stay at the same studio. I decided to try Leah once. Well I will make sure to avoid Leah in the future. She seemed irritated that we came early (even though the reminder email says to come 15 minutes early). She required me to stand off to the side so I couldn't help get Nadia to smile. She was giving Nadia instructions that were not appropriate for a child about to turn 2 years old. She took too long to take a picture, and she was waiting for these perfect poses (in terms of how Nadia positioned her hands, etc.) that just aren't going to happen in my opinion. I think Leah was frustrated with Nadia. I was frustrated with Leah. Nadia wasn't being difficult. True she wasn't smiling as easily as Ian smiles these days, but Leah also made almost no effort to get Nadia to smile. Leah is the manager of this studio. Go figure. Leah gave up and asked me to reschedule. I said I wouldn't be coming back here. I couldn't believe she gave up so quickly after all the efforts I took to get us ready and get to this appointment (baths, choosing outfits, choosing backgrounds, etc.). I had planned to have Nadia wear the pink dress for most of the photos - some with the hat and some with two barrettes in her hair. Then I planned to change her into a yellow dress and pigtails and have a couple of photos with Ian. The manager of the other store happened to be there, and she told me Karen isn't working there right now but will be back in a few months. I was sooo disappointed. I made an appointment at Walmart for this Saturday morning. I hope that works out. I plan to go to the other Sears studio in November if I can get an appointment with Karen. I hope so. She was really good. We left so hastily - since Leah said I should reschedule (even though no one was waiting in the studio after us and both kids were being well behaved), I didn't even see the pics that she took. From my brief glance when she was taking them, I think she got one good photo of Nadia standing beside the big number 2. I wish I had asked to see that picture as I might have gotten the $8 package of that photo. Oh well. Hopefully it will go well on Saturday. At least on a Saturday morning Paul can go with me. I wish my sister lived closer! I think I got a few pretty good pictures though.

The potty training update would be that everything is the same. She has had 5 accident free days in a row in terms of the hours she's not in her pjs (13-14 hours on average). She hasn't gone #2 on the potty in 6 days. She's doing it during the night. I'm hoping we have a break through on that soon. The sleep update for Ian would be that last night wasn't as good even though I still only got up with him once in the night. We never let him cry because he only woke up once, but he went to bed later and got up at 5:30am. I got at most 7 hours of sleep. Bah humbug.