Wednesday, September 7, 2011

She's Ready For Her Closeup Mr. DeMille

The bambino LOVES getting her photo taken. It is virtually impossible to get a candid image of her because she hears the camera turn on or focus, and she turns her head and smiles. She's done that to me even when we were in a coffee shop and she was busy concentrating on walking up a few stairs and I was on the other side of the room, still she heard my camera and looked up and smiled.

Of course, between Grammie and Grampie, Nana and Pa, Aunties Trina and EJ, and Auntie C, she kind of has her own personal cadre of paparazzi, we may have inadvertently encouraged the development of this camera-loving behavior. :)

And ironically, the one time she really did not want her picture taken was when they took a family portrait for the church directory. Breen and Patrick look absolutely lovely but the bambino is a complete grumpy gus in that photo, nothing they tried could get her to smile for it.

In any case, Patrick did a big and epic wedding this past weekend (groom is a fire chief, the extensive wedding party rode to the reception in a caravan of firetrucks), and as it was a family their whole family knew well, Breen and bambino went to the wedding and festivities too.

Apparently, the bambino became quite upset that she was not included in the official wedding photos - after all, everybody she knows loves taking her picture, and she loves having her picture taken, so clearly she should be in all these photos, and these silly people weren't letting her be in any of them! She got so upset, Breen finally had to take her out of the church and drive her around in the car until she fell asleep!

I'm cracking up imagining her inner monologue at that point: "Must stay awake. . .must be in pictures. . .but getting so. . .sleepy. . .car. . .you are. . .evil. . . .can't. . .fight. . . .the nap. . . . .any--zzzzzz"


Not to worry, bambino. This member of your entourage will see you soon enough, and I will more than make up for the lack of picture taking this past weekend. I'm sure I'll even let you run around with my camera again, because we both know you've had me wrapped around your little pinky since the day you were born. :)

3 comments:

Cat's Staff said...

Hmmm....not wanting to be identified with the church... I haven't talked to her, I swear!

Speaking of kids and church and weddings and such... are ELCA pastors required to be up to date on their vaccinations? Especially pertussis? Especially if you're presiding at baptisms? Cases are rising because people used to think the vaccination lasted for life, now we know it wears off. Infants can't get vaccinated right away, and even then it takes a few doses.

Catrina Ciccone said...

She's a double PK and two of her four godparents are also pastors. . .she's destined for either a life of devout service to the church or the wildest rebellion you've ever seen. :)

In reality I think she was cutting her first teeth when they took the picture in question, poor kiddo. Not that the having teeth isn't awesome, but the getting of teeth kind of sucks.

There are no requirements about vaccinations but our health insurance is constantly pushing us to be "healthy leaders" and strongly favors preventative medicine, so vaccinations are free (at least, basic ones are - I don't know about exotic ones for international travel).

I know my friend Kristin, who just started a PhD in NJ, had to get all her vaccinations updated, by NJ state law. I'm thinking that's maybe because she's a *student* in NJ because I don't remember Sarah and Rob saying anything about having to do that just for moving there.

You get the pertussis booster when you update your tetanus shot, right? My thinking is most would be up to date on that, but it would be an interesting statistic to find out how many really are.

Cat's Staff said...

It looks like NJ college students under 30 years old are required to have similar immunizations as Minnesota college students. Presumably, Luther required you to fill out the form for that when you enrolled since it has more then 100 students (unless you graduated from HS after 1997 or were enrolled in college in MN before and they have your records).

I notice that NJ's exemption requirements are a lot tougher. In NJ if someone wants to claim a 'religious exemption' they have to "explain how the administration of immunizing agents conflicts with the student‘s religious beliefs". In Minnesota the conscientious objector provision says all you have to do is say you don't want them, no explanation needed. Normally I hate the idea of the government having religious tests for anything, but in this case if it makes people less likely to casually opt-out, and it applies to everyone equally, I guess it's okay. Of course there are anti-vaxers there protesting.

Many people who have had the tetanus shot got the TDaP (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis), but the tetanus-only shots do exist. If I were down at HQ in Chicago, I would want paperwork on file showing that everyone was current (legitimate medical exemptions excluded). It would be hard to claim a religious exemption. The worst case PR scenario would be a pastor who contracts pertussis one day, does a baptism the next day without having the full-blown symptoms and passes it on to the infant, then the next Sunday there's a note in the bulletin saying "Pastor Ødegård ice ut sick thees veek, og Babyen Knutsen has passed avay."