That said, he is the most non-photogenic cute child I've ever met. I don't know why. When I asked him, he said it's because he's always making goofy faces (true). He also doesn't like the flash, and manages to shut or half-shut his eyes in virtually every photo. (He's lucky to live in the digital camera era -- I end up deleting and re-taking most photos.)
It's kind of a joke now. I tease that when he gets married, I'll present a slide show of the silly school and sports pictures with half-open eyes, closed eyes, cheesy grins and otherwise unusable photos.
When he DOES take a good picture, we rejoice. He took a super good one with Santa this year, and I praised him all up and down about it.
The reason I bring this all up is because Mark got a passport. (You can see where this is headed...) I took him into the post office, where the woman looked over our paperwork and gave me a small heart attack by taking away Mark's birth certificate. (Yes, the one I waited 14 months for -- she just filed it in the stack of papers to send off to the government office.)
When all his papers were in order, she sent us out to the hallway to take Mark's passport picture. She told him to smile, which he did. But she didn't tell him to open his eyes, so the picture came out eyes closed.
"That's okay," she said patiently. "That's the beauty of digital pictures. We can take another one."
Which she did. Then did again, because his eyes were still closed. By the eighth picture, she was not feeling quite as patient, and she barked, "Come on, kiddo, just open your eyes!"
I could tell she was getting frustrated, and the pictures were getting worse. I had to help out, or the kid would never get a passport!
"OK, Mark, try this," I told him. "Close your eyes, and when I count to three, open them REALLY WIDE and smile." I figured that would cut down the chances of another closed eyes picture.
"One, two, three!" I counted, and the flash popped. But Mark didn't open his eyes quick enough.
"I thought you meant after three, not on three" he said.
"It's okay," I said. "Try again."
We tried another three pictures, and finally, we got one. The post office lady showed me the picture, which wasn't all that great -- his eyes were, indeed, open wide (even bugging out a little!) and he was wearing a silly grin.
"Well, at least his eyes are open," I told the lady, and she shrugged okay. We realized it was probably the best we were gonna get from him.
We went back to the passport desk and she brought in printed copies of the photo. They looked even funnier printed than they did in the camera. Mark and I immediately started giggling, and I reminded him that he'd have this passport for five whole years.
"Imagine when you're 13," I said. "You'll hand over your passport, and laugh at the goofy little 8-year-old in this picture!"
He laughed too, and said he'd throw it away as soon as it expired. I said oh no he wouldn't -- I'm gonna keep that hilarious passport forever!
Hopefully, he doesn't have a future of bad government-issued photo IDs (yeah, I'm talking about you, driver's license!) to look forward to.
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