Well, we finally got all the senior pictures taken and hung on the wall. This kid didn't make it easy I tell ya.
When Gabe was a senior we decided that we would wait until he got his braces off to get his picture. That sounded reasonable. Well, that didn't happen until minutes (exaggeration) before he left for college. So he slipped away without sitting for a photographer. He came home for break and my chances were looking good and then covid...Somewhere between "After my braces come off" and "Now's a good time." child #9 decided he didn't need a senior pic. "You've already got 8 kids on the wall. It looks good." What in the world? I decided to act casual. He'd change his mind. "Tra la la" "I'm not worried" "Whenever you're ready." Unfortunately, after many months, Gabe was getting further rather than closer to agreeing to have his professional picture taken. Being the good--scratch that--mother that I am, it was time for me to take action. To show that it mattered to me, I changed the picture frame configuration from 4 X 2 to 3 X 3. I then proved that I meant business by blowing up a snapshot of his grad night and putting it in the frame.
He expressed his annoyance that other people were in his picture, but he did not consent to having his own picture taken.
My next course of action was to leverage. 1. Gabe needs to wear his retainer to work everyday. I told him that if he forgot his retainer, and I had to bring it to him, he would owe me a picture. Well, his retainer had perfect attendance at work. 2. Gabe always takes a nap when he gets home from work in the afternoon. He tends to sleep too long making it hard to sleep at night. Then he's tired in the morning so he takes a long nap, making it hard to sleep at night...I told him he needed to be awake and offering to help with dinner at 5:00. If he slept longer than 5:00 3 times he would owe me a senior picture. That kid was downstairs by 5:00 every evening. I thought I'd never get his picture, when a couple of weeks ago he came to me and said, "I'm going to give you a senior picture for your birthday, and I'm going to pay for it." That was music to my ears. What a wonderful gift. Smile, smile smile. Of course I jumped right on it. The whole event was scheduled and complete in 5 days.
1 comment:
I get it, he's go to do it HIS way! My hubby is child number 6 with some added foster kids in there, so when we got engaged he refused to consider marriage in the SLC temple. He did not want to follow any of his sibs! Luckily the Bountiful temple had just become opened...so wa-lah...that's OUR temple!
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