When I was a tiny tiny baby my parents decided I was cute enough to do the whole family-photo-thing and we all went out to a Studio and had our pictures taken. The photographer found me very expressive for just a few weeks old and used a handful of props he had laying around to capture – and then caption – a few priceless photos. He sold four of the best to the local paper and at just 3 weeks old my picture was published in the Reading Eagle!

A few years ago, while looking through old photo albums at my Grandmother’s house, I found an original proof of the pictures cut/pasted into the original newspaper copy and scanned it for posterity.  It goes a little something like this:

I was never a fan of that "Cosmetics" line.

You can click on the picture to see it in full-size. The captions – from Left to Right, Top to Bottom read:

Don’t know how Gloria Steinem stands these things.

You better start talking turkey or the deal’s off.

Someone is making a big profit from these rising gas prices.

Take back this football and give me a cosmetics contract.

I decided that I’d like to have some photos of my own baby girl captured and captioned. I have no inclination to try and get them published in our local paper – mostly because there is none – but because I can just publish them here and have them potentially seen by many many more people. =]

Last week I setup a little “Studio” in the dining room complete with a lamp and shag-like rug. I was unable to find kid-sized glasses or a 60s retro phone so I improvised. With only maybe 20 minutes of shoot time before we went from Happy Baby to Angry Pterodactyl I started snapping shots and seeing what I could get accomplished in just one “session”. I got all that I wanted and more. Seems being an expressive baby runs in the family!

Allison Grace - Ham Extraordinaire!

I only updated one caption because Ms. Steinem stopped wearing those glasses back in the 80s. I considered photo-shopping the pictures to correct little things like Heather’s hand in the football shot or the drool marks on the football but decided against it. Here is Allison as we see her and as the camera found here that morning. Here’s a few “outtake” shots that we couldn’t fit into the montage. Enjoy!

My share of the federal deficit is how much?

The AAMCO Commercial! Quick! Turn it off!

Wanna go see the Smurfs movie? Yeah, me neither.

Yeah, I made my money in Cosmetics but now I just play for the love of the game.

Glad the NFL Lockout was resolved!

Here I sit on the cusp of 2011 visualizing the baby in diapers wearing the “2011″ sash and ruminating on alterations. I’m altering the “spare bedroom” into a nursery when I think that this could be a life altering event. I’ve heard that having a kid changes everything. So far it’s only changed the paint in our smallest bedroom. And Heather’s waist measurements I suppose. Perhaps we’ll have her pants altered.

Because I’m completely out of control of the entire situation I look for the things I can control – even if they’re nearly a year in the future – like what to do about all the non-kid friendly furniture and electronics stored so conveniently at ground level?

My plan: Eventually the whole house will have to be altered. I don’t like to have to redo work so I’m not just going to childproof the house but do so in a permanent fashion. Gone will be the end-tables with lamps just waiting to be pulled onto unfused skulls. So long media cabinet filled with oh-so-shiny and tasty DVDs. Book shelves? Not a chance. Any drawers/cabinets that can’t be locked will be emptied. The kitchen will basically have to be gutted from everything below 3 feet. The solution will be shelves. Lots of them. Covering every wall. Not so high so Heather can’t reach.

But that sounds like work and I’d rather charge out to play… alas, there’s a wall of snow impeding my stampede so I’ll stay in and make a list of things to do but I wont do them because I’m too occupied making the list and thinking about snow and typing blog entries with horrendous run-on sentences, with ill-placed commas. Logically I know I must finish everything on my honey-do list and my bucket (ehem – diaper pail) list before the kid is born in April. Realistically I’ll put it off until such time as I’m actually nervous when The Great Alteration is nigh. I can’t think of a better use for nervous energy than very amateur carpentry. I might accidentally sand off my knuckles and will probably lose a finger tip to a jigsaw but I consider that preferable to having to think up baby names. *shudder*