Joshua & I went to Sears to get his 2nd birthday portraits taken this morning.  It went sooo horribly!  We were there 20 minutes early like they said to be, only to have the people ahead of us get there more than 15 minutes late & they took them first (this is the 3rd time that’s happened to us so I specifically asked for the first appointment of the day, which apparently it wasn’t).  Naturally, Joshua got all upset at waiting & being corralled for so long that we didn’t get many good shots.  We’d wandered around in the store but there’s only so amusing that can be to an almost 2-year-old.  After the other family was done with their photos, the little girl (also 2) was playing with a Dora the Explorer doll & stroller that were for sale just outside the portrait studio.  Joshua, being a toddler, wanted to play with the toys so he grabbed the doll out of the stroller.  The little girl took it back from him & they both got upset.  Finally, it was our turn to get pictures taken, at which point Joshua was hysterically screaming when I carried him into the studio (what a great way to start a photo shoot!).  The Sears manager kept giving me an attitude because Josh wasn’t in a good mood & didn’t have a good answer when I told her he was upset because of what had happened with us having to wait because of their policy of taking people who were late even when others were waiting.  Josh was in a good, playful mood when we got there & didn’t even get upset until we had to keep waiting (& because they never put the regular cartoons on the TV even when I’d asked).

After we were done with what photos we could get, we went out & the mom of the other kid accused Joshua of biting her daughter.  I’d seen them arguing over the doll & he didn’t even get close enough to her to bite her & I’ve never seen him bite another kid before so I told her I didn’t think he’d bitten her.  She showed me her daughter’s arm (which did in fact look like it had bite marks) & I told her that if it was Joshua who’d bitten her, then I was sorry.  She said “What do you mean “if”?  Don’t you see the teeth marks?  She hasn’t been around any other kids today so it had to be him.”  Meanwhile, the Sears manager was trying to convince her to file an incident report against us.  At that point, Joshua & I ended up leaving the studio & I said we’d go back tomorrow to look at our photos.  There was no way I could sit & look at the photos to decide one which ones to buy when Joshua was so figity & upset from being there for well over an hour (thanks to the Sears “policy”!) & the other mom was accusing Joshua of assault.  Not the most relaxing environment to go over photos.

On the drive home, I realized that Joshua couldn’t have bitten the little girl because he’s still missing 4 of his front teeth & the girl’s arm had a full set of teeth marks!  She probably did it to herself (hopefully not because the mom asked her to do it to make a fuss because she was irritated with us for being upset about them cutting in front of us for getting pictures taken).  I am not looking forward to going back tomorrow to see the photos because the same irritating manager is going to be there, but there’s not much I can do since I want his birthday portraits.  I’m so glad we didn’t go on his actual birthday because I would’ve felt bad with him so upset on his birthday.  After this time, I don’t think we’ll go back there, which sucks since it’s the cheapest place for photos with their military discount & coupons.  OK, J.C., take a deep breath…