"I'm a Photographer now!"

During Bren's photoshoot yesterday, she turned the camera on me!

She excitedly snapped about 50 photos,

but most of them are of me chasing her to get my camera back with not so flattering expressions on my face!

She loved it so much and couldn't wait for us to get home so I could upload them for her to see.

I heard her tell Madison last night that she was a Photographer now!

Music to my ears!

It was an incredibly bright sunny day and these were shot in full sunlight,
but I think Bren did OK for her little five year old self.

Just holding the camera with my big ole' lens was a feat in itself, but Bren managed minimal camera shake and she got me reasonably in the frame.


Now here's some of her work on the other side of the camera.....

I'm not sure if you can see the little clippie in her hair in this photo.

You might have to click on it to make the photo larger.

It's so cute!

It is made with little buttons that spell out "Bren".

It's part of the back to school line of hair accessories

from Melanie at Lil Miss Priss Bowtique.

You can e-mail Melanie at lilmissprissbowtique@yahoo.com to get one of your own.

Just tell her we sent ya!

As usual, Bren's reward for a hard days work is to get to play at the park where we shoot.

Let me tell you what playing with her at the park is like.

First of all, she pretends she is shy.

Hard to believe, but she does.

I can see that she desperately wants to play with some of the kids she sees there,

but just has difficulty making initial contact.

So, I watch her watching them.

She loudly calls to me to watch her do this or that

hoping that this will spark the interest of her desired buddy.

If they don't take the bait,

she will shadow them until they either tell her to get lost,

run away from her,

or initiate conversation.

If this attempt does not result in the outcome Bren wants,

she'll come up to me and ask me to help her.

So, the two of us start to approach the kids and she whistpers to me,

"Let's just bump into them."

What?

"Let's just bump into them, mom, and then they will play with us."

Now, it's been a long time since I have attempted to make a BFF on the monkey bars,

but I'm unfamiliar with the "bump and meet" method.

Being that I'm a little old to be bumping into little kids,

I convince Bren that simply walking up, looking interested and saying "Hi" will give her a much better result than a physical assult.

She grips my hand as we get closer to a group of girls making a birthday cake out of playground mulch.

It takes all of two minutes for the girls to ask Bren if she wants a piece of cake and suddenly, she lets go of my hand and joins their make-believe world.

When we out-wit, out-play and out-stay her new friends, she's back to playing with mom.

Do you see the expression on her face?

It looks like she's screaming with joy over the sheer velocity of her swing,

but nope.

She's singing at the tip top of her lungs.....

"I believe I can thly!"

"I believe I can touch the sky!"

"I believe I can sore!"

"See me running through that open doooooooor!"

"I believe I can thly!"

This is why her brother Zach will not take her to the park anymore.

He says to me, "Mom, she can't just swing like a normal kid. She's got to sing as loud as she can!"

Bren has always had trouble with her "f's" and sometimes her "Ph" sound.

So words like "fly" come out as "thly" and "cell phone" comes out as

"cell thlone."

It's endearing but we are working on it.

So, this selectively shy girl is suddenly drawing attention for blocks as she performs her swinging song.

Later on in the day, we went grocery shopping.

Before we went in, I sat in the van to make my list.

I've learned better than to ever go into the grocery store without a well planned list.

I had the sunroof open and antsy Bren had her head stuck out of it.

Again she was singing with all of the soul in her little body.

This time it was a song from my blog playlist.

"Should I give up?

Or should I just keep chasing pavements?

Even if they lead nowhere?!!"

Oblivious to the fact that she was once again on her own imaginary stage,

I was jolted back from the world of list making by

applause.

I looked up and four or five shoppers in a few different cars were asking for an encore!

Bren unabashedly belted out a few more lines as we headed into the store.

My mom will tell you that I deserve this little fireball of a child

for the embarrassing little songs I used to sing in stores when I was a little girl.

But that's another story for another day.