For my birthday all I wanted to do was to take a nice picture of the four of us. I thought after my angio on the 24th I could take a card and a small picture to the nursing stations familiar with my AVM in January. A cold got in the way of our plan last week (three colds, actually), so we decided to try the photo today.

David was game but Carmen was absolutely not interested in getting her photograph taken. Normally in love with her image on the LCD camera screen, she cried at the telephoto lens and bright flash. Toys, jokes, and multiple opportunities to admire herself on the LCD didn’t persuade her to change her mind.

Until Matt said, “Carmen, after Carmen takes pictures, we can eat at the restaurant.”

“Okay,” she said, and looked into the lens.

She wasn’t smiling, but we got our picture taken, and by that point that’s all we really wanted.

(Trying to persuade Carmen that Daddy and David liked having their picture taken.)

(Feeling more comfortable, but still not smiling.)