I would like to begin by wishing all of those who celebrate Thanksgiving a happy and safe holiday. To my readers in other countries or those that do not observe Thanksgiving, I wish you an enjoyable upcoming weekend.

Since I’m totally stuffed and still tired from yesterday, as I’m sure many of you are as well, I’ll spare you any further pleasantries and get right to the heart of the matter.

I recently took my family on a rare 2 day trip. We don’t get away very often so my wife and I were looking forward to the change of pace, not just for ourselves but for our children as well. The destination was only a 4 hour drive from our home so we were not required to make any extraordinary travel arrangements- with 4 kids its a welcome perk.  The core of this post is not about the essence of a family trip or the destination, and the activities we undertook are also irrelevant here. The point of relevance is only that one situational moment of crap that we all, as parents of multiple children must endure. The fucking family photo.

I’m not even talking about a “full” family photo with my wife and I included- I’m talking about the once in a blue moon photo of your children all smiling simultaneously…..genuinely smiling. For one quick second, a grain of sand in time and an instant of the universe’s clock, why is is so damned difficult to get your children to look in the direction of the camera, to not argue about who stands where, to stop that one middle child  from crossing his eyes every time you say  “cheese” or to get the oldest son to stop pinching the other kids in an effort to get them riled up just when the camera has taken the snapshot. One of my daughters might still be angry at something from an hour ago, perhaps because she didn’t have the same amount of fucking sprinkles on her ice cream as the others,  and just stands there with her arms crossed and pouting with her face pointed downwards, at an inconsolable level incapable of achieving a one second smirk for the camera. My eight year old son, who can’t stand being teased by his older brother all day long, falls into distress when the two actually have to pair up and stand next to each other for a picture. The slightest contact between the boys escalates to the shouting of “don’t touch me butthole”, followed by “I’m barely touching you assmunch”, resulting in everyone walking away from the designated area for the photo shoot.

All my wife and I asked was for the children to stop and stand within a foot of each other whilst smiling at the camera for a short moment. We didn’t ask them to get naked in public and start drooling all over each other. We simply wanted a happy photo to serve as a nice memory from our trip. Whether we requested the photo in front of that big Christmas tree in a nameless city, or in front of a beautiful scenic backdrop in nature, or even just at home after they’ve dressed up for a special occasion that we’ve not yet departed for, its always a difficult task.

So what do we do? We demand an artificial sentiment to be displayed with yelling at them-  “Freaking smile! Quickly now! Smile for one damned second or you’re all grounded!”

And what happens? 2 Things.

1) That happy moment which we intended to cherish in a photograph results in my wife and I obtaining higher blood pressure.

2) Our four little shitheads turn from sourpusses, teasing mongers, complainers and schmucks into a group of lovely, smiling and sweet looking kids……..at least for a split second until the photo has snapped and the first kid calls another one stupid again. I cannot articulate the amount of joy behind the many photos in our albums. Hmm Hmm…