Mommy Crack

I have another addiction. It's like my chai tea obsession only worse and significantly more expensive.

There's this photographer in town, I think I've mentioned him several time already. Nick Follger is his name and he needs to be stopped. He's preying on vulnerable mommies like me.

He had me hooked from the first session, maternity shots with Ess and Gee.


Pardon the glimpse of my pale, blimp-like belly. Hopefully, your eyes aren't damaged for life. Focus on the children. The color is wonky. My walls are not orange and the actual photographs are gorgeous soft black and white. I have a big, fancy digital camera that I don't know how to use very well. Instead of learning, I bitch about how I'm not very good at using my camera and pay Nick the freaking genius Follger to take exquisite pictures of my children.

That photo session sucked donkeys. The kids were miserable. I was sweating the entire time. I had specifically requested the Ann Geddes like shot in the middle and I pouted all the way home because they absolutely refused to sit next to each other. They sat like that for less than a nanosecond, I swear to you, and Nick the Genius got the shot with his legendary trigger finger. At the picture viewing, I became a Nick convert.

Then, after Cue's birth, we signed up for the infant package.


That's my wittle bitty, eensy weensy, quinner quinn quinn. Yes, it is. I can't even write coherently. I'm reduced to a babbling pile of mommy ridiculousness.

And, six months later, this.


Last month, we to see Nick for the one-year session. Because he is a saint, he agreed to try and get some photos of our entire family. I also wanted to attempt a shot of the three kids. Even the incredible, saintly Nick was skeptical of that one. "It's the hardest shot to get," he warned me in his adorable, European accent, "three children alone in the picture. Especially, such young children. It will be difficult."

The hour in his studio was one of the more hellish hours I've ever spent with my children. I believe I tweeted afterwards that I was ready to do something fun, like have a cavity filled without Novocaine or contract severe food poisoning. I had a pounding headache for days. When I went to view the pictures, I honestly thought, looking on the bright side, at least I won't be tempted to spend a lot of money.

I saw this. Could you resist? You probably could, because they aren't your kids, but imagine those were your kids all posed and adorable and actually clean with their little itty bitty toes sticking out from under the book like that. You couldn't resist.

(I deleted this picture because the guilt was killing me.)

I even liked this, which is a miracle because Matt and I are camera-repelling individually. Together, our unphotogenicness knows no bounds.

(See above, and also, I really do fear not being allowed back to the studio)

I am powerless to resist. I ordered a wall portrait of the three kids. A freaking wall portrait. I've been making fun of wall portraits for years. It's ridiculous, I mocked. Wall portraits should be reserved for Supreme Court Justices and maybe college presidents. Who needs nearly life-sized pictures of their children? Um, apparently, I do.

I'm not leaving these posted for long. I think I'm breaking like eighteen copyright laws and if Nick banned me from his studio the withdrawal would kill me. My motives for posting them at all are purely, fantastically selfish. I want you all to tell me how unbelievably adorable my children are. You totally don't have to tell me, I'll just pout, and possibly ban you.