Bennett Eric | Ten Months

"I would like to get one good photo of him for his first birthday invitations," my sister-in-law, Katie, says to me of her son, Bennett. "Can you bring your camera to Sunday dinner for a couple shots?" My husband's family tries to get together every few Sundays for a nice quiet family dinner. Okay, I can't even keep a straight face on that one! By the time we leave, we are always full with mama's home cooking and thoroughly convinced that nieces and nephews and their boisterous ways silence even the most faint ticking sounds of any biological clocks that dare to be audible to my hubby or me. But for all their noise and energy and excitability, we love all three of them to pieces. The youngest is Bennett, who will be one year old this month. Katie and I decided a mini-shoot of Bennett would be sure to capture a moment worthy of his first birthday party invitations. In Grammie and Grampie's backyard we set him down in the grass for what I assumed would be a relatively easy ten minute session.

Twenty minutes later, I walked back into the house sweating like I had just outrun a pack of hungry wolves. Collapsing onto the couch ready for a nap and some of mama's spaghetti, Bennett was just warming up. The previous twenty minutes consisted of him making it as difficult as possible for his Auntie Leez to do her job. He would sit, I would get set, he'd crawl away. He would smile, I would focus, he would look elsewhere. He would kneel in the grass, I would kneel in the grass, and he would roll over. Always two steps behind him, I ran around to shoot in whichever direction he decided to go. Several times I tucked my camera under my arm, scooped up the baby in the other, waddled over to a plush patch of grass, plopped him down, begged him to stay put, finally got set, and off he went. And, of course, his biggest smiles naturally came when I was in the middle of changing lenses. In the end, I had a lot of "action" shots, but also many that caught the essence of the little man. Bennett is ALL boy...as witnessed below in his tough-guy black eye, the blades of grass he mistook for the salad course before his strained carrots hanging out of his mouth, and the "I dare you to get a sharply-focused photo of me" sassypants look in photo #2. But honestly, the photo shoot-slash-aerobic workout was all worth it to have memories of those striking blue eyes, crinkly nose, and tongue wagging out. He'll be walking and running soon, learning to play baseball with his Uncle Nick and helping to grill burgers with his Uncle Andy, and good luck to me to try to keep up! Yup, it was worth it...black eye, sweat-soaked clothes, and all.

Bennett Eric | Ten Months

Aliza