Pink Toe*

Lara and I took some time today and painted her toes a lovely shade of pink {her choice}:

 

When I tried to take a picture, however, she would not hold still, and since I refuse to use our camera's flash, every picture came out blurry.  "You have to hold perfectly still," I said, about fifteen times.  I would even demonstrate for her, holding my hands on my knees, my fingers extended and motionless.  "You have to hold still.  You can't move at all.  The pictures are blurry right now."  "I want to see blurly," she said.  But showing her the unfocused pictures I'd already taken had no impact.

I think maybe she couldn't comprehend holding perfectly still.  I think she felt the attention on her and squirmed to relieve the sense of pressure, because her toes, especially, were in constant motion.  I tried holding them down, even, while snapping the picture, but anything less than painful force {I'm guessing} was insufficient to keep her still.  Finally, I found a position that worked for us:

*The title of this post refers to an inside joke that Laura {my little Lara's mother} and I shared when we were both little.  We had these phrases that we could say, at any moment, and for any length of time, and it would make the other laugh hysterically.  Phrases like "pink toe," "Telly," and "elbow" {pronounced "el-a-bow"}.  It's a phenomenon that remains, to this day, completely inexplicable.  My three-year-old self would give you the same answer as my 23-year-old self, which is that we just thought they sounded funny.