We took Riggs to get pictures with the Santa at Nordstroms on Sunday. For those of you who don't follow my blog much, you might not know that Riggs loves to smile for the camera. He can be playing with something, or eating a snack, or even nursing, and if you point a camera (or iPhone) at him, he will just stop what he is doing and give you his biggest smile. He also is not a clingy baby at all and usually happily goes to whoever wants to hold him or play with him. Naturally, I wasn't really too worried about picture with Santa because of this.
I was wrong. Out of nowhere, he decided to start being clingy about a week before we planned on getting his pictures done. He wants me and only me usually, but if I'm not there Steve is his second choice and he will literally cling to us, his little hands holding so tight to our clothing that his knuckles turn white. We sort of planned for him to be this way and so we ate at the Nordstroms Cafe to fill his little belly with artichoke soup before heading upstairs to the children's department to get the pictures taken. Steve carried him up there, and I hid. That's right, I hid behind a rack of clothing about 20 ft away so that he wouldn't be able to see me. Steve acted really excited to meet Santa, and handed Riggy over to the jolly old man (who was soo patient and nice - exactly why we paid to get the pictures done there versus somewhere else). Luckily he didn't cry at all, but he definitely didn't crack a smile, like, at all. This was the closest he got to a smile during the 5 minutes he spent with Santa:
But he did seem to really like Mr. Claus, especially his beard and his gloves. It was so cute to see him inspecting his face very thoroughly while Santa chuckled merrily. And despite the lack of Riggs' usual big, toothy grin, I considered the afternoon a success. We got plenty of adorable pictures without that grin, and I know I'll always smile at the memory of that day, Riggs' first time meeting Santa.
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| Merry Christmas from Santa and Riggs |
