Cutie Patootie

Is that how you spell Patootie?
I probably shouldn't call him a Cutie Patootie anyway. 
It doesn't sound very masculine.
Maybe it should be Handsome Hero.
Or Fine looking Junge.

 

Oh, I think he  can be a cutie patootie just a little bit longer. He is growing up so fast.

He was very excited about going to his friend's birthday party.....

 

so he let me take his picture.

 But after that, he got mad at the camera.

Well, not too mad. But he definitely figured out that I couldn't play with him if I had my camera in my hand.

One day just the two of us headed toward the river for an adventure. He had his treasure bag and I had my camera. My goal was to get some great portraits of him - per his mom's request. He had no interest in that goal. In fact the photo above is when he turned around to come back and get me because I was going too slow. And he needed to inform me to stop taking pictures.

But an adventure without pictures is just a walk.

 This must be a family tradition, because his sister E.H.B. did the exact same thing as soon as we got to the river.

In an effort to get him to stand up against the walls, I stopped and got really close to them and said "Wait, did you hear that?"

And this is what I got....

And then when I got home and told that story to my card playing friends, I got chastised for lying to him. I didn't tell him a lie....but I did try to trick him. My bad.

He picked flowers for his mom and the first thing he did when he got home was put them at her place at the table. So sweet.

Here are more examples of him avoiding the camera...

...and one of me tricking him again. I called his name just as he was going into his school. I had kept my camera put away during the walk to school, so he didn't know I was "waiting for him."

And then I got one more with that big beautiful smile. He was so proud of his t-shirt bag he helped sew, he gladly posed for me!

I miss you Ph and your family too!