Hellobee

Long before our personal world (and then the collective world) fell apart, I had wanted to let the kids know whether they were having a baby brother or sister in a cute way. I am not a big fan of large gender reveals, but I photographed a small family one over Thanksgiving that used a smoke bomb. It was so sweet to see how excited the extended family was in finding out the gender of their first grandchild. The photos I thought came out really nicely, so I thought perhaps we could have a similarly cute reveal with our kiddos.

I found out the gender a little bit earlier with my NIPT test, so I was able to order the smoke bomb and we waited for a nicer day to be outside to do it.  Since it was just Mr Chocolate, the kids and me, the plan was for me take photos and have Mr Chocolate video record. We handed over the stick to the kids and this is a story about the  difference between reality and Instagram reality.

In Instagram reality the smoke would have poured out magically, my kids would have been overjoyed and given me amazing expressions to photograph, and we would have caught it all on film so we could replay it for friends and family, as well as the baby one day when they were older. The reality though was my children could not figure out how to activate the smoke by pulling the ring so Mr Chocolate had to, thus losing the video portion. Once the smoke starting to come out some sparks flew out which burned Mr Chocolate’s hand while scaring my children. As the smoke poured out they all scattered and would not come close at all the holding the stick.  Eventually two of them fled to the inside of the house refusing, despite Mr Chocolate and I calling them to come back so we could at least get one photo of the 3 of them with it. We ended up with one photo of the only child willing to stay in the chaos and aftermath. Needless to say this is why I was so glad we did it privately and for everyone (myself included at times) who looks at those perfect amazing Instagram photos, know for that one photo there are thousands of others of screaming parents, fleeing children, and everything else in between. You are not the only one believe me.

It’s a boy, our bookend to our little family. The kids are super excited for their baby brother. I’m just happy that the jacket was a much better model than expected.