See Abby (and Cornelia and Ethel) Grow

I took Abby to the mall today to get her picture taken with Santa. I dressed her up in her Christmas dress, and we set off for the mall. She was in a great mood the whole time. That is, until we tried to take her picture. She was fine at first. She stared at Santa and poked at his beard. Then we directed her attention to the camera. They got one shot of her looking like a deer caught in the headlights before she started screaming. Out of nowhere, her lower lip came out, and a second later she was bawling. I tried sitting next to her, but she kept trying to come into my lap instead. When I held her, she would try to get as far away from him as possible, then she'd look back at him and scream some more. She hasn't had any problems with strangers for a long time. She was held by the women taking our pictures at Sears with no problems at all. She even has a thing for old men. I've noticed that she tends to laugh and engage older men more than any other type of adult whenever we're out. It's just Santa that she's scared of. I do wish they would've taken a picture of her crying, but they didn't. I would've definitely bought that picture. Oh well. We'll try again some other day.

While at the mall, we checked to see if our pictures were in, and they were. Yay!