Pam Biasotti Photography Blog

Except he isn’t my baby anymore.  He’s completely a little man who loves sports–unbelievably so much that I suspect he might take Gary Radnich’s job from KRON someday.  This is a child that will wake up in the morning and turn on the television and when I come into the family room it isn’t Cartoon Network I see on the screen but ESPN and he’s intently watching to get the baseball scores.  Listening to him talk stats with his father–OMG my child knows more about baseball than I do and it’s scary.  So today is your birthday.  You are seven years old and I secretly wish you never grow up because I don’t want to lose that little boy.  In a way you have already changed from being a mommy’s boy to a daddy’s boy which can be fun when I want to do something and your dad takes your brother and you to a baseball game.

So seven years ago on the night of the 28th I went to Max’s Diner in San Ramon with a friend to have dinner.  I had my favorite item which is a stuffed baked potato with a caesar salad.  Ironically last night we took the whole family including your grandparents to Max’s Diner for dinner and I had the same meal.  It didn’t even occur to me I was repeating history seven years later.  On the morning of the 29th of September, 2001, I was getting out of bed at 5:30 am to relieve my poor bladder that you so kindly sat on at the end and stood up.  Something was happening.  My water broke.  Not sure it was my water, I called my friend Barbara who I had dinner with the night before and asked her what I should do.  She suggested taking a shower and seeing if it continued after.  I did so and cleaned up and proceeded to saturate more clothing.  Yeah, it was my water breaking not bad bladder control as I suspected.  So, off to the hospital we went with your 6 year old brother who we woke up and dragged out of bed.

It took all day, but at 10:51 pm you finally made your appearance.  You were a VBAC and I was happy to not have to have another C-section.  There were a few moments when your heart rate dropped so low that about 20 people joined us in the delivery room waiting for what you were going to do.  There was a threat of another C-section and I didn’t realize at the time that if you were going to be a C-section that you would be ripped out of me in 30 seconds versus the lengthy one I went through with your older brother.  When one is pushing and concentrating on delivering a baby, one doesn’t understand why there are so many people in the room watching me.  But, thanks to a vacuum your big Biasotti head finally came down and you were pulled out successfully.  You were angry.  You were screaming.  I guess having fetal monitors attached to your head as well as a vacuum pulling out your head is enough to send anyone into a screaming frenzy.  I remember the nurses bringing me a sandwich immediately to scarf down and I didn’t even care that it had mayonnaise on it.  (Those of you that know me know how I feel about mayonnaise).  You cried and cried.  You wouldn’t sleep that night until I picked you up and held you in my arms all night.  That is how we slept–you in my arms.  It was the beginning of the next three years of you sleeping next to me and no other place.  I couldn’t move anyway as the nurse slapped a huge bag of ice on my crotch which I didn’t understand why she did that until the next day when the epidural completely wore off.  Anyhow…I love you.  Happy birthday my darling.  I wish I had decent newborn photos of you but I don’t so I thought I would post a few of my favorites.  Your reddish brown hair that you were born with was so full and never fell out.  Here is my favorite picture of you doing your A Flock of  Seagulls hairstyle.

Love the Fred Flinstone toes.  Sigh.

The next image was your One year old portrait.  By this time you had about 2 haircuts and went blond. Who knew I had tow head recessive genes lingering in my body.

And here is my boy today.  Loving his sports.

And my favorite one I just took a week ago

My mistress Pam has been neglecting me lately.  I know I told you that I would be posting more dog thoughts and yet Pam hasn’t allowed me to touch her computer lately because she’s so busy working all the time on it.  Sometimes she is helping this person install blogs.  Other times she is editing her portrait sessions for children and dogs.  She totally missed wishing me a happy birthday last month!  August 31 I turned 9 years old.  I don’t recall any big fuss made over my birthday–maybe Pam let me sleep a little later than usual and not feeding me right away that morning.  There was no birthday cake or party hats.  Just the typical love and pats on the head.  I think she might have gotten me a dog toy or something, but honestly when one of those toys are placed in front of me I devour it in a matter of seconds.

9 years.  I remember when I came home to live here.  I was around 8 weeks of age and kind of scared.  I was placed in the kitchen which had some kind of baby gates going across each end.  Pam was standing at the sink, doing the dinner dishes and I walked up to her and lay on her feet while she cleaned the sink.  My instinct told me she was going to be my mistress and alpha.  There was another Golden already living there. His name was Paddy and he seemed indifferent that I was there.  He seemed miserable because he had hip dysplasia.  Being an obnoxious puppy, all I wanted to do was wrestle with him and play. 

So, Pam, it’s okay that you didn’t acknowledge me on my birthday.  I understand you have other things on your mind like customer service to your clients and booking your holiday mini sessions.  It’s okay.  I know you love me more than anything and it’s just a treat to be your dog.  Thank you for letting me jump up on your bed in my old age.  Thank you for walking me every day to school to drop off your son.  Thank you for all those extra carrots and apple slices.  Oh and I am sorry about the other night when your teenager left his Hot Pocket sandwich on the table while taking out the trash.  I admit to opening the screen door with my nose and letting myself in to snatch it off the table.  I guess that was my belated birthday present.

Not quite the Beatles’ Abbey Road, is it?  I didn’t think so.

Abby requires quite a bit of exercise and eventually she becomes more mellow.  The funniest thing is watching her stick her head out of her owner Liz’ car window while driving.  I didn’t get a chance to capture that funny sight but I did manage to capture her at Sunol Regional Wilderness park playing with her mom.

I believe she is Portguese Water dog but Liz thinks she might have something in addition to that in her breeding.  Abby has been featured in the local magazine Bay Woof and can be seen around pulling Liz on a scooter.  That’s a working dog in action!

Whatcha doing to Liz, there, Abby?  Looks a little painful!  Oh, you are just being silly I see.

She’s actually laughing at me.  Seriously. The dog is laughing at me.

Abby is mastering her sit and stay skills here on the wagon wheel seat.  She did excellent!!!

Before you get confused and say, “Um, Pam WHAT DAUGHTER?” let me explain.  There was a good reason I was a mom to a daughter today.  My niece Hailey is up for awhile from Mazatlan.  Her mother is my husband’s sister and she lives there with her family and runs a successful coffee cafe business.  My sis in law went back home last week and I promised Hailey a belated girls day out to celebrate her birthday from last month.

I don’t have any daughters as you know.  I really don’t know how to raise a daughter day in and day out.  I do know that I love to do the girly girl things and Hailey loves to do them too.  She wanted to get her ears pierced.  Mom gave me her full blessing so I realized this was going to be quite the special day.  Where do you go to do this?  The last time I had any holes put in my ear I was around nineteen I think.  It was the 80’s and it was cool to have an extra earring in ONE ear but not both.  Before that, I was 13 when I had my ears pierced for the first time.  I recall my mother telling me it was my body and she couldn’t stop me from doing what I wanted to do with it.  (Are you kidding me?  If  I used that logic on my 13 year old son right now he’d be coming home with body piercings and tatts and lord knows what else!)  Anyway, I called my friend Kim to ask advice for where to take her.  “Oh girl, you MUST take her to Libby Lu!!!”  Supposedly it’s THE place for girls to get their ears pierced and soak in the ambiance of fun while having it done.  My local mall has a Libby Lu, so off we went to accomplish the deed.

We walk into Libby Lu and I approach a teenage girl who most likely is the general district manager of the entire Northen California region because she sure had a high and mighty superiority thing going on when I approached her.  I said “Hi, I would like to get my niece’s ears pierced.”  BIG FAT HUGE MISTAKE!!!!  She immediately said “Um, like ya know, sorry, but her parent is the only one that can authorize that” in her superior managerial authorative way and I said “Her parents are in Mexico.  I am her legal guardian.”  Okay, so I am not her LEGAL guardian, but I was responsible for her that very moment.  The boss lady said “Well, you need papers and documents showing you as her legal guardian.  Sorry.  If you came back later and someone else took care of you that would be fine, but I KNOW you aren’t her mother.  You might want to go to Claire’s and not mention to them you are her aunt.”

Stunned at her impersonal comments, I thought “You are not getting my business, $%$#%$#%, and removed Hailey from the chaos.  There was a birthday party of some sort going on there and I could hear way too much noise.  Just think, if we sat her down there and did it and all that distraction–no thanks.

We made it down to Claires and it wasn’t busy.  A nice lady who worked there set it up.  Here begins the most up and down 30 minutes of my career as an aunt.  I couldn’t let her mother down and ruin her child’s ears.  I had a mission and I was going to make sure it would be done correctly and painlessly.

Hailey is silly.  She is very much like my sister-in-law.  When she is near my thirteen year old son, it’s like watching my husband and his sister brawl and fight and knock heads.  Kyle spent 3 weeks this summer in Mazatlan living at his cousin’s home and I heard many a story.  Here is Hailey pre-piercing.

So, we had a big choice of earrings to choose from for Hailey.  What to pick?  She settled on the crystal sapphire daisy.

Here we show the lady cleaning her ears with the antiseptic wipe.  At this point Hailey is rethinking her choice to get her ears pierced.  I am beginning to sense she is not into it.

The lady marks her ears with the dots.  Hailey claims they are stinging and pinching…uh oh, I am smelling some big drama coming up.  I tell Hailey if she wants out then lets do it and go and not waste any time here.  She says she WANTS to get her ears pierced.  Okay….

Watch the expressions change here.  Curiosity goes to amusement and then goes immediately to OUCH.

My poor kiddo.  Her eyes are telling me she doesn’t like it.

We then spend the next 15 minutes battling over what to do.  Hailey does not want to do the other ear.  I am terrified her mother is going to kill me.  She’s going to be a hipster kid–one hole in one ear.  How different is that.  I cajoled, coaxed and assured Hailey it was only a sting for a moment and that it really goes away fast.  I reminded her that the lady had other customers and we needed to not play games.  Finally I asked her what if I showed her how easy this was to do?  Hailey said “Okay!!!!”  What the?  So, for the first time in 25 years, I sat in a chair and had a third hole added to my left ear.  Ouch.  She wasn’t kidding.  Look at how red that puppy is.

After much relaxing and settling down after seeing brave Aunt Pammy get her ear pierced again, Hailey agreed to finish up the deed.  I squatted down and told her to squeeze my hand as hard as she could.  I proceeded to take photos with the other hand.

YEA!!! Mission accomplished.  Instantly she was proud and happy.  Oh of course, because lollipops were shoved in her direction and all of a sudden she forgot about the stinging pinch from a few moments earlier.

What’s that I see?  A SMILE?  Happy smile?  A girl with newly pierced ears?

Then came the task of choosing from all the earrings.  She picked about 9 pairs of earrings.

Looking good, Miss Hailey.  Let’s go celebrate your success.

Yummmmmmm.  I promised this if she finished up the deed and completed her ear piercing mission.  It was accomplished so I had to deliver.

Yup, she’s pleased with herself now.  And Aunt Pammy is a middle aged hipster with three earrings in her left ear.  Such a rebel I am.

We had some yummy lunch and headed back to my house.  Hailey told me it was the best day ever.  That meant a lot to me.  So this is what it is like to have a daughter.