I really don’t like to have my picture taken. 

I know, it sounds crazy coming from someone who is on television, but it’s true.  So when I was asked if I would have my portrait taken for charity I immediately felt a little panicked.  I would be one of 25 community leaders captured in their element to be auctioned off in a special gallery showing.  Jeesh. I spent some time as a docent in an art museum and I immediately pictured an uppity aristocrat in a formal gown surrounded by gilded treasures and a lap dog.

  But I have a hard time saying no to good causes and Give Kids the World is one of my favorites.  Soooo… there I was on a Monday morning seriously sweating a sitting with a photographer who has flown in just for the occassion.  I was still agonzing over the location.  At the studio?  In the Control Room? On a Satellite Dish? (yes, I considered sitting inside a big dish, I was losing it)  Nah… a portrait is supposed to tell people something about me.  And really, news is my job, not my life. 

So where, then? I love my downtown neighborhood and the fountain in Thornton Park is beautiful.  But what would I do?  Play in the water?  I don’t really play.  I love nature and I have an almost uncontrollable environmental wacko feeling about the massive, old oak tree on Constitution Green.  Even better, I would have my children climbing the tree (as they do in real life) in huge symbolism to what I really care about.  To this idea my husband said, “are you overthinking this?”  He’s right, and what would I wear?  I can’t climb a tree in Stilettos.  And it was raining outside.  

That reminded me, I was borrowing clothes from a friend’s boutique.  A dress, pants, jeans?  Would It be just a head shot or would they (Please No!) take a picture of my entire body?  

Time was ticking, and I had agreed to professional hair and make-up mostly because I had some unfortunate zits and needed my roots done.  So I sat in the chair  talking to my “up and coming,” “mover and shaker” serious professional woman friend about where she would have her picture taken?  The Mayor?  The Professional Athlete?

Tick… Tick… Tick… Hair almost done, make-up looking good.  Kids still need picking up.  Texting husband.  Have to be at work in an hour. 

Tick… Tick… Tick… Who am I?  What do I want people to know about me?  What am I most proud of?  Where am I happiest?

Got it.  I’d be heading home.

I told my husband to grab the girls and bring them to me in our bedroom!  The scene would be a Sunday morning.  The one day where the craziness and laziness of a working mom and her family converge in a mess of newspapers, laptops, stuffed animals and tutus. 

There would be no gilded treasures, just the newspapers still there from the Sunday morning before.   There would be no lap dog.  We have a cat but she beat it the moment the kids came running in.  The only thing missing is my husband who would be beautiful but scruffy sitting in the corner of the bed surrounded by the travel section (he hates having his picture taken worse than me).   I did wear the borrowed shirt (thank you Be Boutique in Thornton Park).  And I had talk down the 3-year-old from the Native American garb into the tutu.  But the chaos was so cute that it took the photographer just 10 minutes to capture this shot. 

And who would go home with the large canvas print… proceeds going to Give Kids the World?  Me, of course, the expressions on my daughter’s faces… priceless.