Kids on the Laps of Strangers

It has gone down as the funniest picture ever taken of my daughter. Here she is, with a beautiful purple dress on, reaching out her arms in a desperate plea to be rescued. This would be a sad picture had she not been sitting on the lap of the ugliest Santa Claus you have ever seen. Here she is, as if we handed her over to a third world prison guard. Here he is, with his tree trunk thighs and ratty beard smiling his $6/hour Rent-A-Santa smile. It's the greatest picture ever.
As Easter rounds out this weekend, kids are lining up with their parents to take a picture with the Easter Bunny. After all, the Easter Bunny took time out of his busy egg hiding schedule to sit in a dumpy mall and mug for the camera with your kids. It's amusing to see the range of emotions happening in these lines.

In any given mall line, you will see kids fall into 2 categories: Those who are obsessed with getting their picture taken. And those who are terrified. I'm here to tell you Noodads, neither situation is a guaranteed picture. I have seen kids in line who are jumping up and down excited, (as if they need to take a leak right there on the red santa's wonderland carpet) only to scream bloody murder at the big show. But there is also kids who are kicking and screaming the whole time in line and then they sit on the lap no problem.

Fortunately for you, Santa and the Easter Bunny has the same production company and they like to take the picture regardless of whether your kid is smiling or not. You really can't plan these things out. Your kid could be smiling or not. My advice is to buy the picture anyways.

So what is the right thing to do? Is it cruel of me to force my kid to sit on the bunny's lap just so I can get a picture? Or is it my right as a parent to get that keepsake? When you think of it, we are forcing (or allowing) our kids to sit on the laps of strangers. I don't know about you, but I don't take the time to check ID of the guy in the bunny suit before I plop my offspring on his furry lap. For some reason, because it is in the mall, he's suddenly legit. I mean the Bunny doesn't even have to talk and with his psycho rabbit eyes and molded faceplate covering his head, you don't even know if he's awake.

This year is the first time my daughter agreed to take a picture with the bunny. We had never pushed her with any pictures after the Scary Santa Incident of 2003. But even though she smiled a big beaming smile for the camera this time, we decided we couldn't miss a family photo op so we plopped our 13 month old son on the bunny's lap. Total hysterics followed. But we got another great pic of total unhappiness for the photo album.