A nearly impossible task

Being a dad of an 11 year old and an almost 8 year old, I'm somewhat removed from one of the most impossible of tasks...capturing a toddler on camera. Without the blur. Or the whining. Or the crying. Or their face (finger, toe, toy, etc) pressed up against the lens. Somewhat removed. That's what nieces (and nephews and grandkids, I guess) are for. I really don't know for sure, because I only have nieces. Two. One infant, one very toddler-like toddler.

To my point, I set out to take a picture of my (very toddler-ish) niece Molly. She was being cute. She's pretty much always cute. But this night, extra cute and talkative and playful, and...Molly-like. Not.easy. At.all

The first picture looked something like this:

Fail. Unfortunately, I was too stupid to realize I wanted to blog about this whole picture taking adventure, so the picture above is only a representation, not the real deal. I have a habit of deleting blurry pictures...idiot.

Things got a bit better, especially when she paused long enough for me to get this one:

Of course, this is not a true capture of the Molly we all know and love beyond reason. So the pic that ended up on my blog (and the picture of the day) is right here:

As you can guess, the picture above was taken mere milliseconds after the completely clear picture. So, not an entirely impossible task...just nearly impossible.