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I have lovely parents. Really. They're good people. My mother, though, has some rather sick ideas about what's funny. Then again, so do I.

When I was about Clara Jane's age, I got stuck under the couch while foraging for JC Penney catalogs. I explicitly remember crying and shrieking for help and my mother coming into the room. Upon seeing my ass and legs hanging from below the couch with the front half of my wee body wedged under a large piece of furniture, she did what any mother would do:

She busted up laughing and said, "Hold on! Don't move! I've gotta get the camera!"

And they wonder why I'm claustrophobic.

There are photos in my childhood photo album of me, stuck under the couch. But there aren't any photos of me at age eight, stuck to a tire swing because my nylon nightgown had gotten twisted around the rope. Not that she didn't take pictures on that occasion. Oh no. I just managed to steal them from the family album about a decade ago and she's never getting them back!

And they wonder why I have panic attacks.

Anyway, I'm obviously not a fan of photographing my child in occasions when she might be scared, upset, or crying. I always hated those damn pictures of myself. However, the other night I walked into Clara Jane's room while she was sleeping. Since she was peacefully snoozing away and not showing any sign of fear or peril, I had no problem with dashing across the house and down the stairs to fetch my camera:

It's a bit hard to see exactly what's going on, but she's kneeling on the hardwood floor, sound asleep. And this isn't an isolated incident. This happens about once a week. Somehow, the bottom half of her body winds up on the floor and she either sleeps through the fall or just gets cozy and goes back to sleep. Eventually I check on her and haul her back into bed, sometimes after a photo shoot.

And we'll wonder why she has scoliosis and a sleep disorder someday.