Finding hidden talents

My husband paints. (Whenever he has free time that is)
This past weekend Ben told me that he wants to paint my picture. All I could think was, "Is this a joke? He's just trying to recreate some fantasy Titanic nude scene." Surprisingly, he wasn't, he told me about his whole "vision" for his painting. Of course I get super giddy and became quite prepared to sit for hours to get my portrait painting underway. Only...that's not how Ben works. He wanted a photo of me...which after spending two hours looking for...I learnt I don't have.
So today I made myself put on mascara, blush and brush my hair in order to get a decent enough photo.
Commence: Self absorbed photo session. Only, it wasn't happening. I couldn't get ANY good photos of me.
So guess who was willing to help? Monkey! (Of course, he wouldn't miss an opportunity to touch my camera. The one thing touched or looked at for either too long or in a strange way can get you sent to time-out for eons)
We pulled out the tripod so there was no risk of dropping the camera and Monkey got to work snapping away. The little stinker even had fun adjusting the lens to zoom out and in. We took some goofy pictures but remembered the task at hand and took many photos for Ben to choose from.
I am so proud of lil' Monkey. He's so independent which usually can get old...real fast..but today he was my helper. And a great helper at that. It's amazing finding his hidden talents. (Just wait til you see some of his artwork)
So, here they are. "Mama" as seen by Monkey.