Should I Send My Daughter to Daycare?

When my older daughter was born, I couldn’t wait to get her into daycare. As a first-time parent, I was overwhelmed and found it hard to spend every minute of the day with her, so I enrolled her when she was six months old.

My younger daughter is a different story. Maybe I’ve fallen under the spell of having a second child… She’s so adorable that I just can’t bring myself to send her to daycare. She’s already in the “terrible twos,” and she’s got a strong will, so to be honest, spending the day with her can be frustrating.

Even when I’m trying to work on my computer, she’ll happily try to snap it in half. The other day, she even scratched my Mac’s screen with her fingernail. With work piling up, I keep telling myself, “I’ve had enough! Tomorrow, I’m definitely taking her to daycare!” But then…

The next moment, she gives me an angelic, carefree smile, wraps her arms around me, or gazes up at me with the cutest little face. And suddenly I’m thinking, “There’s no way I can send this adorable little girl to daycare!”—and the cycle starts all over again. (Of course, my older daughter is just as adorable. Maybe it’s simply that I feel more relaxed as a parent the second time around.)

The Panamera’s Beauty Wins Me Over

But work was really starting to pile up, and I thought, “I need to buckle down and get some of this done before it gets out of hand!” So this morning, I made up my mind to take my younger daughter to daycare.

As usual, I got into the Panamera, drove to daycare, and dropped her off. So far, so good. But the moment I got back to the car and saw the Panamera from behind, a thought crossed my mind.

…This Panamera is just too gorgeous. I want to go somewhere and take some photos…

The sky was clear, and the Night Blue Metallic paint looked almost divine against the blue. I found myself caught in a dilemma.

Today is supposed to be the day I catch up on work. I can’t go off taking photos. …But the weather’s perfect, so I’m sure I could get some great shots. And since it’s a weekday, everywhere will be quiet—I can take as many as I want!

…And so, I gave in to temptation and made a spur-of-the-moment drive to Kobe.

The Panamera Belongs in the City

Why Kobe? I’d been wanting to photograph the Panamera against an urban backdrop for a while. I’d taken plenty of photos of it by the sea, in the mountains, and on driveways, but when I thought about it, I’d never photographed it in the city.

“Somewhere around Kobe Daimaru would be nice…” I thought as I drove over. But that area has lots of one-way streets, and even though I was nearby, I couldn’t seem to reach my destination. In the end, I parked in front of Kamine, a watch shop with a Hublot flag fluttering outside. As I got out of the car, it suddenly occurred to me:

Taking photos here might be kind of embarrassing…

The Panamera turns heads as it is, and plenty of people were looking. It was a weekday, too, so the streets were full of businesspeople. Pulling over out of nowhere and starting to take pictures would look pretty suspicious. And I wasn’t even using a DSLR—just my iPhone… (ha!)

What should I do… (T_T)

For a while, I fumbled around outside, pretending to look something up on my iPhone. Then I told myself, “I’m not going to get anywhere by worrying! I came all this way, so I’m taking photos!” I finally worked up the nerve and started snapping away from different angles—low down, from the side, and everywhere in between. Here are the results.

They turned out better than I expected. The iPhone is pretty amazing.

The Main Event: In Front of Kobe Daimaru

Feeling encouraged, I drove over to the spot I’d really wanted to photograph: the area around Kobe Daimaru. As luck would have it, there was an open space in front of Gucci, so I pulled in. (To be clear, parking there was prohibited, and the one-way street was narrow, so stopping would get in the way of other drivers. It wasn’t the right thing to do—but thankfully, traffic was light that weekday.)

This time, instead of snapping away like before, I thought carefully about each angle and took my time with every shot.

I’d take a shot, check it on the screen, grin to myself, and take another. One wrong move and I’d look like a total weirdo. Then I thought, “I feel like someone’s watching me,” and looked up. A woman enjoying a drink at the open-air café in front of Daimaru had been staring at me the whole time—and we made direct eye contact.

Well, that was awkward… (*_*)

I didn’t want to leave the car there long enough to become a nuisance, so I moved on and looked for another spot. “I want some shots of the rear, too—and I’d love to catch the spoiler raised.” Just then, I spotted an open space in front of Burberry!

Photo Shoot Complete

The whole photo shoot probably took about 30 minutes, but it was a success, and I was completely satisfied. You can get some great shots with an iPhone, and photo-editing apps have gotten pretty sophisticated, so the results can look quite polished. Still, an iPhone can’t match a DSLR, so next time I’ll ask my husband to take the photos.

I also realized how much composition matters. There was a pole in the way, a moving truck parked in front, and I couldn’t get the “C” in Gucci into the frame… Choosing exactly where to park makes a big difference. That said, taking photos in Kobe on a weekend might be tough. Maybe I could try around Midosuji in Yodoyabashi instead…

This has inspired me to take more photos of the Panamera in the city.

By the way, I post lots of Porsche photos on Instagram, too (actually, it’s pretty much nothing but Porsche photos), so I’d be happy if you took a look.

https://www.instagram.com/mina_porsche/

All right… finally… time to get some work done.