We all know the routine because we've been living it since we were five years old and in kindergarten. Each year , our mothers set out our finest set of new school clothes, woke us 15 minutes earlier than normal to style our hair 'just so'. With a comb nestled into our book bag, we were sent out the door with reminders to smile our best smile.
And then hours later, we stood in a line with our classmates, waiting our turn for some strange woman using that same comb to yank and pull our hair in directions it was never meant to go, before shoving us onto a carpeted box and demanding we look at the camera and smile. The bright light next to the photographer shone brightly into our eyes and the snap of the photo usually happened just moments before we expected it to. Right?
A few weeks later we were presented with our 'school' picture. The image that would not only be swapped with every kid in school that we considered our closest friend, but also framed and mounted on the living room wall for the upcoming year. Right up until it would be thrown into the memory box just waiting to humiliate us to no end a decade later ... and replaced with the new dreaded pic showing us growing a year older.
Is this the experience you all had growing up? If not, then you must think I'm some sort of crazy lunatic going on and on about the experience. But, you should be getting used to that by now, so I'm not too worried about you.
Anyway ... I do things a bit differently with my kiddos. Maybe it's because I remember the torture of years past. Or because I'm lazy. Or maybe simply because they don't ever have an awesome new school outfit suitable for such a big day. Regardless ... my kids wake up on picture day and get dressed just as they would any other day. They comb their hair and brush their teeth ... in our normal mundane routine.
Then they leave for school.
And when the pictures arrive home ... I always wish we would have given it a little more effort.
However ... I don't have to wait a decade to humiliate them.
Jake - 7th Grade
Drew - 5th Grade
Emily - 1st Grade
Molly - Kindergarten
