School Picture Day!

Yesterday was School Picture Day for my third-grader. In my limited experience, for the mother of a girl, this was a huge event. For the mother of a boy, I would imagine that this was just a Tuesday. In preparation for this big event, my girl took a shower last night so that she would be all shiny clean for her picture, but so that we would not have to suffer the agony of blow-drying her hair at the crack of dawn this morning! Then there was the negotiation of an outfit. There was one shirt that we both agreed on, but she came skipping down the stairs wearing that (kind of a melon-pink paisley pattern) with a turquoise blue patterned skirt… I suggested that we find something else because the skirt did not match the shirt – she informed me that that was not a problem, because we wouldn’t see the skirt in the picture! Can’t argue with that logic… (Although I did!) Regardless of what she wore with the shirt, on second thought I decided that it might look a little “’70’s.” And, as a friend recently pointed out about some cute madras plaid Capri pants that I had on my little one, she will look back at the picture and be as irritated about that as we were of some of the things our parents dressed us in when we were young! (No offense Mom & Dad!) Anyway, we found an outfit that we were both happy with. Then we looked through her jewelry box to see if we could find something to go with her outfit. She pointed out the beautiful silver-beaded bracelet that we bought her for her First Communion. I said, “Oh no, you can’t wear that to school!” and she (again, pointing out the obvious…) said, “Well YOU bought it for me!” Sigh. I pulled out her pretty pink watch and a heart necklace that has her name on it, along with 3 of the Disney princesses. I said, “Can you wear this, or are the princesses no longer cool?” And she said, “Hmm, let me look at it.” After a quick inspection, she deemed it acceptable to wear to school! This morning we were up early, she got dressed, had breakfast and came upstairs so that I could curl her hair (something we’ve only done about 5 times in her life so far!). She wanted a side-pony tail, but then decided that she thought it looked weird, so we agreed upon leaving her hair down. There was some discussion between a headband and a hair clip, and I found an acceptable hair clip and put that in on one side. A quick inspection in the mirror and then she was ready to go! WHEW. As is our tradition, before she walked out the door, we had her stand and pose for a picture on our camera – this is sort of my insurance policy for the school picture. Once the child steps one foot out of the door, there is no telling what condition they will be in by the time their school picture is taken! I remember the days of standing in line in elementary school and the teachers, aides or volunteer parents coming up with the black plastic comb and combing my hair – not always helping, in some cases! And then there is the smile – my girl kept practicing and practicing and each time it got worse! Her grandfather was a photographer and she practiced smiling for him last night when he was leaving our house. He said, “Oh, that is a nice one! I can see your dimple!” But she heard, “When your smile is right, you can FEEL your dimple.” So last night she kept smiling and touching her check to see if her dimple was there… I can’t imagine that the photographer will wait for her to feel her face to make sure that her dimple is there! I’m envisioning a picture of her face and her hand… Oh well, it’s not like I don’t have a million pictures of her, or that I won’t take a million more – but, School Picture Day is a big event!

And then there will be this little munchkin… I wonder how SHE will pose for the camera!