Picture Day

It is such a glorious day, is it not? No…it’s really not. We spent about half an hour picking out outfits tonight for the kids to wear in their pictures tomorrow. I’m not a control freak. I let them pick out what they want to wear, for the most part, with just a little steering. I do draw the line at tank tops. We did some compromising and came up with outfits acceptable by all parties. Small is quite the pickle. He might *seem* like he is all set, but when it comes time for him to step in front of the camera tomorrow, there are better than average odds that he will have stripped off his nice collared shirt for the t-shirt underneath. He’s done it before. I told him that this year, I’d like him to leave his shirt on for the picture. He owes me one after bamboozling me a couple years ago. Whatever he does, he probably won’t make a face like this one.

How’d you like to get that stink face back in your cute little photo package? Can we also talk about the size of that collar, for God’s sake? I look like I’m about to take off. I would also like to take this moment to mention that I hated jumpers, and when I say hated, I mean HATED and walked around like a grumpy little moppet all day long while trapped in it. I don’t know why I happened to be wearing one in the picture. I can only assume it was bribery or coercion.

Things improved slightly for me in first grade, as I got to wear my absolute favorite and BEST EVER outfit of all time. This one. I convinced myself that this getup was a reasonable replica of a stewardess uniform. A stewardess uniform, besides being awesome, was important for me to have in my wardrobe, because I had every intention of being an actual stewardess as soon as I was old enough.

This was long before I realized two crucial pieces of information that would squelch that dream completely. First, I don’t really like flying. At all. Anytime I get on a plane, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get off of it in one piece, but rather will be found amidst it’s wreckage in a few dozen pieces. This notion was made immeasurably worse by a horrifying flight I took back from Japan just before I started high school. Second, I had no idea at the time that my height would tap out somewhere around junior high. I don’t know of too many 5’1″ flight attendants. I can’t even fiddle around in the overhead compartments effectively. I’m the sort of short that has to depend on the kindness of strangers in order to procure items off the top shelf at the grocery store. It just wasn’t meant to be. Also, it should be noted that this stewardess photo provides incontrovertible proof that Small looks exactly like his mother. I wouldn’t have guessed it either, but here it is in tan skin and forest green polyester.

At some point, school pictures turn from cute and funny shots of sweet little kids to painful and awkward poses from tweens. I don’t know what was going on here. I remember the shirt, as usual. You can kind of get an idea of the puffy shoulders, although their full magnificence is just outside the frame. This is in something like 1982, when Gunny Sax was king, and the whole “Prairie” thing was perfectly acceptable as a fashion choice. Adding to the stellar capture of a moment in time here, is the faint glint of my braces just barely visible through my slightly parted lips. (They didn’t close without some effort due to said braces) I believe this was also the first, but certainly not the last perm I would sport while in my larval stage. I wouldn’t become acquainted with a tweezer in any meaningful way for YEARS to come. Check out the super full brows. I was fortunate to escape the unibrow that menaced my brother, but wow.

I wonder if I even knew it *was* picture day that morning when I got dressed. I don’t remember for sure, but I DO remember waiting in line to have my photo taken, while my seventh grade teacher was having a fit about kids coming their hair. I kid you not, she forbade us from using those little plastic combs they used to hand out while we waited for our photos to be taken. You can see how well that worked out for all involved.

My kids have lucked at every year with their portraits. They have looked beautiful every single time. That said, I’m sure they will look back at their photos the same way I look at mine, with weird recollections and mortification. It’s all just part of the exercise.