and....I'm back.
It's picture day today at school! What I love most about picture day is the certainty of it all. You see, I know on picture day two things are SURE to happen.
1) A child will loose a tooth the day before pictures are to be taken, thereby looking like one has just stumbled into her picture session from a bar fight. Put a beehive wig on my five year old right now and she could be Amy Winehouse post-rehab. Fortunately, and I kid you not, our school photographer now offers "retouching" for a $10 fee. (Of course, I just took the kids for their botox, so that probably won't be necessary.)
2) The other thing that's bound to happen is that I will forget it's picture day. Write it on the calendar, read the reminder notes from school - do everything imaginable to remember, and I will still forget.
Now this second inevitability has several ripple effects. Forgetting it's picture day will mean that I've forgotten to do laundry which means that my children will either be going to school in grocery bags or their Communion clothes. Seeing as we're Unitarians, our choices are reduced to paper or plastic.
Second, as was the case this morning, forgetting that it's picture day means I've lost motivation to remember to order more checks. (For those of you who have not yet entered the delightful realm of school pictures - you have to pay in advance. Because they know that your child looks like she just got into a bar fight and it's very likely you might not want to buy these photos after all of their hard work and they just don't roll that way.)
So, I'm left with ONE check in my checkbook and the Sophie's Choice of school pictures. The instructions are very clear - I CANNOT combine payments if I have more than one child at said school. Nor am I willing to write down my credit card number on the order form. Not that I don't trust people, but if I was a photog's assistant and had just spent 12 hours convincing runny-nosed kids to sit still and smile all for 8.50 an hour, those numbers would be lookin' pretty good to me.
As all things usually do, it all worked out in the end. I got out my pitchfork and dug up two respectable outfits from the laundry pile, forged my husband's signature on a couple of his checks from the account he uses to pay his grad school bills, and biked my kids to school where they ran to join the rest of the impeccably groomed children getting filthy on the playground.
It's all worth it knowing we will have photographic memories of these golden times forever.
Cheers.
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9 comments:
Too Darn Funny!
They offer retouching of a school photo. Wow.
I mean, you're right, of course -- clearly your kids have had enough work done that they'd never need it. But it's nice to know it's out there, just in case.
Even when I worked in schools, I would forget picture day. It always seemed to be the day the alarm didn't go off or I chose to wear my ugly outfit due to lack of clean laundry.
Oh Beta Mom you make me LAUGH, so glad you are back. My two-year-old knocked out his front tooth three days before my photographer friend took his Christmas card photo last year, and he looked like he had gotten into a barfight with Elmo.
As she adjusted her focus on his still-swollen beak-like mouth she said, "You'll remember this Christmas forever!"
tx poppet - Thanks - I hope you were able to figure out that "California Dreamin'" casserole dilemma!
Jeff - yes, thank god it's never too early to consider the miraculous benefits of rejuvenative cosmetics.
Jennifer - maybe it's a recessive gene in our genetic make-up?
Anna - A bar fight with Elmo? Even more brilliant! It's true, though; we'll see our kids with teeth for the rest of their lives, but we'll soon forget how hilarious they looked without them!
If I bring in my school photos from the 80s will they retouch those too? In retrospect buying Sally Jesse Raphael's eyeglasses was NOT my finest fashion moment.
how about on picture day, you remember at the last min. late for the bus, trying to get the boys to eat breakfast, they spill cranberry juice down their clean light colored clothes....oh the joys of photo day..
Alpha Dogma - Ah yes, from the "where are they now" files. I mean the glasses, not Sally Jesse!
Hallie - I can't even think of anything funny to say - just ugh ugh ugh! They say we'll look back and laugh, but I think we'll be too tired.
You're glad you found me? Well fine then, I'm twice as glad that you found me 'cause now I've found you! Yay! New favorite blog to delve into... what's that, you girls are hungry? Well, you know where the kitchen is!
Matilda just started kindergarten and we have to experience the sheer jot that must be picture day. You describe it just as I imagine it, though.
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