School pictures.

When I was a child I didn't particularly care for picture day at school.  It was too stressful.  Then I grew up, had children of my own, and still didn't particularly care for picture day at school. It was still a little bit stressful. 

The notice would arrive home with the kids giving you the date and the suggestions as to what to wear and what not to wear - no light colors, no white.  It was a bit of a debate on picture day as to what I wanted them to wear and what they would prefer to wear.  I always worried about how their hair would look in the pictures too.  Especially if their assigned class time was after recess or, heaven forbid, after lunch.  (When we moved to Utah, there were moms who would come to the elementary school on picture day to help, and specifically for the purpose of making sure the kids didn't look too disheveled before taking their picture.  Gotta love that.)  I think I worried because of the results of most of my own school pictures and those of my siblings.  Boy we had some doozies!

On the morning of picture day, before the kids headed out the door for school, I would tell them to "Show me how you're going to smile in your picture." And they would give me their best cheesy grin and I would tell them how nice it was.

And then a few weeks later, when the packets were passed out at school, they would excitedly run into the house and yell that they got their pictures back.  And I would say, Yay! How'd they turn out?  The girls would usually respond with, Pretty good,  but sometimes they would just shrug their shoulders and say, I don't know.  But Elliott (bless his little heart), would almost always say,  Really good, I like them!  And he was right.  Elliott wins the prize for taking the most consistantly cute school pictures in the family!

A couple of weeks ago, Sophie and I were working together to get the last of Chloe's basement bedroom all packed up and in boxes.  We were cleaning out the shelves on top of her closets which included her yearbooks.  Sophie was flipping through one of them and came across pictures of the school's version of American Idol, called Alta Idol.  She said, "Mom!  I am so mad.  They had sign ups for Alta Idol but by the time I heard about it they said all of the audition times were filled, so I couldn't sign up."  (Kay, first of all, if American Idol can audition over 10,000 people in one day, I certainly think that the local high school can accomodate any and all students who are interested in participating in that activity.  I was not happy when I heard that and told Sophie I was going to march into that office and give them a piece of my mind.  She said she'd rather I didn't.  Hmp!)

Then Sophie asked me if any of her sisters had tried out when they went to Alta.  I gave her a rather confused funny look and asked, "How do you not know that your sister Chloe won Alta Idol when she was a junior?"

She got a little excited. "WHAT?  Are you serious?  How come I don't remember that?  That is AWESOME!!!!"  (Do you ever have times like that?  When you tell a story about something that has happened in your family and certain family members have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of the event?)  And then we started to look for pictures from the year Chloe had won. We turned to the section of the juniors' student pictures ... wait, what? 

I had to take a closer look ...






Say WHAT????  I couldn't help but laugh.  I just shook my head with the biggest grin on my face and thought, That little stinker.  I hadn't even seen that picture before, and then I thought how proud I was of that crazy girl of mine.  She had all the confidence in the world at that age and was going to march to the beat of her own drummer.  (She carried a Strawberry Shortcake backpack all through high school, and a different one each year.)  People definitely knew who she was ... and I bet they all get a kick out of this photo too.  And I bet she probably would have been nominated for class clown if she hadn't transferred to the performing arts high school too. 

Oh Chloe, Chloe, Chloe - you silly, silly girl.

(Freshman year)