School picture day

"I hate it."

This was my immediate response to seeing Kylan's school photos after anxiously waiting, for what seemed like forever, for them to come in.

My mother and Ken are gawking over how amazing the picture is. Look at her smile! She's so beautiful.

All I can muster is "Why is her sweater on?? Where is her gorgeous dress I put on her in that day? Why isn't she in the class picture? This is BULLSHIT"

Looking back I'm not actually proud of how I handled that moment. I crave a level of perfection that can never be satisfied. The perfect smile, the perfect hairdo, the perfect outfit, the perfect pose. But in reality, this photo is actual perfection.

Because, on this day, I dragged my child out of bed and did her hair up just right. She didn't fight me on it. She loved that she was getting to wear a bow today -- on Daddy's day nonetheless, because years of experience has taught Mama that if Ky goes home to daddy with a bow, said bow never returns. She put on her dress and her tights and her shoes and said "I look pretty Mama. Who bought this for me?" Maggie let you borrow the dress, Ky. "Thank you Maggie." Aunty bought you the shoes. "Thank you Aunty." She requests cereal for lunch today so I quickly take out her pb&j and pack golden grahams and milk instead.

And so off we go, praying for no wrinkles and spills on her dress during the car ride. We joyfully sang "twinkle, twinkle little star" and I stared straight in her gorgeous honey brown eyes squeezing the juice out of this moment in time.

We made it to her doctors appointment just in time. Who schedules 8am doctor appointments on school picture day? Super moms do. Or stupid moms, same difference.

"Hello beautiful girl! What brings you to the doctors this morning?"

She coils into my arms because every confident, loud child becomes timid and shy in front of authority figures.

We find out that Kylan's "problem" that she insists she has is actually not a problem at all and we race to school with only a minor crease in her hair, so I call that a win.

I park in handicap and run into the school. I shove her, literally, into her class photo. Her teacher goes "we got another late one!" We are 5 minutes late, give me a BREAK.

An afterthought dawns on me that I should have taken off her sweater. And then for the rest of my entire day and leading up until I get these photos in my hand I ruminate over the dreaded thought that her sweater is not taken off during pictures.

And that is exactly what happened.

But you know what? It doesn't really matter. Because this photo is everything to me. For when I look at it, it brings me back to a time in my life filled with packing last minute lunches, rushing to early morning doctors appointments, and picking out the perfect school outfit that would not even matter in the grand scheme of things.

*I'm still trying to figure out why they didn't give me a class photo with her in it though. I saw you take one with her, who cares if the other kids are crying in it because they were over it once she got there?