October 4, 2010: Picture Day

Azia can have her room destroyed before 8am.

So today was picture day at school. I wasn't buying any photos so I didn't really think much about it, but I did tell my kids this morning "Brush your hair, it's picture day."  I generally like them to brush their hair everyday, but I can't say we're great at achieving that goal 100% of the time. Too many kids. Too much hair. But I thought it was good to remind them this morning. They will be visible in the yearbook pictures for everyone else after all, and I don't need everyone we know aware of how far we are from that 100% goal. Even when I watch them brush it, sometimes as I'm dropping them off I'll see one of them from a different angle and realize there's a full 25% of bedhead left. Azia's favorite trick is the pretending-its-all-brushed-under-this-hoodie  approach. As I was leaving this morning I went to tell Azia to get in the car and she came out of her room still in her pajamas. She hadn't even started to get ready since I'd last seen her a half hour earlier. I started to yell at her because I thought she'd gone back to sleep or was locked in her room drawing cats the whole time (it has happened before) but then I walked in & saw this scene. She had potential outfits covering most of the area of her room. That's even one hanging from the light in the foreground. She even drug all her bins of clothes from out of her closet. As I looked around she just whined, "I don't know what to wear!!" I think I had caused her some stress with no forewarning about this picture day thing. I just threw her some jeans and a simple shirt and boots and she was fine with that choice, but when she came out a few minutes later and headed for the car she still hadn't brushed her hair. She got some of it calmed down on the way out the door. 

Later in the day when I saw some other facebook posts about middle school photo day I got a little worried. Usually they do it a different day than the elementary so I hadn't even reminded Israel to brush his hair. Or checked to make sure he actually changed out of the sweats he slept in before heading out the door. When he got home this evening I asked if he had pictures taken. 

"Oh. Yes."  

I asked if that's what he wore. (A sleeveless baseball shirt from about 5 years ago which he still had on after football practice and dinner.)  

"Oh. Yes. And it was... awesome." 

He went on to show me his sideways poise, the over-the-shoulder glance and smirk, and how he flexed his giant bicep right as they took the photo. "Oh, yeah," he said, bicep flexing again, nodding at the memory of the awesomeness of this photo he'd had taken earlier in the day. 

As Israel was still flexing in the middle of the kitchen, I looked over his shoulder at Zoran at the counter, with a very messy mop of blue hair, eating his 3rd bowl of Cheerios of the day. "Zoran, did you brush your hair before pictures today?"

"It doesn't matter, Mom. I still looked good." And he was done talking to me and back to the Cheerios.

My kids aren't lacking in the confidence department. Someday, maybe they'll make some progress with the personal hygiene.