Parents With Awesome First-Day Pics, I Salute You

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I have serious envy for the people who manage to get those great first day of school pictures each year. Really. No sarcasm, no eye rolling, no shade being thrown. I don’t care if you have a chalkboard that you use each year, carefully writing out each child’s grade in script, or you scribble a number on a plain piece of paper that you grabbed from the printer. The fact that this even occurs to you means you’re several steps ahead of me.

And this year I’m slacking heavy, to make up for last year. Last year, my son started high school and my daughter started middle school. New schools, new commutes, new people, new things to deal with. While my son was out the door on his own the first day, it took a couple of weeks before my daughter could do her commute completely on her own. Which meant that it wasn’t just them who had to be ready each morning, it was me, too. (“Ready” being defined as whatever I slept in plus a bra.)

So after all of that newness last year, this year was blessedly boring. Same school and commute for each. Easy peasy. (Except that I forgot to buy food for lunches. Thank goodness we ordered pizza for dinner last night and had leftovers.)

But I still couldn’t get decent pictures.

Jake just flat out refused.

“Jake, can I get a first-day picture?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Take one when I get home.”

“C’mon! Just one!”

“No. You always told us that if we didn’t want our pictures taken you wouldn’t take them. Respect my wishes, MOM.”

“FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL DOESN’T COUNT! IT’S MY RIGHT AS A PARENT TO GET A PICTURE!”

[Running out the door as I take pictures of his back] “I DO NOT CONSENT! I DO NOT CONSENT!”

Fiona was a little more reasonable. She wouldn’t pose, but she let me snap away while she showed me her school supplies.

I don’t remember what was so funny about this folder, but at least she was having a good time. (Wait, I just remembered. It’s an accordion folder, and she was pretending to play it like an accordion.)

And that’s that. Another first day in the books. Another season of me looking through everyone else’s pictures and wondering how they managed to find the chalkboards when we couldn’t find lunchboxes, keys, and MetroCards.

Parents with awesome first-day pics, I salute you. And parents without awesome first-day pics, I salute you as well. We just blame our kids, right?