Friday, November 18, 2011

School Pictures


Ali Dani G. over at I'm Just That Way and That's Just Me, and Lynn (I'm not really on a first name basis with her, despite calling her Lynn just now) over at (the prolixly titled) My Life as an Ungraceful, Unhinged, and Unwilling Draftee Into the Autism Army, came up with an idea of sharing the joys of special needs school pictures.  Sidenote:  I'm not positive that Lynn's blog is titled that, or Autism Army Mom, since the site address is www.autismarmymom.com.  Maybe the "title" above is actually the description of the blog, not the title itself, in which case I retract the word prolixly (which is totally a word) from the description of the title.

Anyway, the idea of the blog hop is to see the funny (though sometimes sad/frustrating) consequences of sending a school photographer to snap cookie cutter pictures of our kids, who are often pathologically incapable of sitting still, smiling on command, making eye/camera contact or in cases even repeating "cheese" predictably.

The blog hop itself has been an utter failure in my opinion, primarily because all the pictures I've seen thus far have been cuter than a bug's ear and in no way support the concept of "funny" tragic school photographs.

And in fact, my own children's pictures, far from being tragic or amusing are fucking gold!  I mean. . . look at these kids!  In an effort to support the original requirement, however, I have offered up a couple of my old school photographs to show true amusing tragedy.  But that is later.  First. . . My kids' contributions.

We'll start out with Emma, the older NT sister.  I'm relatively bummed because although I have in my office every "school picture" taken of Lily starting from about three years before she actually even attended school, I have only the last two of Emma here.  I have a zillion softball team pictures, a hundred dance pictures, but only the last two school pictures.  Meh.

The blur is my fault.  I took pictures of the pictures and then cropped them on my iPhone, so a little distortion/blurring, and maybe even tint/lighting issues are the result of that, not the ineptitude of the photographer.

So, without further adieu. . . Emma's 3rd and 4th grade pictures!


Our only issue with her third grade picture was her hair wasn't perfect and she has a much sunnier smile, ordinarily. Still, all in all. . . nailed it! (blur is my fault). (Author's note.  my wife read this blog and took offense that I said Emma's hair wasn't perfect.  Her argument seemed to boil down to this, "I WORKED on that hair!" as if that somehow equated to perfection.  I didn't say her hair was BAD. . . I said it wasn't PERFECT, now go back in the other room so we can text each other more stuff)


Again. . . come on, Emma, let that sun SHINE, baby!  But it's still a pretty good picture. Rockin' the sequins 





















Lily's up next. They used to take Spring and Fall pictures at the daycare, same school photographers. The only consistent issue with Lily's pictures appear to be her glasses. Sometimes the best pictures catch a wicked glint off the lights, but we can live with that.


Lily at 3. . . she's all chubby-lookin', like a little butterball turkey (just in time for Thanksgiving) . . . nothing a little autism won't cure.

Lily at 4. . . she's even SMILING for godsake!!


Lily at 5. . . best picture EVER!!!  (glasses were broken)


Alright. . . so, she could probably look happier in this one.  But not making any "weird" faces.  The hair is a tad mussed, but what do you expect.  Still, the expression on her face seems a long-suffering patience.  "Let's get on with this, please.  I have a juicebox waiting for me."
And finally, me.  As you'll see, things started off pretty well.  I mean, I was one damn cute kid.  Look at my gigantic 70's lapels.  You could hang glide with those monsters.  Children lost eyes on those points!  Fashion can be a sadistic mistress.
Favorite sweater.  I think you can see why.  Whatcha lookin' at, kid?  The birdie is over here.
Okay, good so far. And wait til you get a load of this. . . WOW!! This kid is one cute little bastard! Look at the eyes, the cute little smile. I'm practically melting just looking at that innocent little lamb!
Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, do you SEE this little cowboy shirt with the mother-of-pearl buttons!!! Don't you just want to pinch his cheeks and feed him????
And then eventually 7th grade happened.  And you know what?  My mom still told me I was handsome and that all the girls must be crazy over me.  Ugh!  You were such a liar, mom!  I was a goddamn train wreck.  What the hell is going on with my hair?  And those glasses?  Really??  Yeah, and as if my early teens weren't awkward enough, hmmm, how could we traumatize the near sighted awkardly skinny kid more. . . hmmmm. . . oh yeah!  Let's slap some braces on that kid, STAT!!


But the most disappointing thing about this particular blog posting isn't that my picture is the most awkward, it's that I couldn't actually find the really awkward picture that replaced this one my 8th grade year.  *shudders*  It's probably for the best, but I couldn't find the old pictures last night so my wife helped me by spelunking through the nightmare that is her office-cum-storage room, and I grabbed them on my way out the door this morning.  "You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles."

2 comments:

  1. Love these pictures. I need to find mine and share as well. My senior picture is hah-lair-ee-us.

    ReplyDelete