I Hate Picture Day

Let me start with yesterday. This is Caralie's hair yesterday afternoon before we went to get it cut. The day before picture day at school. Stupid, I know. The good news is, she got a really cute cut and we are both happy with it.

Fast forward to this morning. Caralie has an alarm clock set for 7 AM. Except on very rare occasions I can trust her to get up and start getting ready when it goes off. I'd already planned on driving her to school since I knew fixing her hair all fancy schmancy would take too much time to get her to the bus stop. So I lay in bed for 20 minutes thinking I had all the time in the world (Mistake #1).

So I finally slump out of bed at 7:20, fully expecting Caralie to have already gotten dressed, eaten, and brushed her teeth.

You think she's still in bed right?

Wrong.

The kid is upstairs playing on the computer!

In her pajamas!

I lose my cool immediately (Mistake #2) and shout, "Caralie! Do you know what time it is?!" She looks at the clock and starts to freak out and apologizes profusely. I decide to just have her eat breakfast now so she doesn't get food on her clothes. All she wants is oatmeal, which takes time to prepare (Mistake #3) and eat.

So now we're talking 7:35 and this is when she decides she needs to use the bathroom. And this is something Caralie is nearly incapable of doing quickly. While she's in there I hear her burst into song and I start to lose my cool again (Mistake #4). "Caralie! Move it!" She apologizes again and moves a little faster to finish up and wash her hands. "Brush your teeth."

This is when she gets an eyelash in her eye. Which you know means the world stops until we get. that. eyelash. out. Which can't be done because she squeezes her eye tight as a vice when I try to brush it out. Now we're staring down the nose of 7:45 and she's still not dressed, teeth still aren't brushed and (!!!) the hair is still a mess.

By the time we finally get to her hair it's like 7:50 and school starts at 8:15. And SURPRISE it's really hard to curl your kid's hair when your right hand is in a brace!

At 7:55 we're rushing to get the keys to the car and I start to insist that we get a photo of her before we go to school (I always do this on picture day because so far I've taken better photos than the "photographers" at school). But do I ask nicely? Of course not. By this point my patience is gone and when Caralie starts to balk at the idea of a quick photo I lose it for real and yell, "If you would just do as I say WHEN I say it this would go faster! Take off your backpack and stand over there!" (Mistake #...I've lost count).

Cue the tears. #@$%&#!!!!! Now her face is all red and splotchy and there's no way in holy heck I'm going to get a decent picture and, crap, now I feel like a toad and all guilty and sheepish which makes me more irritated (of course). So instead of being a good mother, I just shoo her into the car and speed out of the neighborhood because now it's 8:08 and school starts in 7 stinking minutes.

We pull into the school parking lot and SURPRISE there's a big long line of parents dropping off their kids. So we sit. And as we sit, Caralie quietly says, "Mommy? You can take my picture now." I turn around and she's sitting so humbly and looks at me so forlornly that I want to crawl in a hole and die right there. What the heck is wrong with me? I have such a sweet, fantastic kid and I treat her like crap all because I, I, I didn't get up at 7 AM like I should have? She is 7 and I am ... older ... and who is the adult and the one responsible anyway? Me.

So, as I'm feeling like a slimeball I smile at her and take her picture and tell her, "Thank you. I'm sorry I've been so crabby. I love you very much."

"I love you too." Then she's out of the car and running to class and I'm looking at the clock and it's 8:12, 3 minutes to spare.

This is my awesome kid.

I'm off to go crawl in my hole.