I guess we have picture day early in the school year to give everyone time to save up for “sibling picture day,” “grade 2 graduation picture day,” “Terry Fox run photo finish” (race results pending) and of course re-takes for each of these. I know by June we’ll have a framer and perhaps a little money back in the bank.

I knew I had to tread lightly this morning, careful not to try to tell the girls what to wear for picture day or they would leave the house in mismatched scuba diving outfits just to spite me.

Hanna was my first battle. For her grade three picture, she insisted on wearing what she wore in her grade two picture. While the dress still fit, I looked at her and nodded, taking my time trying not to say the wrong thing that might instigate a twenty-minute,  tear-filled plea about why her picture day dress from last year hadn’t fulfilled its picture day destiny if it missed out on this ripe opportunity to be photographed. This could send her straight to the tickle-trunk for an offensive series of feather boas.

I had Ellie in the corner witnessing our exchange and wanting to be the pleaser announced, “Mom, why don’t you pick my outfit, I’ll wear anything.” Ahhh, sigh. “I don’t care what I wear, as long as I can have three braids at the sides and a ponytail coming out the back. Sigh reversed.

Hanna opted for a high, single, side ponytail with a black flower clipped to the middle. There I was in the middle of a Robert Munsch book with only a couple of minutes before the bus arrived.

Me (aware of the time on the clock): Hanna, why don’t you choose a different dress for today’s picture so we will be able to tell your grade two and grade three pictures apart?

Hanna: You’ll know what grade I’m in from how tall I am in the class picture.

Ellie: Mommy, the dress you picked for me…..I love it…..I like it……it’s…..it’s just that you can’t tell if it’s a dress or a shirt and a skirt and for picture day, I need to wear a dress. A dress that looks just like a dress.

Me: That is a dress Ellie.

Ellie: Yes but you can’t tell because of the belt. Pick something else.

Chloe emerged wearing a life jacket, one of her big sister’s bike helmets over her Elmo t-shirt, sandals, permanent marker stripes on both arms and a bath-robe. Finally, someone that’s ready to start this day.

Along came the tights.

I really have to be at my wrestling weight to work with kids and tights. It takes every ounce of my sanity not to start screaming, tearing them into tiny pieces and wearing them like a rooster cap for the rest of the day to prove to the neighbours I have gone completely off the deep end.

Tights are the enemy not just to my kids but most kids. I too remember feeling as though I would never be able to feel comfortable in them. They would bunch around the ankle on one side and my thigh on the other making me feel over-heated and lopsided all day. The thin ones would have a colour block of dark purple on one calf and would be nearly transparent on the other.

My kids lose their cool before the tights have even made it over their toes and mistakenly spend most of their efforts around the toe and heel area when instead they should just get them on and work from the bottom up to smooth out the kinks.

Tights would be a great workshop for an anger management class. They teach patience, precision, sometimes teamwork and those who fail, have a quick DIY burglar mask at the ready.

I guess my efforts on the girl’s hair was for naught as the elastic I had spent the better part of ten minutes wrapping around the side of Hanna’s head had been torn out (in some places at the root) and her hair was dishevelled and down by the time she appeared on the driveway to hop on the picture day school bus.

See you in a couple weeks for round one of re-takes Life Touch Photography. I should probably book the sibling ticket in advance.