Adventures in Parenting #33: School Pictures

As I've mentioned before, Cooper has been enrolled in our church's preschool (YCW) this semester. Because if someone else can take care of your baby for six hours a day, two days a week, you let them do that. YCW has been an outstanding experience for us and I don't just say that because some of the employees read my blog. Truly, it's been a real blessing and we've loved having Cooper involved in the program, even at such a young age. He gets to spend a few hours each week with his peers, we get a few hours of absolute work time, and we get stoked up on art that Cooper has "made" in class. It's a win-win-win. A great many new experiences come along with your King Baby's enrollment in a preschool like this and maybe at the end of the year I'll write a full recap. But one of the big events is, of course, Picture Day. Having run a youth sports program for the last five years, I know all too well the importance of Picture Day. One year during soccer our Picture Day was rained out and when it became apparent that rescheduling was going to be an issue, you might have thought I'd told the families I was going to take possession of their first born sons considering the outcry. It is a BIG deal.

Even still, when we got the notice that Picture Day would be taking place, I was caught off guard as I'd never really thought about the need for Picture Day for a five month old baby (at the time). But we complied and dressed Cooper in his cutest casual attire (no one likes the kid who gets super dressed up for school pictures, nerds), hosed him down with Axe Body Spray (no we didn't), and sent him off for pictures with a man known only to us as Mr. Potato Head Photographer. I, like you, have many questions about a man who calls himself Mr. Potato Head but that's neither here nor there.

A couple of weeks later we were notified that we could pick up our photos the next day. Now, we hadn't placed an order for any photos or a package of photos, they'd just been printed for us anyway. I found this process weird but apparently it's quite common for veterans of Picture Day. When I arrived to drop Coop off, there was an envelope with his name on it waiting for me and inside were six sheets of pictures in various sizes and varieties for me to choose from. I could buy all of them for one price or could essentially create my own picture combo meal package and take only the sheets I wanted. I called Lindsey (because obviously this was not a decision that I could make on my own, duh) and we settled on three sheets of photos for the price of one billion dollars and six head of cattle. No, I'm kidding, they were pretty reasonably priced all things considered. This does leave us with one small issue, however: there were six sheets printed for my perusal and I took only three. What happens to the other three? Are the photos of my adorable King Baby just thrown away? Sold to an ad agency that will use them in a JC Penny catalog? Used as filler in new picture frames? I'm not sure and the question will haunt me.

Anyway, here's the end result which, if I do say so myself, is ridiculously cute. You're welcome, world.

Do they still make JC Penny's catalogs? Brian