Picture Day

Picture this. A small, blondish boy. He is wearing fleece pants, striped fleece pants, to be exact - blue, orange, white, maybe another color too. They look more like pajama bottoms then pants, but they are pants. He is wearing two shirts. One is black and has a glow-in-the-dark set of ribs and arm bones lining the chest and long sleeves. Over top of that is a Hawaiian shirt. Button down, surf-boards, hibiscus flowers, "Alohas". The only thing working with this outfit is the fact that the Hawaiian shirt shares the same color scheme as the pants.

This was the outfit Alex was wearing when I picked him up from school on Tuesday. This was the outfit Alex wore for his first ever "School Picture Day."

I will never judge another parent again solely on the grounds of what her kid is wearing.

This is how it happened. Alex, my little Alex, who hates to take his jammies off in the morning because they are cozy and he HATES to be cold, decided to surprise me by dressing himself that morning. I went t o his bedroom door. "Don't look!" he said. A few minutes later, "Now look!" I opened the door to a beaming face, striped fleece pants and skeleton shirt.

Of course I gushed with surprise and congratulations over his effort and accomplishment, and then gently, oh so very gently said, "It's Picture Day and you said you wanted to wear something dapper," (his word, not mine) "is this what you had in mind?" It was not. He rushed to his closet, immediately searching the tropical collection. He chose his latest Hawaiian shirt. It was a fine choice. "This is the one," he said. "But I hate how it feels. I'll put it on in school."

I hesitated, imagining an over strapped kindergarten teacher attempting to help twenty students comb their hair and rebutton their shirts, but I agreed. I am confident Alex accomplishes twice as much at school as he can at home. He could certainly slip off the T-shirt. In the worst case scenario, he would need help with a button or two.

What happened at school, I will never know. Did he ask for the teacher's help? Did he protest removing the long sleeve shirt because he was cold? Did he hate the way the tag felt? I don't know. But when he came out of school, he was wearing his most unique outfit to date.

I thought of my check for $30.05. I thought of the extra money I had spent to be sure each set of grandparents would have a 5x7. Goodness... would we have an 8x10? And then I laughed. I looked at Alex. I looked at the clothes, and I knew the the photographer had captured the true likeness of him. Isn't the purpose of a picture to catch a moment in time? A space in history? More than anything Alex has ever worn, this outfit was him at 5...the cozy, colorful pants, the somewhat spooky, somewhat piratey t-shirt, the good time, Hawaiian party shirt. This was my boy, all summed up in the outfit he had created for himself.

Although I am not much for formal pictures, I hope his grandparents will display it proudly on their mantles. I know I'll have it on mine.

And I'll wait for the distant day when he looks back on his kindergarten picture and asks, "Mom, why did you dress me in that?"