Lee Family Happenings: School Picture day, sorta'

Well, today was school picture day. Joshua was pretty excited about it. Yesterday he got his haircut. Today he got already in a cool T-shirt and shirt combo from Grandma Lorrayne. We combed his hair all nice and took some practice pictures here at home before heading to school. (Because I knew his hair would be lucky to last through my photo shoot much less playing until his class took theirs and it almost made it through my pictures).

After I dropped him off - which took forever because of people dropping off kids in the drop off/pick up zone who park their cars and leave them there...and park them so you can't drive by them....and then like the less than intelligent people in front of me...park in the street waiting for one parent to go drop off the kid while they sit there. I thought they were waiting to go through the drop off zone like I was. When I realized they were parked there I got really annoyed. And then I got even more irritated when I pulled closer to the drop off zone and saw that a truck parked there was slightly diagonal and the rear was three feet from the curb so there was no way that any car could get past it. Which meant that the two mini vans behind it, whenever their drivers decided to get back to them, couldn't go anywhere anyway! Finally the truck and front mini van moved, I was able to pull in and let Joshua out and apologized for him for him not having time to play because we were waiting for so long. Then as he got out, I watched the driver of the last parked van, herd a bunch of kids - none of them kindergarten age - to the van. Some day care person had been dropping off or picking up a kinder kid and let all the other kids run around and play on the playground! Umm, either park somewhere else and do that or take the kids to the park after you pick up/drop off said kinder student! Before I picked up Joshua, I went into the office to chat with Juanita, one of the secretaries that knows me from when I used to teach there. I told her my problem and she said well, kinder parents can park there to pick up kids because we have to sign out our kinder kids. I said, yes, but that makes it difficult when the morning parents are doing that 11:35 (when morning kinder gets out) and the afternoon parents are dropping off the kids before the 11:45 start time (when pm class starts). That had been a concern of some people (like the secretaries and teachers) but the powers that be hadn't gotten the idea. So she wrote it down and is going to bring it up to someone. We'll see what happens.

Anyway, I went visiting teaching after dropping Joshua off. Had two good visits, discussed our upcoming Enrichment Meeting with the Enrichment Counselor, since this is my first as Enrichment Leader (except I haven't been set apart yet, oh well), sat in the drive of our house for fifteen minutes with Nathaniel snoring in his carseat while I talked to Brian and read some stuff I'm altering for an activity and then went to the school to do the office chat mentioned above and pick up Joshua. As soon as Joshua's teacher see me she says, "Oh, did you get my message?" No, what message. Apparently, Joshua freaked out when it came time for his school picture to be taken and cried and didn't want it done. If I'd gotten the message and gotten over to the school before 2:30 we could've gotten them taken if he'd have gone with me and been okay with it. The just called using the number that I'd written on the photo payment envelope. Not thinking it was something that was going to be used today, I'd written the home phone number, not my cell number. Guess I just need to start putting that on stuff so I can be reached as needed. Which reminds me I'd better go charge that think before I need it and it's dead as a doornail.

Anyway, Joshua finally was able to explain to me that he'd been scared because the people taking pictures were strangers and he didn't know them. I explained to him that his teacher would never take him to people that were strange or scary and she'd keep him safe. From my teaching days, I remember that sometimes the photo people were really loud and animated trying to get kids to smile and I guess that could freak a kid out. So, we'll have to try again at retakes. But his picture won't be on the class picture, most likely. And that's what I really wanted. I took some good pictures of him today that I like. We decided to get a package with an 8x10 and all for his first school pictures, but now I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

Here are the pictures I took: