Preparations for Preschool Picture Day

by Catherine | Sep 25, 2014 | Family

Last year before Jane’s first school pictures, I decided to do an impromptu practice photo shoot in the family room.  Jane and Walt loved standing in front of the blue paper and hamming it up for the camera.  

Walt has always been good at giving a grin on command–just not always looking in the right direction.

And then there’s Jane.

Silly girl!

One year later, we’re on the eve of picture day at St. Joseph’s.  Only this year, Jane and Walt will get to have their preschool pictures taken.  Instead of preparing with a practice photo shoot, Jane and Walt decided independently to get their own boo boos.

The exhaustion from the start of the school year is catching up with them.  On the days that they have school, Jane and Walt take turns having epic temper tantrums.  I think their little brains are overloaded by the time they get home.  Heaven help whoever gets in their way!  

Jane was having one of her epic temper tantrums yesterday after school while I was trying to make lunch.  When they reach the point of no return, they seem to do best when they are sent to their rooms to work it out away from everyone.  The only trouble with this method is that their bedrooms are upstairs, and the kids are getting tougher and tougher for their 5’3″ mama to get up there.  

Yesterday, Jane was being especially squirmy on our journey to her room.  She squirmed out of my arms and fell on the stairs.  She landed squarely on her right brow and outer eye.  Poor girl!  Her ouchie had a little rugburn and instantly turned purple. 

The startle from her injury took her out of her temper tantrum.  I laid her down in her bed, got her an ice bag to hold on her boo boo, turned on some lullabies, and let her cool down by herself until lunch.

Then, Walt decided to get an equally impressive injury of his own after dinner.  Jane and Walt were playing in the basement while I was making dinner with Harry at my feet.  I heard a BOOM, Walt screaming, and Jane came running upstairs.  “Mama!  Mama!  Walt is BLEEDING!  It’s BLEEDING EVERYWHERE!!!”  

I think my heart stopped beating for five seconds.  I scooped Harry up and ran downstairs to find Walt sprawled next to a ride-on Thomas engine.  He had fallen off the back of it and the engine reared up, smacking him in the mouth, and he had bitten down on his bottom lip with his front teeth.

Fortunately, he didn’t bite deep enough to need stitches, but he has a big fat lip to show for his run-in with Thomas.

My prizefighters, nursing their injuries and playing with Photo Booth

As you might remember, Jane goes to preschool M/W/F, and Walt goes T/TR, so Walt showed off his swollen lip today, and Jane hasn’t shown Mrs. King her eye.  It has turned a beautiful, deep eggplant color.  

As I was folding laundry this morning and Jane was coloring at the kitchen table, I casually asked, “Jane, what are you going to tell Mrs. King when she asks you about your ouchie?”

Jane didn’t stop coloring or even look up from her drawing.  “I’ll say that Mama threw me on the stairs.”

WHAT?!  Mama THREW you down the stairs?!  Visions of CPS knocking on our front door flooded into my head.  Deep breath.  “Uh, Jane, let’s not say I threw you down the stairs.  Mommy dropped you when you squirmed out of my arms.”

“Yeah.”  She was still looking down at her drawing, not understanding why I was kinda sorta freaking out.  

Instead of preparing for picture day with practice photo shoots, we were practicing with our rehearsal of the picture day “What happened to you?” conversation.

“Okay, Jane, let’s try that again.  Let’s pretend I’m Mrs. King.  ‘Jane, what happened to your eye?'”

“I had an accident with Mommy on the stairs.”  

Crap.  She sounds like one of those women on a Lifetime movie about domestic abuse.  “Oh, this huge black eye?  I had an accident with the kitchen broom.”  Don’t overreact, Catherine.  Keep it casual.  

“How about, ‘Mommy was carrying me to timeout and I fell?'”  

“Okay, Mama.”  Two second pause.  “Do you like my silly unicorn picture?” 

I made a deal with Mrs. King at the beginning of the year that she’ll only believe 50% of what the kids tell her, and I’ll only believe 50% of what they tell me.  Let’s hope the deal still stands tomorrow when Jane tells the tale of how she got her black eye!