School Picture Day

Remember school picture day? Agonizing over the perfect outfit to wear, what to do with your hair...it was all planned down to the last detail. As I watched my daughter get ready this morning, I flashed back to my own junior high school days. Even though those photos weren't always my best look, they're a record -- not only of who I was, but of how far I've come.

 

As a mom, there's something humbling about sliding your child's new school picture into the frame. We keep all of ours in the same frame, so every time I put a new picture in, I go through all the old photos and marvel at how much my kids have changed. If you've ever wanted proof of how quickly time flies, just look at the changes in a child from year to year.

 

Of course, grown-ups change, too. And even though we no longer have a yearly photo documenting those changes, it's good to stop and reflect on how we're different. I can look at photos taken of me throughout adulthood and tell you, simply by the way I look, what I was going through at the time. There are the happy young bride photos. There are the exhausted new mother photos. There are the overwhelmed mother-of-two-toddlers photos. There are the grief-stricken daughter who's lost her mother and is now consoling herself with food photos. And then, there are the photos of the woman who's found herself again.

 

Just as with my junior high photos, they're not always my best looks. But I wouldn't trade them for anything. They're documentation of the journey that's brought me right to the place I was meant to be.

 

 

Comments

[Sagan]

We always kept our school photos in the same frame, too- its really neat to be able to see how fast people change from year to year!

Thanks for sharing and definitely agree with you that photos are too important to ever be gotten rid of.

[MizFit]

I love that notion of the same frame...Im going to do that as mine, from growing up, are all scattered somewhere not yet to be found.

[Crabby McSlacker]

It is interesting to watch the passage of time, not to mention the changes in fashion etc.

I have to say I cringe at some of my old school photos... but I'm glad I have them anyway!

[Dara Chadwick]

Looking at all those photos really is a fun trip down memory lane. It's fun, too, to see how much my kids look like I did (or don't) when I was the age they are now.

Crabby, I hear you on the cringing. My seventh-grade photo features a particularly heinous hair experiment.