The Parenting Fail

Every year at the start of school I see the adorable photos of kids holding up their signs, “1st day of Kindergarten,” “1st day of 6th grade,” “Last 1st day of school!” For people I don’t see all that often, it’s been lovely watching their children grow up one first day at a time. I always plan to have my kids hold the signs. I always forget. I always fail.

The first day of school was consistently filled with chatter, last-minute things to put in the backpack, and conversations about what’s in the lunchbox. You name it. Then as soon as they would leave, I would remember that I hadn’t taken a picture! How could I forget to take a picture? Both my children have highly documented childhoods. I have millions of photos, boxes of keepsakes, organized books, the whole thing. But Jason and I cannot seem to pull it together to memorialize the first days of school. It’s become a character flaw.

My son is starting his third year of college already so he’s out, but this week my daughter got up for her “last first day.” She is the remaining child and it’s senior year. We heard her rustling around and knew she was almost out the door. Jason and I quickly jumped up. He raced downstairs to capture the moment.

This photo is what we got. His smudged lense that creates a nice smear across the photo, and my hurried daughter holding a sign that Jason wrote with a Sharpie in his sometimes illegible handwriting. The icing on the cake is the messy kitchen in the background. We are just not good at this. But at least she’s smiling. We may be epic failures at first day sign photos, but the kids are alright.