School Pictures

There are two times every year when moms get an undeniable reality check. A barometer by which to gauge whether they have too much on that proverbial plate. In the midst of the madness moms may not realize they are overstressed or letting things slide, but school pictures don’t lie.

There are two ends of this spectrum. You have the days mom was coherent enough to realize it was school picture day and chose an appropriate outfit and spiked the bangs and slicked down the cowlicks of the darling boys. Then you have the other days. You know the ones. The ones we all have stashed away in the photo albums. The ones where your kid looks like he was raised by wolves and like those wolves combed his hair with a fried pork chop before chasing him to school. The ones where people at school smirk and say witty things like, “Oooh. That’ll be a good story for the scrapbook.” After the urge to let the wolves raising your kids loose on them passes, you nod and smile and keep walking.

Parents don’t send their kids to school on picture day looking like ragamuffins on purpose. It’s just one more thing that gets lost in the shuffle of over scheduled lives. But what do you cut out? The full time job? Not in this economy. Sports? Hello – obesity is epidemic in this country. Church? I’m not really up for a lightning strike from heaven right now.

My decision – abstain from cleaning the house. It is troublesome, time consuming and I really don’t like it. Never mind that if you walk in my house right now you might think I’ve been robbed at gunpoint. I think it’s a good way to start restoring some balance to my hectic existence.