To my precious girl on school picture day.

Dearest Mad Hatter,

If the evidence below is any indication, there’s a slight possibility I may have tortured you just a teeny, tiny bit this morning in preparation for your school pictures.

 

You had the perfect little dress. The perfect little cardigan to go over it. The perfect little white tights even though I thought they were going to look awful, Sweetheart was right.

The perfect pink daisy clip in your hair.

The perfect little body tucked into it all.

And the perfect little personality that no one will ever see from that picture if you smile the way you normally do for pictures when someone asks you to – horribly!

I don’t know what it is, but when someone tells you to smile, you morph into what you think is model-mode.

Scrunched up shoulders. Tilted chin. Squinty eyes. Cheese-ola smile. Hands up around your face.

I’ve deleted those photos.

I don’t know where you picked this up, but I spent a good part of yesterday and all of this morning trying to coach you on how not to smile.

What do you say we try to forget about the fact that I snapped 71 pics before we left the house?

Or that you actually asked me if we could stop because you wanted to get to school on time.

I am sorry  my love.

I would just adore a professionally taken photo especially when I’ve had to pay lots of money for it ahead of time regardless of how it turns out that captures your smile the way I see it. Not the way you think you should do it.

While I can’t promise that we won’t go through this every year at school picture time although if you keep this up I’m going to have to look into un-modeling agencies, I can promise you this:

No picture I could ever hang on the wall could possibly do  justice to the amazing beauty and charisma you exude to myself, Daddy, and everyone who knows you.

 

   

 

And that, Mad Hatter? I wouldn’t trade for all the grains of sand on all the beaches in all the world.

Or a perfect photograph.

I love you,

Mommy

PS I hope when they snapped your picture, you were remembering our little “You Are My Sunshine” sing-along while I was snapping away.

PPS There’s a cotton-candy Dippin’ Dots waiting in the freezer with your name on it.