Remember, Thursday is Picture Day!!!

I'm not sure what, or who to blame it on, but I can NEVER seem to remember school Picture Day, putting out the garbage, or picking up my husband's dry cleaning.  The part of my mind responsible for those activities seems to consistently malfunction. To prove the chronic nature of the problem:   I wrote this last year....

I really have no excuse.  The school sends out gobs of emails.  I get a note from the teacher every other day: "Remember, Thursday is picture day."  "Remember, Thursday is Picture Day!"  I have the order form with all of the lovely choices of backgrounds and all of the choice packages, A, B, C or J.  I even got out my calendar and I wrote in big permanent marker letters  "PICTURE DAY!"

But none of it worked.

This morning I drove into the parking lot and that big, red, neon light was flashing on and off:  PICTURE DAY! PICTURE DAY! and all of the little girls were wearing frilly dresses and sparkling shoes, and the boys had gel in their nicely combed hair.  And my heart stopped, for just a millisecond.

Fearfully, I turned my head around towards the back seat.  I kind of hoped perchance he had picked out one of his nicer shirts for the day?  But of course not.  It was a bright yellow t-shirt with a picture of a big monkey holding a huge chocolate bar ...a souvenir shirt from the Lindt chocolate factory in Germany.  And did I mention his hair?

Last night he was supposed to be "cutting and pasting" for his homework.  However, he decided it was more fun to try other creative pursuits with his scissors.  While the rest of us were sitting at the table coloring, Aaron said, "I can't scalp you Andrew.  You don't have any hair."  (He watches old Davy Crockett reruns with Grandpa...we may need to reconsider that pasttime.)  Perhaps that should have been a warning, but just then my phone rang.  So I walked over to pick it up, and as I did so, caught a glimpse of red scissors moving quickly across my 6-year-old's forehead.  Chop chop.  Bye bye haircut-from-Saturday-that-looked-so-cute-and-everyone- commented-on.  I screamed.  He dropped the scissors.  And then we all laughed, because it was just ridiculous.

I would have just gotten out John's electric trimmer, but the last time I used it, John ended up with several bald spots.  I figure, best leave it to the experts.  But, as I mentioned before, I forgot about what day it was today...

Back to the car.  I cautiously peer back there and peek at him.  Cute and sweet as can be, but missing big chunks out of the front of his hair and dressed in bright yellow.  It would be fine it were just for an individual picture.  I might purchase choice A, keep a few pictures for blackmail in the future :) and save some money.  But of course, there is also the class picture to consider....the one that will be in everyone's year book. Forever.  But it was too late.

When Aaron got off the bus today I asked him if anyone said anything about his hair.  He said, "No, no one!"  They all just thought things.  Did I mention the garbage didn't get picked up today either and will now sit there collecting smell for the next week?  And the dry cleaning...yup, still waiting to be picked up.  I really need to figure out how to reactivate that part of my brain.  Soon! :)