"Hey Kool Aid!" "Oh, yea!"

Yesterday, Kaylea brought home the proofs of her school pictures and they were great. I am very excited about receiving the prints! Many of you are probably thinking, "Wow, they are getting their school pictures awfully late in the year." Well, we had to have retakes this year. And yes, of course, there is a humorous story to explain why.

You see, this year is the first year that Kaylea has been able to take a morning snack to school and keep a water bottle on her desk all day. WHOOT!! WHOOT!! (She thinks she is a BIG kid, now) Anyway, on the first picture day, Kaylea asked, for the first time, if she could take a Cherry Kool Aid Mix Stick to add to her water at snack time. I was trying to be a super cool Mom and I didn't see any harm in it, so I said, "of course." (See where this is going?)

Well, that afternoon when I picked up by beautiful daughter from school, imagine my surprise (you will hear me say that a lot when referring to Kaylea) when she got into the car and had a lovely red Kool Aid mustache. Oh, but it wasn't the typical Kool Aid mustache; you know, the kind that peaks out the corners of their mouth and makes their smile a little more exaggerated. OH NO, you see Kaylea sticks almost her entire upper lip inside a water bottle when she drinks, so her Kool Aid mustaches kinda resemble Hitler's. They stretch from her upper lip to right under the tip of her nose.

I very calmly asked Kaylea (with all of my fingers and toes crossed), "So, did you have your picture taken before snack or after snack. She replied, "Oh, way after." I just kinda sunk into the seat and said, "Well, you are going to have a really pretty Kool Aid mustache in your school picture, then." At that time Kaylea proceeded to argue with me and tell me "No, I won't." I was very insistent in saying, "YES, you will, because you still do." Apparently they have no mirrors at her school, or she is the least vain person I know, because she had no clue that she had walked around all day with her upper lip stained cherry red. To my surprise, she was only minorly embarrassed when I brought this to her attention. So, to stress the importance of GOOD school pictures, I pointed out to her that this picture was going to be in the yearbook and everyone in the school was going to see her Kool Aid mustache. Of course my message fell on deaf ears because she just rolled her eyes and said, "Mom, the mustache isn't going to show because the yearbooks are in black and white." (DOINK!!!!!)

Anyway, we have beautiful pictures, now. We will just keep those fingers and toes crossed that the yearbook staff will take mercy on her and put in the retake.


Once again, you might wonder what lesson I, as Kaylea's mother, have learned from all of this. Well, once again, there are a few:

1. Kaylea does not take Kool Aid Mix Sticks to school anymore.
2. I have a lot more vanity that my daughter.
3. In Kaylea's future, I think she will hear the following saying quite a lot, "bless her heart."