Easter: A Brief Photo History

Easter pictures. I love them. I love the bright spring colors, I love the outdoor settings. I love getting the kids dressed up in their Easter finery. I have several adorable pictures of my daughter Jillian (5) in any variety of Easter scenes from this year and years past:

Frilly Easter dress: check
Sitting with the Easter Bunny: check
Hunting for eggs: double check

She is, in short, a photographer's dream.

My 3-year-old son, on the other hand? Notsomuch.

The first Easter Josh could walk and hunt eggs, the best we could do was this:

Idyllic, no?

Last year, we were out of town. The only egg hunt we did was indoors, early in the morning. We didn't get any pictures.

Here's a picture of my son at this year's egg hunt:

Yes, I know I'm showing you his backside. Or is it his front side? No. His jeans are on backwards. And don't you think the navy blue t-shirt just screams spring?

Let's discuss the outfit, shall we? I did not send him to school like that. For the record, I had him in a very handsome Easter egg hunting outfit. I thought long and hard before I dressed him that morning (I wanted a good picture, after all). I didn't want to go too "frou frou," so I opted for nice jeans, a long sleeved white t-shirt and a sweater vest in shades of blue, white and green. Perfect.

Apparently, not in Josh's eyes. He had it in his mind to change that outfit and set his plan in motion as soon as he stepped foot in the classroom:

"Miss Joy. I'm hot. I need to take my sweater off."

"But Josh, you look so handsome and your Mommy has you dressed for the egg hunt later."

"But I'm hot!"

"Alright, we'll take the sweater off and put it back on for the egg hunt."

With part one of his plan complete, Josh runs off to play. An hour later, snack time provides the perfect opportunity to complete the outfit switch. One drop of milk hits the sleeve of his white shirt.

"Miss Joy, I got milk on my shirt."

At this point, Miss Joy directs Josh to the bathroom and hands him his ziploc bag of spare clothing. Please understand, I don't blame her at all. She's got 10 other two- and three-year olds to keep track of. Lord knows, she can't be spending the morning fighting my fashion battles.

So, Josh goes into the bathroom and comes out in the spare clothes. Now, the outfit I send as a backup outfit -- it's not pretty. I keep the nice outfits in his dresser so he can wear them regularly. The spare clothes are for emergency only. They're a little ratty, but they'll do in a pinch. His Easter egg hunt was not the "pinch" I had in mind.

There was no time to change before the hunt. Josh happily hunted eggs, backwards jeans and all. After the hunt, the children gathered together, a mass of pastel hair bows and handsome Easter sweaters. And then there was Josh.

I stood to the side, a proud mama.

We are classy, folks.

Better make room in the scrapbook, because at this rate next year's pictures are going to be a sight to see.