Our daughter’s school pictures came in yesterday. I always hated picture day and never liked any of my school pictures. Our daughter’s turned out well. She has this faked, force smile on her face – or maybe she is saying ‘cheese’ – either way it is very unnatural. But she is still adorable – fake smile and all. When I showed the pictures to my husband, he replied that it reminded him of himself at that age (shocker since everything our child does reminds him of himself). Now here is the funny part. He said that he would have to teach her how to smile for pictures. Now from the day she was born, she has been the star of 99% of every photo I have snapped. The other 1% – as you can tell from the archives – is of cats and nature. So the girl knows how to smile for a picture. Of course I will have to say that a lot of photos I have of her she isn’t smiling. But she can certainly smile on demand.

It just struck me as hilarious that he was going to teach her how to smile for pictures. She can smile for pictures. Sometimes she does give her goofy smile and then I persuade her to smile more naturally. This I feel is the photographer’s job to get the best smile from their subject. However, I know that school pictures they run the kids through like cattle – so a bad picture is usually the result. Also in my daughter’s defense, I have never taken her to get her photo professionally done. Between the pictures I take and my talented sister-in-law, I have enough professional quality-looking photos of her.

Here is the picture in question. It’s not bad. She still is quite adorable.