This Is How He Rolls

Way back when I was a graduate school intern, I had this funny little guy named Billy in my first grade classroom. He was a tiny kid, but he absolutely oozed personality, and due to an older brother, he had, shall we say, a mature sense of humor. One day one of my fellow interns - teaching 7th grade math - came to observe my class. He was sitting at Billy's table, helping the kids work on journal writing. Now of course as many of us can remember, hat-wearing codes become a big deal in the upper grades, but as a first grade teacher, it wasn't something we spent a lot of time worrying about. My friend asked Billy why he was wearing a hat in school, and little tiny six-year-old Billy turned to this 30-year-old 7th grade math teacher, cocked his head, and said "cuz that's my style, Daddy!"

Anyway, probably not that funny of a story if you weren't there and you don't know the characters involved, but when William was running around our house yesterday with no shirt and this hat on, it made me think of Billy. I do miss all of the crazy things my students used to say and do. Thank goodness I've got two of my very own monkeys to keep me entertained!

Am I Just Biased?

One of the hazards of being best friends with a world-famous photographer and having some other amazingly talented photographers as friends is that you sort of lose your appetite for "typical" commercial photography. You can't exactly go to the local mall for portraits of your child and love them when you are used to the incredible talent of friends like mine. And so when Caroline's preschool announced that school pictures were being taken, I almost gagged. I didn't want to waste my money on junky pictures when I am so blessed to have (literally) dozens and dozens of exquisite portraits of my child. But you can't exactly not order, can you? So I did. And here's what I got:

So here's my question: am I just biased because she's my kid, or is this a pretty cute picture?? It's certainly better than the horrible school photographs I was used to seeing when I taught just a few years ago. I'm sure Erin and Amy are gagging that I'm even asking, but it was a nice surprise this morning. :)

BTW, I can't even stand how old she's looking. And the thought that she'll be FIVE on her next birthday. Two, three, and four all seem sort of the same in a way. But five is BIG. Thank goodness we have almost a year to go.