So my eldest baby girl has brought home one of those forms asking if we’d like to place an “ad” in her school year book…an option only offered to fifth graders in their final year at the school before they are “promoted” to the middle school next year.  

It’s a way to honor them at this milestone and generally involves choosing a cute and/or embarrassing photo of them as a baby or young child to include in the yearbook along with words like “We love Megan so much and are so proud of her!  - XOXO Mom & Dad.”  

So in case you haven’t had to do this before, I thought I’d walk you through the process selecting an image.

Step 1:  Sit down at your computer with a cup of coffee and put some music on…but make sure it’s happy up-beat music.  Nothing too sappy. Try not to get overwhelmed by the fact that your hard drive holds 5 gazillion photos. 

Step 2:  Start browsing your photos starting with the birth of the “promoting” child. Wish that you knew what a birth photographer was 10 years ago.  Be in total awe of how little she was and what a glorious experience child birth was….forget all the hard stuff and the pain because you are focused on that teeny tiny baby.  Start to wonder if it’s too late to have more babies.  

Step 3:  Continue browsing through your photos in time order.  Get distracted by adorable videos of your sweet baby, remembering all the little things she use to do. Get all teary eyed and think of every cheesy cliche you’ve ever heard.  “They grow up so fast.” “Don’t blink.” “It’s over before you know it.”  Tell your ovaries to settle down.

Step 4:  Get tickled at how she has some of the same expressions as a toddler that she still uses now, and how she still twirls her hair just like that.  Take a walk down memory lane remembering how she use to play with the food in the cupboard, or dress up in the most outrageous outfits. Become so thankful for these photographs that captured your sweet baby when time moved so quickly.

Step 5: Create a folder on your computer and copy any images into it that you are considering for the ad.  

Step 6:  Get all sappy and totally distracted from the task at hand by browsing through all the photo books you have, and reading old blog posts from when your babies were little.

Step 7: Get distracted by more videos.  Find one when your sweet baby was two years old, and begin to remember why it’s probably not a good idea to start over with more children.  

Step 8:  When your baby turned Tween gets home from school, show her your carefully selected folder of images that you've slaved over for hours.  Listen to her tell you that no way are you going to use any of those “embarrassing” images so forget those.  Then hear her tell you how you better come up with something really good to say and not write “the same old thing” that everyone always writes in those ads. Then watch her dump her backpack in the kitchen floor while complaining about what’s for dinner.

Step 9: Praise God for Vasectomies.

Step 10:  Write on the form: “We love Megan so much and are so proud of her!  - XOXO Mom & Dad.” and pick the most embarrassing photo in your folder. 

Disclaimer:  This post was approved by the Tween.