My oldest appeared at my bedroom door, head down, tears in his eyes, holding his 1st Grade Year Book – something he received on the first day of Second Grade.

“What’s wrong?” I ask reaching out to hold him.

“I’m not in any of the pictures except for the one where I am standing with the other kids from Art Class and Molly Henderson’s pony tail covers my face…” Sob, sob and catches his breath and then continues with, “Mark is in four pictures and Allen is in five, I know, I counted, and I’m in ZERO except for the stupid Art Class one.”

WHOOSH! A memory enters my mind. One that I had completely shelved at the end of last year as I was coordinating the “School’s Out” party and planning our summer vacation. Amidst the piles of paper work, there was a note sent home requesting pictures from parents to include in the year book.

You see, I don’t take pictures. Other, more organized moms take pictures. I request copies and pay for film, but I don’t take pictures. The good news is that I have organized photo albums – but only because I get the left over pictures from generous relatives or friends.

I guess I hoped that my son’s image would be included by association or osmosis or something. After all, he was involved in everything – surely some mom some where would have snapped a picture of her child with my son visible in the background. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky.

So what do I do? I’ll tell you what I am going to do…..I am going to actually use the digital camera I got for Christmas, take the extra step of pulling the images off of the computer, and turn them into the Year Book Committee along with dozen cookies and gift certificates to Starbucks. I’ve heard a picture is worth a thousand words…. Looks like NO picture is worth about the same in tears and guilt!

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