Last night was back to school night at my daughter's school. (Tagline: School events: All the uncomfortable mingling of networking events. None of the alcohol.)
In preparation for the parents seeing the new classroom, all the kids in class did construction-paper portraits of themselves to display. And at the bottom of the portraits were identifying facts the children had written about themselves.
As we walked into the classroom, all the parents were tasked with finding their kid's portrait, then putting a post-it note on the picture telling the child that we had found it. What a cute little icebreaker of a get-to-know-you, right? I'm sure the teacher figured this was a no-brainer, as the portraits resembled our children, the information they provided further identified them, and all good parents recognize their own child's handwriting. Besides, even if all else failed, by simply using a process of elimination a parent could find their child among the 27 portraits.
(And sure...that may work just fine for children that do not produce this kind of artwork.)
All of these things went through my mind as I went up and down the entire wall four times, finding nothing that resembled my child. I asked for help from other parents, looked on the opposite wall to see if it was there for some reason, and finally -- not wanting to further embarrass myself in front of all the quality parents, convinced myself that she must have missed the activity and simply gave up.
So when I picked her up from school this afternoon, I explained that I could not find her portrait at back to school night and asked if she would show me where hers was. And she did:
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The upside: my child obviously does not see colorThe downside: apparently, I doIn my defense: the kid has never once worn a bow in her hairNot unrelated: she is going to be Gabby Douglas for Halloween.