Here’s the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth…

TRUTH: I am overly concerned with capturing moments for posterity. It’s probably an illness.

TRUTH: In my ruthless pursuit of this goal, I can be extremely annoying and unkind to the people I love the most in the world.

TRUTH: I wanted to have a “First Day of School” photo for 2014.

TRUTH: As usual, we were running behind. (As I was driving my daughter to school post-photo, I said, “We wouldn’t want to set their expectations too high by actually being on time on the first day of school, right?” She concurred out of politeness).

TRUTH: Even though we were running late, I was going to have my photo, come hell or high water.

TRUTH: Hell and high water came…in the form of an unhinged lunatic wielding a grin-enforcing camera like a cudgel.

TAKE 1

TAKE 2

TRUTH: I made my daughter change her skirt for the photo, thereby delaying our departure for school even further.

TRUTH: I made my oldest son “put on a nice shirt” for the sake of the photo. He gamely put on a hot, itchy flannel shirt in the middle of steamy August to please his crazy mother.

TRUTH: I made my younger son, who wanted to get himself packed and ready to go, extremely anxious by forcing him to pose for a photo…”SMILE! Come on, SMILE! NO, try to look natural. Pretend you’re happy!”

TRUTH: The photo IS the truth. My son is about to lose it.

TRUTH: I was so dissatisfied with my annual “Back to School” photo that I seriously considered forcing the children to do another fake first day of school photo session.

So help me, God. I obviously need it!