Today, I unknowingly broke one of the cardinal rules of Picture Day.


My offense today was not my choice of clothes, which is sometimes my offense. My brown cardigan, the students say, is more like a cape, which is a lose-lose since they do not pay me extra respect due to my super-hero costume.


My clothes are appropriately teacher-ish, pants and shirts and sweaters plucked out of the Kohls 75% off rack or steals uncovered during an archeological dig through TJ Maxx.  But not old teacherish. I don’t wear blazers with giant shoulder pads. I avoid suits in general. That just makes me look like I’m playing dressup. I’ll be the teacher and you guys be the students…


Picture day or no picture day, I tend to wear the same sort of thing, no matter what the style-mavens around me flaunt–which is why I never owned Uggs or shawls or skinny jeans or half the other things that found their way into the closet of people gifted with fashion awareness.


Today, my choice of ensemble apparently flies below my students’ radar because the students are more concerned with a certain accessory I left at home.


“Mrs.Cunningham, where is your baby?”


“My baby?” I ask as I pull off my coat and begin contemplating what desk item I could wedge into my furnace to force the temperature up.


“Did you forget its school picture day?” They ask.


“No…” I stare at them, momentarily confused until my eyes connect with the hoopla in the hallway outside my room.

There on the bench are four girls, each with an infant perched on their laps. A couple of boys mess with some toddling babies further down the hall. They are waiting in line for the photographer.


Sure enough, when it is my time to have my staff mugshot taken, I wait behind a student whose photo is being snapped with her one month old baby. She has not even returned from maternity leave yet, but thankfully was able to make it in for photo day.


The photographer keeps smiling and clicking her fingers together and acting goofy in general trying to get the one month old baby to look and smile at her six feet across the room. I consider telling her that one month old baby’s eyes don’t focus that far away. And that its pretty young to be smiling too. But then again, I’m the stupid person who came to school picture day without my baby. What do I know?