foreshadowing

On Saturday night, after a day full of niece-lovin' and photo shoots, Matt and I found ourselves back at my parents' house with a few hours before bed to kill. It occurred to me that it'd been awhile since I'd dug out my old baby books and 'school days' books (grade school equivalent of baby books...my mom dutifully recorded the highlights of each of our lives well through middle school, as well as collecting pictures, report cards, and various other artifacts in these books. WELL DONE, Mom!). I braved the dust bunnies and mothballs and found my books and was consequently highly entertained for several hours. Then I realized that if I took pictures of what I was seeing, you could be entertained too! So...you're welcome.

My main conclusion is that you can tell a lot about what a person will be like as an adult from how they act/perform/what they like as kids. I'm a prime example of this. I'm basically just a taller version of my 4-year-old self. But let's get some evidence, shall we?

First, a fairly irrelevant but cute class picture of my pre-k class. I helpfully pointed to myself. Tallest one in the class already! Please note that at this time ('87 or '88, according to the thing at the bottom) I had cute hair. It sort of looks like my hair now, really, from what I can tell. But remember that it's cute. This won't always prove to be the case, looking back....

After preschool I embarked on the major journey of kindergarten. Which according to all sources, I totally rocked at. But don't take my word for it. Here's what my mom had to say:

Please raise you're hand if you're surprised to learn I was the best speller, most enthusiastic at music, followed all the rules, and was suspected to be gifted?

Like I said. A five-year-old version of...me.

Never change, cutie. Except that smile. Open your mouth up a little. And maybe consider cutting your bangs straight next time.

But wait! There's more! Still from kindergarten:

This whole loving school, crying when summer came? That continued for most of my life. I liked summer and all, but I LOVED SCHOOL. 

But sweating? Psh. That's for the birds (and we all know how I feel about birds). I have many distinct memories of pitching fits about being forced to wear anything-but-a-dress. I freaked out when I sweated. I hated P.E. Hate hate hate hate hated. I took gymnastics. I took dance classes. These are both acceptable (and AIR CONDITIONED) forms of exercise that did not involve sweating (at least at the five-year-old level).

So that was kindergarten. It was amazing. First grade was much the same. Second verse, same as the first:

Isn't it great that the MOST MEMORABLE thing about me, the thing deemed MOST WORTHY of being noted in the memory book, was my disdain for sweat and pants? I rather like that. It explains why I am naturally drawn to the (rather extensive) dress side of my closet each morning. It explains why I typically decide I'm done working out once I notice myself sweating. It does not explain why I'm attempting an outdoor triathlon in Georgia in August anyway. I guess 25 more years of personal growth have helped me come to terms with sweating and wearing pants. A little bit.

By second grade we'd started standardized testing. High five for the ITBS, anyone? Here's what I remember about testing weeks in elementary school:

LOVED THEM.

Sitting down for hours in the silence, filling in little bubbles, making sure you finished fastest and best? That was my JAM. We can consider this foreshadowing of the future, perhaps to the year 2006, when I decided (a year after graduating college) that it would be fun to take the LSAT after studying for a few weeks. Why? Because I freaking like taking tests, that's why. 

I won't brag about my LSAT scores. I'll brag about my 2nd grade ITBS scores, though. Check it out, yo.

The arrow is pointing to the column that tells the percentage that the student (ME) got correct. My favorite part about this whole spelling/language section is that while overall I did  very well, indicating an early love of reading and writing, please note the section (starred) I performed the most poorly in: overcapitalization.

Foreshadowing to being a True Blogger one day? HAHAHAHA. Everyone knows you're not really blogging unless you randomly capitalize words, right? I mean, who knew 2nd grade standardized tests could be so correctly predictive of the farrrrrrr away future??! Blogging wasn't even a Thing then!

Alright. Enough about what a smarty-pants second-grader I was. The rest of elementary school looked about the same (hates pants, loves school), but my hair got progressively worse. Flash forward to seventh grade and you have this:

Uhhhh...yeah. And I thought I was hot stuff, yall. But you must know: I wore glasses. I just took them off for this picture. And they were ugly glasses, too. But that shirt was from the Limited Too-- LEGIT.

I won't bore you with more. For me, the stuff in my baby books was rather correctly predictive of my future. But don't worry-- that's not always the case! Please examine Exhibit B: my sister-

My precious Sarah, who spends her days bringing light and laughter into the lives of everyone lucky enough to know her, who is a talented hair stylist that quickly draws a devoted clientele in whatever city she moves to, who was the embodiment of the popular high school cheerleader (well, the positive embodiment) and is still the beloved 'baby' of our family...well, it looks like she got off to a rough start. When I was busy loving dinosaurs and hating pants, Sarah got this:

"not very friendly to strangers- stares at people and won't smile...not friendly to people she doesn't know."

And I had to crack up because I would never ever in a million years have guessed those words were describing my sister. They far more accurately sound like me, to tell you the truth! But not Sarah!

So don't worry. Maybe your kid will grow up to be an older, taller version of whoever they are now. Or maybe they'll be totally different. Either way-- record it in their baby book (or your blog, as the case may be) now so that they can have a hearty laugh at their own expense later.

Sarah, upon receiving the news that she was a baby snob.