The Exhausted Dad: Family pictures and all the wrong clothes

With two slobs in charge of four children, we can’t be too judgmental in our house about the quality of our family photos.

While I’m happy to know an excellent and affordable photographer, I’m routinely stressed about our semi-regular family photo sessions. We never know what to wear.

Coordination went out the window years ago. At this point, Team Wilson is lucky to be wearing the same seasonal attire. I can wear a Minnesota Twins sweatshirt for three of those four seasons, thankfully, but our recent summer session required more formal attire (apparently not a Minnesota Twins T-shirt).

I only own about three decent golf shirts, and I’ve used them all for pictures at least twice over the years. If I wore a long-sleeve dress shirt, I’d be sweating before I ever left the car. I usually want to wear a Twins cap in each photo too, just so I can hide any evidence of my gradual, depressing balding.

My wife always looks good, but she stresses about her attire anyway. Usually, once she settles on what to wear, I can at least attempt to match the “dressiness” of what she wears.

The kids, however, remain absolute wild cards. All four want to choose their own outfit. Unfortunately, 90 percent of their expansive wardrobes are either dirty, missing, wrinkled or “too uncomfortable” at any given time.

My oldest son, 9, owns all sorts of clothes but will only voluntarily wear three different shirts, two pairs of pants, two or three pairs of shorts and one CRUSTY ZIP-UP SWEATER, which he already wears to school every single day, even when the thermostat cracks 80. On the other hand, he’s the quickest to prepare for family photos, and he’ll tolerate one or two of the “uncomfortable” options if we ask him.

My youngest son, 5, wears two or three different sets of clothes every day, so the majority of his wardrobe is usually balled-up and wrinkled in his hamper. This last time I rummaged through his hamper and also discovered several “damp” items, and I don’t really want to think about why. I managed to find three different polo shirts that could be “negotiable” to him (he’s not going to wear anything he doesn’t want to wear, and since none of these dressy shirts contained an image of Spider-Man, I wasn’t feeling confident).

He chose a white and blue striped polo, thank goodness, but once he put it on, I noticed the three giant stains on the front. I played a quick round of rock-paper-scissors with my wife to see which one of us had to break the news to the volatile kindergartener. I lost. He screamed.

My oldest daughter, 11, owns plenty of nice clothes, but she’s currently dealing with an awkward middle school growth spurt. She chose a nice, flowered summer dress that looked sharp, but I could tell she endured some self-loathing angst in the process of trying to find something comfortable.

My youngest daughter, 8, strives to wear the fanciest clothes for every photo. Formal dresses, elaborate hairstyles, jewelry, ribbons and hair bows… she wants it all. For this summer photo, however, she was looking way too fancy compared to the rest of us. She’s amendable to redirection… so long as she has a good 45 minutes to complete her full ensemble. This time, with 20 minutes to go before we had to leave, my daughter decided she needed to wash her hair.

Fortunately, we’d seen this story before. That’s why we tell the kids a departure time that’s about 45 minutes earlier than the actual necessary departure.

No matter how much we plan for contingencies, something goes wrong in the final stretch. Spilled juice boxes, ripped pants, a sudden gushing gash of blood… it’s amazing how many different mishaps we’ve seen over the years.

This time, the last-minute wardrobe malfunction happened to my 9-year-old son. Twist! He’s usually the most reliable! But on this occasion, he got himself ready to go a little too early. To kill time, he went outside to make a series of chalk drawings in the driveway. The lad chose a black shirt and black shorts for the pictures. But when the rest of us went outside to get in the van and leave, my son’s black clothes were covered in green, blue and pink chalky powder.

On the plus side, the chalk was seasonably appropriate and didn’t clash with the rest of the family’s outfits. Good enough. Get in the car, everyone.

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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, ages 5-11. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.