Perfect Easter Pictures in a World of Imperfect Kids

It gets me every year, these Facebook posts filled with well-dressed, smiling kids sitting on the steps, in the grass, at the church. There are pretty dresses and bow ties, combed hair and wide smiles. All of these perfect Easter pictures make me crazy.

One of the offspring started the morning with cutoff shorts and a t-shirt. The other wore a tie (his choosing) but had a blue Michigan University t-shirt showing right through his white button-up.

He is risen, we chant from the crowd.

Meanwhile, the apartment walls are closing in on me. The preteen is readying himself to be shipped off to boarding school. Fighting from the backseat is pinching on the last nerve I have left.

For the love of Cadbury cream eggs, someone save me.

This was not our Year of the Perfect Easter. If I can be real, I would have rather skipped church and stayed home for something extra caffeinated. But rather than dwell on the lack of table manners (I'm looking at you, ham-stabber) and choice of dress, I'm ready to give myself some grace and move on.

I hope our family never presents itself as if we have it all together (if that is how we are EVER perceived, I will consider it a miracle right next to the empty tomb) because that just isn't real.

Real is the relief in sending your young off to a separate wing of the church for an hour of grown-up talk (really, pastor, preach on anything at all that isn't Pokemon or Minecraft).

Real is 27 takes of a photo so that someone isn't flashing a peace sign or picking a nose (realest of all is using the nose-picking picture as your Easter card).

Real is rushing home to get out of church clothes, into yoga pants, and into a reclining seat at the movies-any movie-for 2 hours of quiet. Alone. With the biggest diet Coke a mother can handle and all the butter she doesn't have to share.

Real is telling the one who won't quit that he is NEVER coming out of timeout.

So if you had a perfect Easter picture that is now your profile picture that has now been liked 202 times and retweeted with reaction smiley faces, forgive me if I don't thumbs up.

I've got a kid sitting the closet for a timeout who needs a good talking-to.