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Unprepared for Picture Day

This week I purchased school photos - you know those packages with the super staged photos and kind of lack luster backgrounds? The ones that made your mom all kookie-dooks while you were getting ready because your curls didn't set just right? And your eyes were puffy from crying because she wouldn't let you wear your favorite outfit?! Was that just my mom?

But there is something about flipping through a set of children's school photos that feels like a right of passage into parenthood. Now I'm the one all kookie-dooks (ok, hopefully not as much as my mom, haha, love you mom), and it's my turn to pick out my favorite poses.

Here they are if you're wondering...

I can't get over Otto's crossed legs and loafers <3
I'm guessing Ms. Zara has a serious face on because she doesn't understand forced "cheese's" very well. 

And how is picture day like Mission Control you ask?

Well, behind the consoles and people of Mission Control is a huge wall of windows. And behind the windows are rows of seats set up in an auditorium style viewing room. It is not uncommon to be plugging away on console, deep into a telemetry signature or planning work and then have a little shock when you turn around to throw something away. Often the viewing room is full of visitors - school groups or Space Center Houston tours, sometimes it's family or friends of the astronauts onboard watching them spacewalk or undock. 

Sometimes I wonder how many pictures exist of the back of my head. 

A couple years ago I was doing just that - plugging away on a complicated plan in the middle of the night when I took a second to look up at the downlinks. And then I saw him - an astronaut - taking a picture of me....from space!!!!

Ok, ok, so he totally wasn't taking a picture of me. Nope - he was taking a photo of a piece of the space station and our external camera just happened to capture video of him through the cupola windows! But for a split second I felt so unprepared. I mean, my curls were definitely not set, and my smile didn't feel natural, my hands were placed awkwardly on a, well, computer mouse, and my posture was most definitely poor.

When I snapped out of the picture day fog, I decided I needed my own picture, of him taking a picture of me, from another camera. Oh geez, that's confusing. 


Hope you have an awesome picture-day-free Friday!!

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