Six! (The Lineups.)

At the end of May this year, there were eight days (after Emma's fourth birthday and just before Owen's) when my sisters and I had six children, aged one through six. Exactly. Todd brought it up a while ago, and we decided to commemorate the, I guess, accomplishment, with a photo session. Those are always a hit. (See "Family Portrait Time.")

At Emma's birthday party, Todd and Heather spent a while searching the vast internet for giant foam numbers to be used as props. But the ones we found and liked cost way too much. So, as Memorial Day weekend got closer, I figured I'd just buy three pieces of foam board and exacto-knife-out two numbers per sheet. But then, while running around the Morgan Bowl at boot camp with Heather, I had a Townie Epiphany when I realized that our track has six lanes. Exactly. And that if we could just get the kids to sit in their lanes, for one day only, for the first year of consecutively-aged kids only, we'd have a ready-made one-through-six studio.

Surprisingly, the kids did sit still. And we got plenty of pictures. This one is my favorite because it looks like Jackson and Rudy are all, "Hey, how are you holding up?" And then, "I'm a crazy tiny rascal. You are, too, right?"

I actually sent one of our pictures to the weekly local paper, and mentioned in my email that these kids have parents who are coaches and/or teachers or administrators for the public school system. And that five of their six parents have graduated from the Home of the Hawks. Todd is the Odd Man Out there, but don't worry. He's officially an integral part of the community now! When he runs his administrator duties around town and Heather sees him on her own errands, she enjoys texting him so that he knows he's part of a precious small town. Where everybody knows his name and his biznazz. And Todd did make us a "Go Hawks" sign for the kitchen a few years ago. Well done.

And then it ran in the paper last week. And I have since seen a lot of people, mostly women in their fifties and sixties, who know me as either a student or a teacher or a mother, and they exclaim, "I loved that picture in the paper! What a great idea!" But I told Heather that if I didn't know us, I'd be all, "Oh, gooooooood for you!" a la Christian Bale. "Whoop-dee-doo! Your kids are different ages! Nice try! What, are you looking to get a show on TLC?"

After Owen's birthday party, Heather spent the night cutting out the foam board numbers, and it was not easy, so we made sure they got used. But by the time we pulled them out, the kids were done. Emma staged a protest just before the "Hey, everybody just chill out on the football field!" shot, and Rudy practically had to be restrained, too.

But there they were, all lined up and cute. Buddies and cousins and ridiculous and family. One, two, three, four, five, six.