Mom Opens Up About Daughter's Picture Day Fiasco After Photos Go Viral: 'Better Luck Next Year'
New York mom Nicole Bartlett was excited for her 3-year-old daughter's first picture day but couldn't believe the results when the photos came back weeks later
New York mom Nicole Bartlett is still trying to figure out why her 3-year-old daughter's picture day photos didn't turn out quite as planned.
Bartlett's hilarious post about daughter Alina's picture day gone wrong went viral on social media in October. Months later, the mom of one tells PEOPLE she still has "no idea what happened" to cause the little girl to look completely different in her photos than how she walked out the door that morning.
In a side-by-side shared on Instagram, Bartlett showed viewers how Alina looked before leaving for school that morning, her hair brushed nicely and away from her face in a headband. She then revealed Alina's picture day results, in which the little girl's look took quite a turn.
"It was her first picture day. I got her up a little early and explained to her it was a special day, you get a little bit of hairspray and hair gel," Bartlett says. "I had really, really high hopes. I usually let her wear her hair up for school just to keep it out of her face and everything. But for picture day, I wanted it down."
"Her classroom was scheduled for morning picture time at like 9:30. So I was like, 'Perfect. She's going to get off the bus, basically have breakfast, and go straight to pictures,' " the mom of one recalls, adding with a laugh, "that is not what happened."
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Bartlett says she was looking forward to getting back her daughter's photos as she hoped they would be the "perfect Christmas idea for the grandparents and aunts and uncles."
"When I opened her backpack and saw the order form with the options for the pictures, all four of them pretty much looked the same. I laughed, but I was a little upset," she admits. "I was like, 'I kind of want to ask her teacher if they have picture retakes.' And my mom was like, 'She's in preschool, Nicole. They don't have picture retakes.' "
"Once I started really thinking about it and showing everybody the pictures, they were like, 'This is something that's going to be shown on her wedding day. This is better than you could have imagined,' " she continues. "So we ended up ordering a huge package, and everyone is still getting their framed picture."
As for what happened with Alina before she took her pictures, Bartlett says she "has some theories."
"I think that when she got to school I think she played extra hard," she says. "I'm just glad she smiled, to be honest."
Bartlett says she decided to share her daughter's pictures after initially posting the before-and-after shot on her Instagram Stories.
"I had a couple of people message me and say, 'Post this. It'll go viral.' And I was like, I don't know, I'm not a big social media person," she recalls. "I ended up doing it and it instantly hit."
"I got a lot of comments like, 'I was having a terrible day, and then I saw this and it instantly made me smile.' So I was happy to see that," she shares. "We're really excited and it's kind of cool."
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