Mom’s “Ready to Party” Back-to-School Photo Goes Viral

With a tall order of Starbucks coffee plus a “Bye Felicia” sign on one hand and a bottle of tequila on another, one mom’s getting ready to party – because her youngest child is going off to school and she’s going finally have some time alone with herself.

That’s how Jessi Kittrell of Gloucester, Virginia sent off her baby to her first day of kindergarten.

The unsentimental yet hilarious send-off made waves across the web, with plenty of people applauding Jessi for her humor; though a lot also expressed their disapproval over the theme she used for the send-off.

Unperturbed by the hateful comments she received, Jessi laughingly expressed her excitement that the photo went viral, especially because she never expected it would as it was something of an inside joke in the family.

A photo posted by Jessi Kittrell (@happyacresphotography) on Sep 8, 2015 at 9:02am PDT

As a professional photographer and owner of Happy Acres Photography, Jessi wanted to create something candid for her daughter Bailey’s first day of school. Bailey (or Bug as she is fondly called by Jessi) is actually in on the joke and was simply pouting on cue for the camera.

Bug is Jessi’s BFF, with the two going shopping at least for times a week at Walmart, the proud mom declared.

So, Jessi is not really 100% celebrating the fact that Bug is going to school now because she will no longer have a companion in her shopping trips.

Still, she wanted to make fun of that fact so she created the “ready to party” photo.

Although excited that the photo went viral and it helped her cope with Bug’s absence from her daytime hours, Jessi revealed she really missed the little girl a lot especially when she went shopping for the first time and Bug was no longer accompanying her.(via abc news)

As for the “Bye Felicia” sign, Jessi didn’t want it to sound so mean, really.

It was just another inside joke wherein her sister-in-law said it to her and she did not actually understand what it meant.

The Starbucks cup was another inside joke since she’s not really a coffee drinker but had actually braved the long lines when the coffee shop first opened in their town.

Many people didn’t get the inside joke (as expected) or knew it was a joke but thought it was a stupid one.

For example, one commenter wrote, “I get that this is supposed to be a joke but I still think it’s wrong.

If sending your kid off to school means party time to you, you shouldn’t have kids.”

More people were taking Jessi’s side in this issue, however, saying she has all the right to enjoy this milestone in her family’s life and that people should just keep their opinions to themselves if they had nothing good to say.

After all, most of those who saw the picture actually loved it!What do you think?

Check out Jessi’s other photos of Bug, before and after viral back-to-school shot. They’re absolutely cute!