In his free time, my son also plays basketball.  A couple of weekends ago we were at one of his games.  I was sitting right behind the basket, so that I could get a picture of Connor making a shot.  My husband, and the rest of the kids were some distance away, on the sidelines.  At one point during the game Collin decided he was going to get a drink from the water fountain.  The water fountain was located with the restrooms down a very short hall right next to where my husband was sitting with the kids.  I see the two of them talking and then Collin wander off alone down the hallway toward the water fountain.  At this point my husband forgets all about Collin and begins watching the game. I am trying to watch the game and watch for Collin to return.  I notice it is taking a bit longer than I am comfortable with.  Just as I am about to get up and go off in search Collin saunters back in.  He very casually walks back into the gym, and climbs up into his seat beside my husband.  Completely naked.  No pants, no shoes, no socks, NOTHING.  And begins to watch the game.  At this point I am gesturing frantically to my husband.  He finally turns and notices his naked child next to him and, in the nature of fathers everywhere, loses his mind.  

Can you believe I was sitting right there with my camera, and didn't get a picture?  What was I thinking? (It's hard to see, but in the photo above, he is in white, #42- he has just thrown the ball toward the net- toward, but not in!  :)

I went over to a neighbor's house tonight and heard the nicest thing about my daughter.  (The dress twirler, who is part monkey).  This neighbor substitutes in my daughter's school.  Today she was subbing in the special ed classroom.  One of her students goes to PE with my daughter's class one day a week for mainstreaming.  Her name is Olivia.  My neighbor told me that Olivia was having a very bad day today.  She had to restrain her several times, and there were a lot of tantrums and other behaviors going on.  When she brought Olivia to the gym she was having some trouble.  Apparently, most of the first graders were very wide-eyed and staring, not knowing how to respond to this.  But Lauren stood up (they were seated on the floor) and flung her arms open and said "Olivia!  Come on over here! "  And Olivia calmed down and walked over to Lauren, and Lauren gave her a big hug, and then sat her down right next to her on the mat, and told her, "I'm so glad you're here, I was waiting for you to come!"  And then Lauren held her hand, and rubbed her back throughout the class whenever she was getting nervous or upset.  But Olivia made it all the way through the class, participated and had a good time, with Lauren.  My neighbor told me she and the PE teacher were both amazed that Olivia was so successful, and that Lauren had totally jumped right up and made Olivia her friend in that way.  I am really proud of her, but not so very surprised.  She's like a little walking heart- with her shoes on the wrong feet :) 

Lauren recently discovered that our computer has a camera built into it.  And it takes all sorts of wacky photos.  I came in one day and discovered we had over 100 pictures in our "photobooth".  90 of them were Lauren!!!

So today I am on my way to a parent teacher conference and dropping off my 9-and-three-quarters daughter at a friend's house on the way.  As we are driving to the friend's house we drove past something that smelled truly awful.  Awful like 157 Don's Johns. All piled on top of one another.  On a hot day in August.  On the sun.  I finally made some comment like, "Oh my gosh what is that smell??!!" to which my daughter replied, "Oh, I thought that was you mom."

Kind of reminds me of the birthday card my sister got from my nephew.  He worked for an hour on it, drawing the picture, getting the letters done perfectly.  The message reads "Happy 100th birthday mom".