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!!!