He likes me! He really, really likes me!

I was so touched when Nathaniel handed me the booklet he'd made at school around Mother's Day. It was fascinating to learn more about myself, or at least more about how Nathaniel perceives me. Such as the fact that he thinks I have skinny legs and lush eyelashes. And I wear high-waters. And I'm bald.

He's known how to spell my name for years, and just recently in the car he corrected me when I told someone on the phone that I was 37. He said, "No you're not, Mommy! You're 36!" And I tried to do the math in my head but I got tired and decided not to quibble over it. But as it turns out, he was right. Which is why I was so surprised to see that last week he thought I was 25.

But hey. I'll take it! Especially since in the picture it looks like I was saying, "BRING IT, WORLD." And also, I'd gone a little Goth ... but at least my hair had grown out a little.

By the time he got around to reporting that I love "mac-in-cheas," complete with hyphens, apparently my hair was really on a roll. I don't quite understand why I was hanging out with a mouse on a table surrounded by a theatre curtain, but whatever.

I was particularly impressed with his drawing of my "favorite sport, base-ball," since he got me in the stands, the three-legged pitching machine and the sound effect of himself hitting the ball ("BAM!"), all in one picture.

For as long as I can remember, Nathaniel has insisted that my favorite color is white. Not at all true, but he is just POSITIVE that it is. I'm willing to let it go, because he also thinks that my favorite thing to do is to play with him, which is just adorable to the max. There we are, throwing a ball. Since the last two and half months have revolved around us throwing and hitting balls, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this is the "fun" of which he speaks.

And what does he love? He loves it when I play with him. What a compliment! I'm glad it shows ... I definitely do love to play with him. I'm not exactly sure what the picture on the right of this page is depicting, because I hardly ever (read: NEVER) jump rope, nor do I typically stand under the St. Louis Arch. But whatever it is, I do it fun!

I didn't know whether to be happy or sad about the next page, the one where he said that I'm "good at work." I loved the little Me sitting in a chair at the laptop, because it indicates that he understands what I'm doing when I'm away from him. I decided that since working is what I do, I'm really glad he thinks that I'm good at it. It would break my heart if he thought I was bad at it but still chose to work anyway.

He followed up the laptop drawing with his impression of what he and I like to do which is, ALL TOGETHER NOW, Play Ball!

In the next picture, I loved how he depicted being "good" ... with basically a thought bubble of being good. His next picture will probably make all of my friends laugh because Nathaniel thinks that I'm "nise," which he indicated with the dialogue bubble, "Happy B-day!" That is SO me.

I love how much thought he put into his words and drawings, and how clear it is that he loves me. It's mutual! Even if in his final picture he has us performing Riverdance. No idea where it came from, but I love it.