Pretenders

They take to the driveway, er, court and in a frenzied flourish of warm-ups and player intros, the game tips off. It may as well be summer, which means their already-impressive skills can now be honed in the wide open, instead of around the kitchen table.

They don't play against each other, but take turns with our one undeflated ball. Each commentates the contest going on in his own mind, where of course each is the star player, always coming through with the nasty no-look pass or clutch three.

As they pretend to be Malcolm Brogdon or Steph Curry, their lone spectator is doing some pretending of her own. My camera is my happy place. I'm decent at best with it, and everything I know I've taught myself. Too busy and impatient to become the expert I wish I was.

So for now, I'll welcome these playtimes where I can act like a photographer. Sit on the ground and twist the knobs and shift focus and point the camera directly at the sun, because holy moly, look what I just did.

Excuse me, Aden? Please make up your mind right now that for your entire life, you will stay sweet as a sugar cookie. I could just eat you up every day.

Excuse me, Trey? This whole growing up thing was cute for a while, but I believe you've taken it a smidge too far. Yeah, let's just rein that back in.