Holly Springs is a photographer in Auckland, New Zealand. Her daughter was born without a left hand and has struggled with Hirschsprung's Disease. She's an inspiration to her mother, who describes the child as "my muse and my heart." To share her muse with the world, Springs photographs her at play in worlds both real and fantastic. The bottom image is particularly impressive, so it's not surprising that it won Springs an Iris Award from the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography.

You can see more of her work at Bored Banda.

-via 123 Inspiration

If a pregnant American woman boards a German flight to the Maldives and gives birth while flying over Pakistan, does the baby get Pakistani citizenship?

There is an ancient doctrine, enshrined in English common law, that says Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos, which means, "Whoever owns the soil, it is theirs all the way up to heaven and down to hell."

That was the old rule, before the advent of air balloons, then airplanes, then V2 rockets, then spy satellites. It's been seriously amended (at least in Britain) to a much more modest: You own the airspace necessary for "the use and enjoyment" of your plot of land. So how high up is that?

We can assume that American parents would not allow any legal move to take away their child’s American citizenship. And does the old rules of ships’ registries apply to airplanes? It appears that no one knows the definitive answer about “sky babies,” and it largely depends on the citizenship laws of individual nations, Some allow for dual or triple citizenship, others don’t. Read more about this puzzling question at NPR.

(Image credit: Robert Krulwich/NPR)

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This toddler named Shaylee's reaction to watching a space shuttle launch on television is almost painfully cute. Her eyes light up at the spectacle and she watches the screen, incredulous, with her father Keith Zerfas. But it was her words in that little voice that made me say "Awwww." Via Viral Viral Videos.

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This little boy easily climbs up on top of the refrigerator. He's proud of his accomplishment. But once he's done that a few times, he's ready for a new challenge. At about the 0:32 mark, he does something astounding.

Next, I suspect he'll try to walk along the ceiling.

-via 22 Words

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Someone call Alex and tell him there’s a new parody of his favorite song!

It’s time for kids to go back to school, and the Holderness Family (previously at Neatorama) made a little song about it, to the tune of “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot. Back to school time is a hassle, but after a couple of months of dealing with bored and always-hungry kids, it’s worth the effort. -via Tastefully Offensive

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A little boy opens a birthday gift and finds that it’s a wooden chopping board. Amazingly, he remarks that it is nice and he’ll use it. And he thanks his parents. Aww!

Then he gets another gift, in a shoebox. His mom mentions that he won’t have to glue his sneakers anymore… which leads us to believe that the family is far from wealthy. The boy thinks he is getting new sneakers and is happy about it -until he sees what’s really in the box. That’s when we who are watching go all verklempt. He’s a good boy. A part of the YouTube description is translated as “"Humility is synonymous with greatness.”

You can see a direct translation of the conversation from a YouTube commenter if you like. -via reddit

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The Emmys will be presented this coming Monday night. The nominees for Outstanding Drama series are all shows that children should not watch: Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, True Detective, House of Cards, Mad Men, and Downton Abbey. That’s why they had to memorize lines to re-enact representative scenes from those shows in this parody video from Mom.me. The kids did a wonderful job, but the incongruity of the young actors in those familiar adult roles is just too funny! -via Viral Viral Videos

Kids love to share their newfound love of art with their family, but sometimes this freedom of artistic expression means the folks are left cleaning up major messes around the house.

Little artists spill on the carpet, mark on tabletops and smear fingerpaints all over the furniture, and in their young eyes those blank walls are just dying for an artistic makeover.

Usually when kids write on the walls it means the parents have to scrub the whole mess off, sometimes even repaint to cover up the mess, but one crafty mom went along with her child’s artistic streak instead of covering it up.

With a little design ingenuity, and some beautifully painted organic shapes, she was able to turn the scribbles into a bit of decorative flair, and her ingenious solution was shared with the world by Redditor jerschneid.

-Via Bored Panda

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Dave Belisle is the coach of the Cumberland American Little League team of Rhode Island, the New England regional champions. They were eliminated from the Little League World Series regional finals by a team from Chicago. The coach gave the kids a speech they will always remember. Tom Hanks said there's no crying in baseball, but you may feel a little sting behind the eyes. This is what Little League should be. -via reddit

(Photo: Trees for the Future)

Japanese children as young as 4 ride the subway by themselves. Vietnamese mothers teach their babies to pee on command. These are 2 of 9 parenting practices from around the world that aren't practiced--or at least widely practiced--in the United States. For example, the Kisii people of Kenya avoid eye contact with their babies:

Kisii, or Gussii, moms in Kenya carry their babies everywhere, but they don't indulge a baby's cooing. Rather, when their babies start babbling, moms avert their eyes.

It's likely to sound harsh to a Western sensibility, but within the context of Kisii culture, it makes more sense. Eye contact is an act bestowed with a lot of power. It's like saying, "You're in charge," which isn't the message parents want to send their kids. Researchers say Kisii kids are less attention-seeking as a result.

You can read the entire list at NPR. Do you see any that you think that American parents should adopt?

-via Nag on the Lake

Nine-year-old James Barney Jr. is one brave little boy, and when he was faced with the possibility of becoming an alligator's next meal he fought back-and suffered only minor wounds from the ordeal.

James was swimming in a restricted area of a lake in Osceola County, Florida when a 9-foot-long alligator weighing over 400 pounds came after the boy and bit him in his rear.

Here's what James says happened next:

"I thought someone was just playing with me, and I didn't know what happened. I reached down to grab it, and I felt its jaw, I felt its teeth, and I didn't know what to do, so I immediately reacted and hit it a couple of times."

Those punches effectively saved his life, causing the alligator to let go and giving James a chance to hightail it out of the lake. 

-Via Huffington Post

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We have a future TV junkie in the making!

An adult tantalizingly holds the remote control just out of reach. The baby boy sees it and is filled with rapturous wonder. Behold, eternal joy is here! All he needs to do is keep fresh batteries inside.

-via Huffington Post

A couple in Zurich, Switzerland, were asked to babysit for a friend, who was a rather nervous father with plenty of instructions. Erica and Hannes had a good time of it. They took the baby, Alex, outside for a stroll and took pictures. Then they Photoshopped various disaster scenarios into the pictures to send to the father every hour as updates. Posting at reddit, one of them said,

True, we didn't teach the kid how to read that day. We also didn't expand his brain by playing classical music nonstop. We didn't feed him an immune system boosting meal every 15 minutes. But he survived, giggled a lot was looked after the entire time by the two of us and went to bed at 7.30PM perfectly happy. And we will show him these pics in maybe 10 years or so and say: "Young man, we had an awesome time together that day"

A good time was had by all. -via Buzzfeed

The Apparently Kid, aka Noah Ritter, recently took the net by storm when he stole the show during a news interview by rambling away in the cutest way possible, making sure to use his favorite word apparently as much as possible.

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Noah is cute, he uses big words, and now he’s been songified thanks to the efforts of The Gregory Brothers, the masterminds behind the classic songified hits Double Rainbow and Bed Intruder.

I would not be surprised if this song becomes the biggest hit of the summer, because it's mighty catchy!

-Via The Awesomer

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This little boy wows the crowd at a wedding by performing a lezginka, a dance style common to the people of the Caucasus Mountains. If he's trying to impress the lady in red, I'd say that he's succeeded.

-via Tastefully Offensive