First: she has an atlas, because she loves maps and loves seeing where things are. While perusing the map with our friend Lanie, who was babysitting, Leah confided that she had found the perfect name for her mythical little brother or sister. Yes, Leah wants a little sister, still, and as of this moment?

She wants to name her "Malaysia".

Then the other morning, she hopped into bed with us at 7 or so, and eventually I was tickling her one foot, and then her dad would get the other foot, and she would poke her dad and he would jump and she'd go eyeball to eyeball with me, or whatever, and it was all just a big pile of goofy until she sat up, put her hands on her hips, and asked, "What is this, a three clown circus?"

The third thing, which is the most random thing I have ever heard her say, was that same evening as she was runnng like a nut, back and forth frm our bedroom to the rocking chair in the living room and back. She came flying in doing some weird half-skipping thing, did a weird pushup on the rocker, and just as she landed...she ripped one.

She covered her mouth with her hand and looked at me with the Giant Anime Eyes of Doom, and I just laughed and asked her, "What do you say?"

"I LOVE YOU, TOO!"

Oh, man, laughing at that one was a big mistake. She was very angry with me because she "DINT MEAN TO! MOMMY YOU ARE HURTING MY FEELINGS!"

No, I'm not shouting, she is. Things have been at a pretty loud volume around here the past few weeks.

She's doing very well at school, and her behavior has come on in leaps and bounds; altogether I am pretty impressed with the Miss Leah, especially when she reads aloud things like James and the Giant Peach. She'll just take it upon herself to finish off a chapter when we're reading at bedtime. Scary smart, that one, and when she's stuck at the office with me she'll just take a stack of books and hide under the conference table. We had a meeting last week and no one knew she was even there until KC came in to get her.

It's weeks like this where I think we might just be doing okay!