I've probably never mentioned this...

But Suzi is AWESOME. Okay, okay, I know I'm one of those moms who thinks all of her kids are awesome, but the age Suzi currently is (21 months) is so much fun. And terribly trying at times, but then what age isn't? If I wanted to go down that path, perhaps I'd talk about Izzy's crazy melodramatic fits where he sobs that I've broken his heart because, perhaps, I've sent him to his room for a time-out. Or maybe I'd talk to you all about how Sophie has selective hearing that prevents her from hearing anything that Chris or I say until the fourth time, and only then if it's screamed at her.

Instead, I'm just going to tell you what Suzi is up to this morning. As I was cleaning up the dishes from breakfast, I asked her to come and feed the dogs. She started doing this a few months ago, but she's just recently got her coordination together enough to get all of the dog food actually into the bowl, so now it's a job I actually WANT her to do.

She cheerfully runs into the kitchen, pulls out the dog food bin, opens it and scoops out food for one bowl, then scoops out food for the other. Then she carefully puts the scoop back in, shuts the lid and pushes the bin back under the counter, then turns to me with a big smile on her face.

"Thank you!," I tell her. She signs thank you back to me (we use the same sign for 'thank you' and for 'you're welcome' because we're lazy, but really, knowing Suzi, she could mean either one), then runs into the living room hollering, "Doggie, doggie!" That's enough to make me think about how great she is (granted, it doesn't take much), so I come in here with the thought of perhaps putting it on my baby board on the morning chat.

Then I hear lips smacking and I turn back around to see that Suzi has once again pulled out the dog bin, crawled on top of it to reach the fruit bowl, where I also have a few tomatoes, and she's taken a big bite out of one of the tomatoes.

I go in there to get her down, and she says, "Want apple," while rubbing her cheek with her knuckles, the sign for apple. I hand her an apple and head back in her to the computer.

She brings the apple over and starts throwing it through the back of my chair, between the seat and the back rest, laughing as she holds it out to me and calls it a ball. I laugh at her, then she starts doing an exaggerated peek at me from around the chair, laughing wildly every time I meet her eyes and say, "Peekaboo!"

Just now I looked over to see her behind the couch, where she knows she's not supposed to be. She peers over the top of the arm carefully, to see if I've caught her. She sees me looking and smiles and says, "Hi," in a totally busted tone.

Awesome, I'm telling you. 100% AWESOME.