Rachel, Owen and Kathryn

A vast amount of carrots were consumed by our little one last night (to say nothing of the potato, sausages and ice cream), which prompted us to measure her. She has broken through the 1 metre barrier and now stands tall at 101 cm. "Am I tall enough to go to school now?" she asks hopefully. She also displays a fine grasp of rhythm and metre in song. This morning she was clambering through her tunnel whilst I sang "The Katy went through the tunnel ..." to the tune of The bear went over the mountain. She finished off the verse for me by interrupting with "and popped out the other side"! The following utterance gives a good snapshot of various aspects of her development at 2 years 7 months: "I would like some carrot stix and some apple juice, also I need the toilet and don't you or Daddy come."

Pretending to be a MOUSE Katy can just squeeze into our (admittedly large) cat box.

In the digital, £9K-fees age, higher education institutions are thinking hard about giving technically savvy students value for money. My library has been experimenting with electronic course packs pre-loaded onto e-book readers. Manchester Business School is thinking of giving new MBA students an iPad. Katy has made an early start, as she has quickly learned how to view photos and videos on my touch-screen Android phone. Start 'em young, I say. It may not be too long before she starts contributing to this blog herself.