Rachel, Owen and Kathryn

Katy has not really enjoyed going to "nursery nursery" even just one morning a week this year, as she's been keen to leave all that behind and be a proper school girl. We had to give up on Little Petals after just a few weeks, and Victoria Road was barely tolerated (and That Accident happened there). But they did manage to achieve something really positive in entering Katy for a poetry writing "competition" ... and her little piece - crafted by slotting her own few words into a rhyme template - was actually "selected" for publication. Vanity publishing for sure, but parents are suckers for this kind of thing.

Katy has enjoyed mixing with super kids of all ages at the after-school club once a week.

Despite a dressing the size of a boxing glove, the intrepid daughter and mother team took on central London undeterred. Sealife Aquarium, river trip, revamped Goethe-Institut library (for old times' sake), the Science Museum, and even paddling at the Victoria & Albert Museum!

At the beginning of the Easter holidays Katy had a nasty accident at holiday club in which she fractured her thumb and lost the nail. She had to have surgery but came through it well, devouring 2 packets of cheese sandwiches once she had recovered from the effects of the anaesthetic.

Yesterday Katy read a book before breakfast. OK, it was only a 22-page book with a vocabulary restricted to 100 words, but all the same ... I was hugely impressed and proud of her. Today at nursery-school she read a similar book TO THE REST OF HER CLASS, sitting (by invitation!) in the teacher's chair. Now words fail me!

Chomsky, Pinker et al posit a deep, universal grammar and a language gene. Katy has certainly inferred the rules for the regular formation of the comparative and superlative and is surprisingly resistant to the idea of exceptions to the rule. "Let's have a race and see which one goes farest" We say 'furthest' darling. "NO! FARest!" But there are also uncertainties in life. Yesterday's pondering - whilst enjoying a sunny spring evening in the garden - was "I wonder where the sky ends". Last year she asked me "Is there any way of stopping the next day from coming?" This evening we tackled the first 2 books in the Usborne reading scheme (in the bath, always a very productive place). A year ago she struggled valiantly with these but she has picked up a lot of individual words in the meantime, and when we looked at them again she was delighted to find that she could actually read them! The joy and pride on her face were wonderful ...