New term! September! New year! In an alternate universe, Linnea is in something like Year Three, I think, and Emer is starting Year One. Actually, they are nothing of the kind, but it sometimes helps to remember what we'd be doing if they were, sometimes. Linnea recently read her first Young Adult novel - a friend had just finished Anna Carey's The Real Rebecca and was going to lend it to me, but Linnea got there first. She really, really enjoyed it, and although it took her longer to read than most of her books - that is, more than one sitting - she persevered over little bursts of reading over several days, and finished it all. She hasn't told me what it's about or what about it she enjoyed, but she kept going back for more and wants us to buy it. Emer is getting more and more like a pre-reader, though I may have the technical terms wrong. She is reading some words and can recognise all the letters and write some things, but isn't reading sentences or anything yet. I've offered to do regular reading practice with her but she's not interested. Astrid can walk, and says all SORTS of things which we know are real words, and today Rob saw her spearing pasta with a fork and feeding herself with it. So that's nice. I wonder what we'll do this year?