More evidence of the speed of growing up

Like every other parent on the planet, I often find myself saying "they're growing up so fast!". Although really, in the grand scheme of things, humans grow up unbelievably slowly - giraffes walk almost immediately after birth, while it takes us a year. But parents coo over every small developmental milestone, and I'm no exception.

Emsy's latest skill is the ability to sit up. Almost. Well, for a few seconds, until her head moves in one direction or another and drags her body inexorably after it. If she's gently propped though she can do pretty well, and is feeling justifiably proud of this acheivement.

Emily, sitting up

Isabel, on the other hand, is progressing into the role of schoolgirl at a rate of knots. She now has weekly maths homework and spellings to learn for a test every Friday, plus two reading books a week. She's expected to do 15 minutes of reading with us each night (not always easy to squeeze this in, but we're doing our best). I'm sure that when I was at primary school, in the late 1970s, we never had any homework at all. Going to secondary school proved quite a shock - now I'm just grateful for the years I didn't have any homework! She's also growing up in ways which weren't even thought of in my day. She now has her own Facebook account, and told her teacher today, as part of a discussion about which countries different foods come from, that she was growing dates on her Farmville farm on FB - I'd have loved to have heard the teacher's reply!