She is 6, going on 16

Precocious children are precocious.

Especially precocious 6 year olds.

Penelope has been reading independently since before the end of TK, but she's always still enjoyed being read to and reading with her brother and me. Until recently, when she discovered the joy of 3rd-5th grade chapter books that are well within her reading level/stamina. While she still loves Harry Potter, we're on Book 5 and those chapters are loooooong and the print is small, so she's not quite ready to read them all on her own yet (soon though, so soon). Instead she devours books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Nancy Clancy, and Neverland Stories (or something like that). She read 2 DoaWK books in 2 days - which is pretty much what I do with books.

Today she spent a good 4 hours reading either the Marvel or Wolverine Encyclopedias. Seriously. The ENCYCLOPEDIAS of Nerd-dom.**

So now she doesn't read with us anymore. She sits on her bed and flies through chapters as Bubby and I make our way through Sneeches and Green Eggs and Ham for the 1 millionth time.

I guess I can't blame her, if I could read a new book almost every night I would too.

Griffin claims he'll always want me to read to him, even when he's 30 (he also claims that he'll want to live with me then too, and help me cook). But I can see the end of this snuggle time fast approaching as well. He's already got a handful of sight words, about what Penny had at this age, and is starting to "read" the books he has memorized. I will not be shocked if he's reading by the start of Kinder in August. Maybe he'll need more time than that, but he'll definitely be reading before he's 6.

At least the baby will still want to read with me... I should probably get us some new books. But by that time, Bubby & Sis may want to read *to* the baby. Then what will I do with myself?

Maybe I should get myself some of my own books.

**Speaking of Nerd-dom, Penelope has decided to forgo the cute apricot colored skirt and shirt we bought her for Christmas and instead wants to wear the dark wash skinny jeans and Wonder Woman t-shirt her brother bought her for Christmas. I brought this upon myself, and I can't say that I'm all that upset about her superhero obsession (because I think it's awesome), but it kills me how pre-teen she is already at 6.