Oh my god, she is so beautiful!!

We have had another morning of very strenuous smiling game practice. She is feeling very jolly indeed today it would seem! She has a gorgeous, toothless open-mouthed grin that is getting wider as the days go by, sometimes accompanied by chuckling! Oh, I fear my heart will melt! I have been desperately trying to capture one of these moments on camera, but so far have not been successful.

A variation on the game is now to look at herself in the mirror, and smile and chuckle – as entranced as everyone else is by the sight of that beautiful face! This is especially fun when she is looking over my shoulder as we dance (a good way to get the burps up too!) Our favourite song to do this to is Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall – which I think will be her birthday song. The words are pretty perfect really…

Her face is a map of the world
You can see she’s a beautiful girl
And everything around her is a silver pool of light
The people that surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm

That about sums it up! And also…

She makes me feel like I could be a tower
A big strong tower

Which is what I hope I could be if she ever needed me to protect her. Sally informs me that the song was written about Patti Smith, who apparently is really cool, so I’m sure she won’t mind sharing her song with our Elsie!

She continues to be a champion sleeper – doing 7 hour stretches almost every night now. One negative side effect of this (not that I would change it for anything!) is that I wake up every morning saturated with breast milk feeling like my boobs are about to explode! And she spends the first few minutes of her morning feed being squirted in the face! This morning she then vomited milk on both my shoulders after feeding, so I was covered in milk and regurgitated milk - it’s all such a glamorous business this motherhood! It wouldn't be so bad if I managed to change out of those clothes during the course of the day!

This is a picture taken by Zelia about a week ago – this is Elsie’s favourite place to be (except for the vibrating chair of course – nothing beats that!)