The French Lieutenant's baby! Elsie and Rob on the cobb at Lyme Regis. She doesn't like the wind which is why he is protecting her - not to stop her looking at the beautiful view!

Elsie and I at Cerne Abbas abbey, it was so sunny. As you can see Elsie is squinting, I should have given her my sunglasses again!

Here we are up at the Cerne Abbas giant, all the family! Elsie looking appropriately fed up for a little girl being dragged up a hill by her mum and dad.

Having a pretty chaotic time at the moment as I have so much uni stuff going on, so not much time for the blog. Elsie has been spending lots of quality time with her dad while I get on with my work, which has been lovely for both of them. Her eczema is still pretty bad, although the doctor has just prescribed some new more hardcore cream, so fingers crossed. She is growing so fast – she is such a big girl now! And she is so clever, she can pick things up and shake them around, and put them down, and then pick them up again – a whole world of excitement!

Here we go with some more piccies, here’s another one of Elsie and Lisa when she came to visit.

Here we are at the lovely seafood restaurant - this is where the waitresses carried Elsie round with them so Rob and I could both eat our meals. I don't know what I'm saying to her here, but don't I have a mum expression on my face - scary!

This is the last of Zelia's Dorset pictures, and I'm sure you'll agree they were well worth taking a break from my assignment for (can you take a break before you've started?!) Better get on now...

If you are reading this post for this first time then start at the bottom and work your way up.

And here she is on a walk round Lyme Regis later on, dressed perfectly for the balmy Spring evening!

Here is Elsie on her way up to see the Cerne Abbas giant close up.

Last sunglasses one.. but weren't they good?!!

I think I may go slightly over the top with these sunglasses pictures, but they are all so funny I can't resist sharing them (or is it just me? They make me laugh so much!)

I think this is the funniest picture I have ever seen in my whole life! I must stress though this wasn't entirely for our own amusement, it was very bright and she was squinting before I gave her my sunglasses (having said that though, it was mostly for our own amusement!!!)

...but all is well again pretty quickly!

Something very worrying obviously going on here...

Rob and Elsie are up at Worrall Road, to give me some time to work on my uni assignment (huh-hum, oh well!) But Zelia has just sent me some AMAZING pictures of Elsie from our weekend in Dorset, which I just have to share with you. They are absolutely fantasic - here is Elsie enjoying the fabulous scenery on the car ride down!

Elsie and Lisa having a great time!

Aren't they gorgeous!

In this picture Elsie is wearing a dress that used to belong to Auntie Sally N many many years ago!

Another one for you dad?!

Could she be any cuter?!

With Maria in Oslo - not sure what she's doing to her jumper, but it's a pretty safe bet at the moment that she's trying to eat it.

Here we are in the sculpture park in Oslo. Elsie is greatly appreciating the fabulous works of art!

Here's one for you dad! We thought maybe a saxaphone??

For more amusing Elsie pics see http://www.newstosallyandkt.blogspot.com

Here she is wrestling with her orange monster - a present from Auntie Sally - I think Elsie won!

Mega cute in her strawberry hat!

This is Rob and Elsie reading the paper together - as you can see the travel section is her favourite!

Well, yesterday was not an easy day. Elsie did an awful lot of crying, the kind that nothing can stop. She was fully fed, changed, burped and cuddled, and still the world was a terrible and hideous place that reduced her to floods of tears – then screams. It is the most unbelievably heartbreaking thing to listen to. She did it in the afternoon when I tried to get her to go down for a nap – as it is becoming apparent that she needs a good sleep then to prevent early evening grumpiness – and then it happened again when we took her to bed. She was screaming for over an hour, and in the end we just left her in her cot, as it made no difference whether we were holding her. We just went up every five minutes so she knew we hadn’t abandoned her (it is so difficult imagining how she is feeling while all this is going on) and eventually she cried herself to sleep. What a nightmare. If this is going to be a regular thing we will have to harden ourselves.

Last night was the first time I went to bed worried about being a mum, and how hard it can be. Especially considering she was having her third immunisations today.

In fact, today has been fine. She woke up as cheerful as usual, with no signs of trauma sustained from last night, and there was remarkably little crying at her jabs, so I didn’t need to worry really. It was just so difficult to see her upset, and I hate not knowing what to do for the best. I have such a strong connection with this gorgeous little person, and when she is so massively distressed it is so distressing to listen to, and I feel powerless, anxious and frustrated all at the same time.

On a lighter note… we got lots of brilliant pictures back today, from all of our adventures. This is a gorgeous one of Rob and Elsie a couple of weeks ago.

Wowser! What adventures we have been having! Last weekend Elsie took her first trip abroad and her first trip on an aeroplane – over to Norway to visit Maria and Roger. She was an angel for the whole trip, including both the coach to and from Heathrow and the plane, charming everyone between here and Oslo! It went really well and we had such a nice time – I was quite overwhelmed with pride and love for her and her chilled out ways.

We then had a week of visitors, with Granny Fi then Lisa to stay – so much yomping around different bits of Bristol, including some al fresco dining in the newly arrived sunshine, lovely. Elsie was extremely annoyed for the whole duration of a trip up to Clifton with Lisa last Thursday and screamed unremittingly unless being fed, which meant that Lisa mostly saw the inside of Clifton cafes rather than the usual sights! Really, it shows how lucky I am most of the time to be able to do pretty much what I like, with such a good natured baby – if she was like that all the time then my life would be seriously curtailed.

Then this weekend just gone we took a trip down to Lyme Regis with Rob, and Aaron and Zelia – for Elsie’s first visit to the English seaside. It has been glorious sunshine all weekend and we have done some lovely walking – around Cerne Abbas and Charmouth, as well as Lyme Regis itself. We went out for dinner to a brilliant seafood restaurant on Saturday night, and the waitresses even held Elsie when she woke up so we could all eat at the same time, what service! It was her first bit of work experience, helping them clear tables and add up bills!

The only problem with all this excitement is that she now seems very restless today – she has grown accustomed to life on the road!

She has been doing a lot more growing up to – she now reaches out to grab things and play with them, although ‘playing’ does mostly involve trying to put them in her mouth and chew frantically. She still likes to smile and laugh at her reflection in the mirror, although now she is starting to reach out to try and touch that pretty girl, and gets a little confused when she just hits a cold flat surface. It’s wonderful to see these stages by which she figures out the world around her.

Her skin is still pretty bad – we are now using three types of cream plus olive oil on her flaky scalp, to try and keep it under control. I don’t think it’s getting any worse, but she is starting to scratch it, particularly on her tummy – so I think we are going to have to invest in some more scratch mittens to stop her lacerating herself.

Elsie has discovered the keyboard!! Over to her…

I88irdxc kl m m mv5r5rfvvvvvvvvvvvv ..p#’;;;;;;;

What a clever girl!

This is another picture of Elsie looking very jolly, plus some black and whites taken by Rob, going back to when she was only a couple of months old.