Rob (looking quite weird!) and Elsie in the kitchen.

This is Elsie having fun with the Hoff at Sarah's party!

Wow, guess what?! Elsie has just eaten some toast!! She had a feed first thing this morning, and then some lentils and vegetables at about half eleven, and she still seemed to be hungry so I gave her a slice of Rob’s toast and she just ate almost the whole thing – chewing and swallowing and everything! She really seemed to enjoy it too.

We have just had the most delightful breakfast, as I drink my nice coffee and eat my banana bread with honey whilst chatting to Rob (mostly about how amazing Elsie is!) and cuddling my baby, I think life is good, it really is. On the happiness formula program on BBC2 at the moment they said the secret to a happy life is meaning, but that having children doesn’t always make people happier. But I can’t imagine anything that would give my life more meaning than taking care of Elsie – she is such a source of joy and fulfilment. There are lots of things in life which give meaning (work, fun, friends and family, cheese and wine, Easton ale, Wuthering Heights, Tony Almeida…!) but surely nothing so fundamental as a baby that needs you, and who smiles her big gummy grin and makes her monumentally cute R2D2 noises when she comes downstairs in her dad’s arms wearing only her vest, so you can see her gorgeous chubby arms and legs – as Elsie just has! Ooo… all a bit sentimental this morning!!

This is the three of us at Sarah’s Under the Sea birthday party a couple of weeks ago - I think Rob looks well fit in this picture!

We went to the doctor this morning about Elsie’s cough – she’s had it for a while now in the mornings and Tixylix doesn’t seem to be shifting it (the doctor told me she thinks it’s rubbish and pointless anyway!) Apparently her chest sounds fine and it should go by itself in a couple of weeks. I hope so.

She has been continuing to enjoy new taste sensations – yesterday she experienced the joy that is cheese for the first time! She gobbled loads of cheesy carrot and cauliflower down – she thought it was so fantastic that she couldn’t stop talking to me while she was eating, and even spat some back in my face with the excitement of it all – delightful!

This is Elsie having fun at home a couple of weeks ago.

Monica, Monica's mum, Elsie and I just before leaving Italy.

I am so tired today – had such a hectic day yesterday and feel like a worn out dishrag now. Monday night Elsie slept so badly – it was the worst night in months and months and we got about 3 hours sleep all night. I think she may have been quite constipated due to her new diet and she was really suffering. Then yesterday I had a day in uni and Elsie went to nursery for the first time – the place she will be going to full time when I go back to work offer a free day to try it out. She was, of course, absolutely fine there (as the nursery nurses told me repeatedly when I called them!) I however was very emotional due to lack of sleep and getting my period properly for the first time since she was born, well since I got pregnant in fact, so over a year (Rob has just told me on the phone that I seem to be having 5 months worth of PMT all at the same time, charming!) – and the fact that she has never been so far away from me before. It was harder than I thought actually, but hopefully I’ll be less hormonal when the time comes to go back to work. Anyway, we slept well last night and are having lots of cuddles today so I think I am recovering from the whole ordeal.

She had a very exciting second breakfast today of sweet potato and carrots, followed by blueberry and vanilla brule for pudding (I tried a bit and it is lush!) and she is really getting the hang of eating off a spoon – I am so proud of her and her grown up ways!

These are the last of Monica’s piccies from when we were in Italy now, these are from Monday morning before we came home.

Last piccie from Sunday at Monica's house.

By the way, another newsflash! Have just changed my first carroty poo nappy!!! Uuuuueeeeuuuugggggbluuurghh!

This is on our lovely walk later on Sunday.

Elsie is in a melancholy mood, perhaps because of the rain.

She slept in her room by herself for the first time last night – we had the monitor on all night in our room but still quite a milestone. She has also been eating pumpkin and potatoes today - all this change - it suddenly feels as though she is growing up very fast!

These are more pictures of last Sunday in Italia.

Newsflash Newsflash! Elsie eats carrots!! My little girl had her first solid (well, not solid, very very mushy) food yesterday and some more for second breakfast today. What a big, clever girl. She did seem to quite enjoy it, although we had a difficult night trying to get her to go to sleep last night, so I don't know if she was having trouble digesting - who knows?! Maybe she just wanted to stay up and watch Big Brother!!

This is Monica, Elsie and I last Sunday chilling at the lovely Lisa's house.

Elsie looking a little alarmed with Stefano and Sara!

On the Saturday night we had a pizza with lots of people in the fantastic huge dining room with real wood fire at the bottom of Monica's house. This is Elsie with Paolo.

Forgot to say, I have arranged my return date with work too. July 17th. Oh god!

More pictures of Italy! This was having a nice cappuccino on Saturday morning at the famous Caffe Garibaldi in Valdagno.

As you can see, Elsie is still frantically chewing everything she can get her hands on - still no sign of any actual teeth though. She can now, however, roll fully over onto her front, clever girl! She can't roll back though, so does tend to get stuck on her tummy.

The last couple of days have been quit busy here, tried to go to baby cinema on Wednesday, dragged myself over there in the rain in a huge hurry, sooo early in the morning (!) only to find it had been cancelled, ggrrrr... So went for a nice coffee with Susan and Sorcha instead, which took the edge off our dissapointment.

Yesterday was back to the museum to see the NCT ladies for the first time in ages, lovely.

Think I might have another lazy day today...!

Last one of Friday night - I know I go on and on about it, but how cute is she?!

...but later they had a nice chat and found they got on quite well!

I love this picture! Who looks the most fed up - Franco or Elsie?!

Two cups of tea and giant chocolate chip chewy cookies later, here we go again!

These pictures are from Friday night at the pizzeria. It was a really lovely evening with friends old and new! And they all thought Elsie was gorgeous, so of course I considered them to be people of excellent taste and judgement! She did get grumpy towards the end of the night, as she was up quite late (just don't tell her daddy!) but it meant that she slept through the night.

OK, last one of Venice! Think I'll stop now, might put some more up this afternoon as we're having a lazy day to recover from all the recent excitement.

Elsie with the lovely Monica.

Having a drink in piazza - there are lots of nice ones of Venice. Monica did take nearly 80 so you are only getting the very edited highlights!

Monica, Elsie and I in Venice.

Here we go with the pictures from our jollies. This is Elsie and I on Friday in Piazza San Marco in Venice.

At Gran and Grandpa's house on the bank holiday weekend.

This was on Mothers Day with Gran, Great Granny and Auntie Sally.

Well, we have been doing more adventuring! We just got back from Italy yesterday, after four gorgeous days in Valdagno staying with the lovely Monica and her family, seeing lots of old friends and beautiful places. Again, Elsie was an angel on the journey there and at the hotel where we stayed on Thursday night – and then charmed her way round the Veneto! I don’t know how many times I have heard mamma che belli occhi in the last few days! Monica says she is una monstre della bellezza, which means a monster of beauty, I think that sums it up!!

The journey home yesterday started badly as there was a huge crush of people for the check in desk and someone actually shouldered me out of the way, shoving Elsie who was in the sling, which of course had me muttering unholy curses on them far too loudly and left me in a foul mood. Then she was crying at the gate and in the bus to board the plane, and we got so many horrible looks from people. On the plane itself people moved so they didn’t have to sit near to a baby, and then the people who sat in front of us because there were no other seats were complaining unashamedly that they would be disturbed all journey. Which of course they weren’t because we are old hands now and have got our flying routine sorted now. Feeding as we take off so her ears don’t hurt and then she falls asleep, then feeding again as we land. And then those same people turned round at the end of the flight and said, ‘hasn’t she been good, isn’t she beautiful,’ and it was all I could do not to tell them where to go. You can’t admire and coo over my baby when she’s happy and smiling, and be horrible about her when she’s unhappy. Ggggrrrrrr…

But anyway..! We had such a lovely time and again I have been overwhelmed by Elsie’s wonderfulness, and how good she is with new people and situations. We have sooo many pictures of all that we have been getting up to, so I’ll upload some now.

First though, so we go vaguely chronologically, here are some piccies from the last film from Rob’s camera – he is much more restrained than me (and certainly much more restrained than Monica!!) when it comes to taking pictures so they start a while back.

She is even cute from the back! And yes, that was Elsie's first literary masterpiece.

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I will just put a couple of these on now - they are more pictures of the weekend we spent in London at James and Gail's (the most photographed couple of days ever!) Their photographer buddy came over and took some really lovely pictures which we just got copies of.

I can’t sleep – I have been having really vivid flashbacks to Elsie’s birth and I can’t relax at all now. The trauma still hasn’t faded, well, it does fade but then I remember again. My friend was saying that there is some kind of hormone which kicks in after women give birth to induce a kind of mild amnesia, so you can face the prospect of possibly doing it all again one day, but it doesn’t seem to be working in my case. Well anyway, let’s not dwell on that any longer….

Things have been lovely the last few days, I emerged from under the big black cloud of assignment writing on Tuesday, which meant life could go back to normal (whatever normal is these days!) Elsie has been on top form and very cheerful, her new cream seems to be working marvellously and her eczema is much better. She still scratches herself to ribbons given half a chance with her amazing super fast growing nails (they are like that bridge where as soon as they’ve finished painting it they need to start again!) so we have to constantly put her mittens on. It’s been really nice and sunny which she seems to like as we can get more fresh air. She is having good naps most days now, but her sleeping at night time isn’t what it used to be. It’s a tricky one cause she gets really grumpy if she doesn’t have a nap, but then I think is that worth it if it means we all get a good night’s sleep? She is going off to sleep really well these days without crying much at all – we have been giving her a bath before bedtime each day and that seems to be doing the trick, but then she’s waking up four times a night or so, mostly we can just put her dummy back in and she does drop straight back off, but last night I had to feed her twice which I haven’t done for ages. Mind you, I was probably keeping her awake with my tossing and turning and horrible remembrances!

This is a picture of all the family taken on the cobb at Lyme Regis.