Feeling quite melancholy today – maybe it’s the grey rainy weather and maybe it’s the thought of my increasingly imminent return to work. Psychologically it is going to take quite some preparation I think, but then maybe there isn’t actually any preparation that I can do, and I just have to get on with it and deal with it as it happens.

It is partly the fact that it sounds like work has changed a lot in the time I’ve been away, but that is not the main thing, as I am actually looking forward in lots of ways to getting back to it. I am just going to miss her so much, and miss this gorgeous time in my life. I always wanted to have a baby, always always, but I don’t think I knew how wonderful it would be in so many ways. It’s not just that I love her so much (although I do, so much sometimes I feel as though my eyeballs are going to explode out of my head, cause my body can’t contain so much overwhelming love!) but she is so good for me – we have so much fun, she makes me laugh, she is good for the soul with her joyful anarchic ways! And even when it’s difficult, it’s not difficult like other things are difficult – with everything else hard in life there is a knowledge that if it became too much you could just not do it anymore – and that isn’t the case with looking after her. She needs us and so we have to take care of her, and it’s that simple. Even back in the getting up 5 times a night days there was no element of maybe this is getting too hard – you just do what you have to do. I suppose it’s that total removal of selfishness and the knowledge that, comparatively, I don’t matter anymore – it’s really liberating.

I know she will still be my baby after I go back to work, but there will be more to life again than her. And while that is right and healthy, I mourn the passing of this total immersion in the glory of my daughter. But it hasn’t passed yet! I have another three weeks to enjoy the singing and laughing and chewing of Mr Lion’s head as she hangs off her baby gym going on behind me!

There are lots more pictures of Elsie’s first eating experiences to put up now – they are so funny I couldn’t decide between them!