Today brings a break with Elsie’s blog tradition, and we feature a picture that doesn’t contain Elsie – weird! What’s the point in that?! I hear you cry – but this was Dan’s birthday card for Elsie and I liked it so much I wanted to share it. It makes me laugh because it is a bit like Rob and I were (and still are sometimes!) faced with this unknown creature a year ago. But we have done ok, more than ok – we have a beautiful, happy, healthy (most of time!) little girl who smiles and laughs more than anyone else I know.

So, here’s to not being perfect parents, to not being super mum, to not reading too many books about what to do that make you worry you’re doing something wrong. Here’s to just doing what feels right and trusting that between you, you can figure out what works for you – and believing that you have a lot of the instincts needed to be really good at it. Here’s to having a baby that may occasionally have poo on her face in public, but who is loved so utterly, completely and overwhelmingly. Here’s to wells of previously unimaginable joy.

I would like to dedicate this post to all of the un-super, but very loving and marvellous mums reading, of lucky babies both born and unborn. Hoorah!

Oh no, the scanned card image is only a bloody bitmap isn’t it, which means I can’t upload it, how annoying. Oh well, it’s funny, you’ll just have to trust me!!

So actually we won’t break from tradition at all! Here is Elsie, yay! Just chillin’ on her walker.