Elsie in her very cute, if a little oddly shaped, French dungarees from granny.

Elsie has been lovely tonight, we had a very bonding bath time of animal noises and singing. She is still my gorgeous girl, she’s just becoming her own woman! I think I’ve just been spoilt up till now really. I was speaking to a girl across the road who has a little boy a little older than Elsie and she is finding this stage an absolute joy because her son did so much crying and so little sleeping for the first 9 months of his life. Because Elsie was pretty easy really as a baby I am now shocked and horrified to discover than parenting isn’t a breezy bed of roses!! No, it wasn’t all easy, of course it wasn’t, but I always felt confident that I could trust my instincts, and Elsie and I could do our thing, and we were both happy so that was fine. But now there are decisions to be made, the way we deal with her behaviour and situations is a choice, not intuitive any more. It’s just harder than it was – there is still the joy and the wonder, but there’s other stuff too.

This is Elsie and Maria choosing us a DVD to watch (they chose Bride & Prejudice in the end!)

Elsie and I with Maria and Lorna, back at home after the craziness of the hen weekend had passed.

Elsie on my hen weekend, picnicing up on the downs in the sunshine.

Elsie and Charlie... aaah... they're so sweet!

This is the way the ladies ride, actually I think this was gentlemen...

Elsie and Paula in BOA.

I love this picture cause she looks like a real little girl - I think it gives a glimpse of how she might look when she's a grown up!

Elsie and I enjoying the BOA sunshine.

Elsie out for lunch in Rosie and Jim's boat with the BOA ladies.

Yesterday we went to the zoo. It was such a lovely day out – we had a picnic on the grass and looked at lots of animals. One of the first we saw were the lemurs, and Elsie did really well saying lemur. But then she seemed to think that lemur means animal in captivity, and called everything lemur. She did do some good roaring like a lion when we got to them though, which was very sweet. Not that the lions were doing much roaring, hmmm… it’s a real mixture of animals it’s great to see, and animals that you think woah should you be in a space this small being gawped at? Like the gorillas, they look so sad – I didn’t like it.

But it was definitely very stimulating for Elsie, and it’s lovely to see her enjoying herself. Mind you, I think her favourite discovery of the day was hummus, which I don’t think she’s eaten before – and which now seems to be the best thing in the world!

This is another pic of us out at Blaise castle.

Ha ha ha!!

There are lots of lovely pictures of Elsie up on Facebook too by the way, from my hen weekend. You'd have to make friends with Zelia I think to see them.

The only way to travel!

Elsie on the swing at Blaise castle - she wasn't sure!

This was Elsie a couple of weeks ago playing a highly amusing game of catch in the garden with her gran!

Well, I have done it. I have officially requested to go down to three days a week at work. They have 28 days to let me know.
We totally can’t afford it, but we had decided on four and I kept not handing in the form and not really knowing why. And then I thought it has to be three. And we’ll be ok. It’s like when we got round to doing a budget when I was six months pregnant and realised oh no! We can’t afford to have a baby.

As Grandad says, every baby is born with a loaf of bread!

We had a really lovely day yesterday, we went out to the Cotswolds for walk in the rain. We had a pub lunch and Elsie was dashing round being funny and making friends! She also sat on a proper chair to eat her lunch cause they didn’t have high chairs which was very exciting! Then we went for our walk, which was three miles and Elsie walked for about half a mile of it (this half a mile took longer than the other two and a half I think!) It was really nice though – we saw horses, sheep and cows. Elsie was asleep in the rucksack for the sheep and the cows but she loved the horses, was totally fearless and wanted to stroke one.

This is Elsie sleeping in an amusing position!

Elsie and the gorgeous Gemma - this is just after she had finished the first 'phase' of my wedding colour!

Elsie with Gemma and Dan - gorgeous!

...and as Rob points out (how did he get so sensible?!) we're pretty lucky to get to nearly 18 months without feeling like it's that much like hard work.

Elsie and the luscious Daniel.

When I put her to bed tonight though she was doing the eyes and ears and mouth and nose bit of heads, shoulders, knees and toes on me - which was very lovely. So she is still lush a good proportion of the time - I just need to deal with the times when she's not a bit less neurotically!

It's just horrible to have moments where I feel like I don't like her - she's acting like a spoilt brat and I don't know if it's something I'm doing wrong.

It's not that she acts like this all the time, and she's been better tonight actually. But last night I got really upset - I find it so hard to admit that my feelings for her are anything other than total love and adoration, it feel likes some kind of betrayal.

I am finding Elsie more challenging at the moment than at any time since her birth. She gets in a really bad mood and makes the most awful noise whenever she doesn't get her own way - and I don't know what to do. Rob, of course, retains total equanimity and says we just need to ignore it, and I know that's what Dr Tanya would say. But it's so annoying - why can't she just be reasonable?!

More pics of the day in the garden!

Oh, what to do? What to do? I had my appraisal today and I asked Tom whether I can go part time at work. I have to decided whether I want to work three or four days a week, and then submit an official request. We have just been working some stuff out, and we’d be ok financially with four days, three days it’s looking pretty dodgy. Which is more important? I don’t know! To have more time with Elsie and to bake bread, and scrimp and save, or have more money so we can have nice weekends away, buy nice food etc, but still have a work/life balance which favours work???

Oh, I don’t know. I just know that it’s getting on for a year since I returned after maternity leave, and I don’t know where the time has gone, I really don’t. And I will not live my life like this. I want to suck the marrow, smell the roses, and enjoy my beautiful, wonderful little girl.

Hmmmm…. More piccies of our lovely Saturday in the garden a couple of weeks ago.