One week on and she's not a baby anymore

Isobel is now a fully fledged toddler, I'm threading the needle to sew on her walking badge as we speak.

In so many ways it's been a a very busy week. We have been to the Isle of Wight and come back with the following pieces of information:

Isobel can walk and walk and walk. She can even turn 360 degrees without falling down.

Bruises are easily come by but also relatively easy to go if you plaster them with Arnica and have very young skin. Scratches from playing peekaboo with a fence might be slightly more persistent.

Poor little girl suffers from car sickness, something we have discovered the hard way; I have washed the car seat twice in two days.

Isobel's feet have grown from a 3F to a 31/2G, and I had to order her shoes from Internet.

We have five new words: Bubbles - bubboos, again - gain, grandma - gamma, banana - nana, and my aunt is convinced she said Angela. (Yes, I have had a few more mummies too)

We have a book called 'Is this my nose' and I found Isobel sitting on the floor reading it and pointing to all the correct face parts - well if she were a Picasso painting.

Ice cream cones and key lime pie ice cream have been mastered. Yes, we had a 'hut day' at the seaside.

And most importantly of all, Isobel has spent time with her family, including her godmother.

Needless to say we had a lot to tell PD when we got back.

I cannot believe what a difference a week makes, I'm glad I didn't miss a minute of it.

A month of Sundays

(An excuse to post pictures and say little)

Too Busy to Take Pictures

A heavenly weekend with an Angel Baby who is now 7 weeks old.

Just spent it hanging out with PD, pottering about. At last he got to see what a pleasure our daughter is, and how lovely life is with her in it.

I think we even made her Godfather broodie when we had lunch in the pub with him on Sunday; a lovely silly afternoon of perfect pints and even more perfect roast potatoes.

My Family and Other Animals

Isobel has been reunited with her Grandma, last seen when she was 3 days old

Her Uncle Dan forgave her for being the third neice and not a nephew

My sister, Auntie Amy, and Isobel's cousin Isla were pleased to see us

And cousin Hayley baked chocolate cakes

and wrote a card for her.

As for the other animals, well there is plenty of time for great dane riding.

(We also had a girly lunch with Godmother Jen, but Isobel slept through it)

Meet the Godparents

One of the great things about being a bi-nationality couple is that we get to choose which traditions we adopt from which nationality. Here in England we would only ever have godparents if we had our children christened or baptised, but it seems in South Africa they have them anyway.

I like this idea, the idea of naming the people who you want to have extra special involvement with your child and to look out for her as she grows up; people who are so special in your own life that you can’t imagine them not being so to your little girl.

So, with all this in mind here are the wonderful people who we are tasking with helping us raise a happy, healthy, joyous and slightly mischievous little girl:

Jenny – I’ve shared everything with you since we met at High School, even the odd boyfriend. No matter how far away from each other life takes us, it’s always like we’ve never been apart. And now we can share the raising of our children too.

Chirsty – You just are you, and with your generous and adventurous spirit I know you’ll do anything and everything you can for our little girl (including clubbing into the wee small hours with her mother to keep her sane). I love knowing you are just around the corner.

Gary – It has been wonderful knowing you are as excited about the arrival of our little girl as we are and we couldn’t imagine not having you with us along this journey to tell your tales and impart your own special Fairy Godfather wisdom.

Gareth – I know you will protect our little girl from the big bad world as if she was your own.


But most of all, I’m proud of the people you all are and I hope you’ll encourage our little girl to follow her dreams and be whoever and whatever she wants to be. x