Start as I mean to go on ...

As it's the 1st of the year, let me share with you, my 1st born daughter.

We'd gone on holiday a few months previously after having an early miscarriage on the premise that we weren't talking about babies, whilst sitting on the sun terrace, we heard giggles and a Mum chasing her daughter and calling after her. We looked at eachother and had settled on our daughters name. After 11 months of trying for a baby, I finally got my first - very faint - positive test. We were elated, the nursery was well stocked and the cot was built the day after we visited the doctor. We were impatient and not in the slightest superstitious. Finally, we were going to have a baby!! We knew it was a girl from the start - in my family, the first borns to any family have been girls for generations so it didn't even occur to us to even look at boys things. The 20 week scan confirmed what we knew and from even before, Clara, was already spoken about as though she were here - well, she was! I had a relatively easy pregnancy, very little sickness, in fact, I enjoyed being pregnant - except when she used to stretch her legs, I used to push them back down which started a game, we were interacting before she was even born! We went for a BBQ on the weekend she was due, that evening it started. We went to hospital at 6am after 12 hours of no sleep and regular paracetomol and baths to ease the pain. Our daughter was finally handed to me at 9pm, 26 long hours after the first contractions began! I was absolutely 100% in love. I can close my eyes and I'm back there, laying on the bed, I can remember exactly how she was laid in front of me as soon as she was born ... amazing!

She was a lovely, easy baby, fed perfectly, hardly cried .. she sat up at 5 months, she started crawling at 9 months - around the time she stopped breastfeeding. She started walking at 14 months, talking properly at 20 months. She's always been pretty smart but it's in this last year she has really shone.

She's going to be 4 in March, I cannot believe how the time has flown, how my beautiful baby has blossomed into a beautiful little girl, she has her moments as does any child, but she is the most loving, caring little girl. She's an amazing little artist - I must blip some of her drawings, she loves drawing animals and adds so much detail to them. We rocked her life last Feb with the arrival of her baby sister, it's taken her a while but 10 months later, she is the absolute best big sister I could ever have expected her to be, and I know it's only going to get better.

This picture is of her, playing with my iphone as her favourite thing to do in the mornings is to scroll through all the pictures and videos on my camera roll! :)

You know what, I put this all down to the fact that I "made a rod for my own back" when she was a baby, I cuddled her all the time, picked her up every time she cried, rocked her to sleep in my arms, co-slept with her, fed her on demand, carried her in a sling more than used the pushchair .. she is the most beautiful, confident and happy little girl, I couldn't have wished for more.

So .. Clara, with all my heart and soul, I love you so much, and I always will my baby girl x x