My daughter, the con artist

Hi Milla.

It's Mom.

So, our holiday ends tomorrow, after four (mostly) relaxing weeks. Gogo and Grandpa John have left, and Dad and I have been Milla-wrangling solo for the last two days. We're exhausted.

You're a high-energy little bunny, my darling. And with all of the Gogo-'n-Gramps help we've gotten used to, Dad and I agree that sometimes even a two-man nappy-changing intervention can feel trying to gift-wrap a large, flailing octopus in damp tissue paper. Hell's bells.

I'm also feeling a little bit conned. 

'Cos you started out so easy. So accommodating. You lulled us into a false sense of security, got us used to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, made us complacent, and then... We went on our first big beach holiday.

In the good ol' days:

• You slept through from 8 weeks to about 8 months. (This ended on the first night of our vacation.)
• You ate everything we gave you. Enthusiastically. (This has been ebbing away, day by day.)
• You never got sick. (Okay, you don't get sick much. But your first big tummy bug/fever combo happened here.)
• You liked your pram. (Now you arch your back, cry and frantically try to escape whenever you see it.)
• You only cried when you were hungry, tired, or bumped your head. (Now you cry if we take away a manky piece of cucumber before you choke on it, if we put you in your pen, if we give you even the vaguest impression that we might want you to go to sleep, if we try to change you...)

Don't get me wrong. We love you more than ever. And every time I think you can't possibly get cuter, prettier, cleverer or friendlier, you do. But for the first time, I'm getting a sense of why they say parenting is hard. I wake up so tired I want to cry. Every day. Thank G-d for coffee.

On a galactic scale, you're still an easy baby:

• You like people. All people. You wave charmingly, smile generously and are not mama-vas.
• You eat fresh vegetables. Carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers. Even aubergine, beetroot and some others.
• You can entertain yourself for short periods of time.
• You're pretty good in restaurants, if you've eaten and slept and it isn't too hot.
• You love the water: bath, shower, pool, sea, lagoon, river. Anything. And you look so adorable wet.

So this isn't as much of a moany, whiny, poor-me post as it may seem. I'm just tired. And what's blogging for if not to have a receptacle for the stuff I feel bad actually verbalising?

I'm not a perfect mommy, I suppose. And you're superb, delicious, beautiful and smart - but not a perfect baby. Luckily for both of us, I don't think either exists. Which means we must be doing very well indeed.

I love you.

May you be happy, healthy, honest and able to laugh at yourself (and at others, just silently).

Love Mom x