This week Belle turned one. ONE! From our wrinkled up newborn with purple fingers and toes to this little girl who walks around the place and loves her toy dog more than anything in the world. This has without doubt been the most incredible year of my life. Yes, obviously bits are hard (I still haven’t had a full night’s sleep) but flipping heck, it is just SO worth it. Thank you little Belle for making me a Mummy and showing me just how much joy can be found in everyday life.

Dear Belle…

You have the sweetest little character. You are unbelievably affectionate to us (and equally if not more so to your soft toy dog, Doug). You love to cuddle and kiss anyone and everyone who will let you. I love how you bring happiness to other people as you wave and smile at them from your pram when we are out and about. You really are such a happy little girl and your happiness is totally contagious.

You LOVE food these days, especially blueberries and cheese. If it was up to you then your diet would consist of 20% brown toast, 40% blueberries, 20% yoghurt and 20% cheese. You will even sit next to the fridge, smack your lips and say “eeeeeeesssss” when you want cheese (which is often!). After a very slow start with food, you will now try everything and eat most things. At one, you eat what we eat. It is really lovely sharing mealtimes with you and watching you discover new foods.

You are walking! You took your first steps at ten and a half months walking from my arms to Daddy’s. You did that for a few days and then totally went on walking strike. And then, all of a sudden, at 11 months you literally just got up holding a toy, and walked. You are very fast (somewhat overly confident) and you always seem to be carrying things around with you like some seasoned walker. Nain (Welsh Granny) bought you a giant toy dog that is at least twice your size and you drag him around the room, tripping over his huge body and falling onto him and laughing.

You love to play hide and seek. Especially when I hide and you toddle around to find me. The chuckle that you let out when you find me is like nothing else. I wish that I could bottle it forever.

Instead of holding the phone to your ear and saying “hi”, you hold it out in front of your face and look at the screen as if you are on FaceTime which is so funny to see. With family not living that close and the summer spent in America you have become completely accustomed to FaceTime and you seem to think that that is how you use a phone. The iPhone generation.

We are almost at the end of our breastfeeding partnership little one. More on that later, but you have been such a star as I have started to wean you off the breast. So many mixed emotions about it but you are loving your bottles of milk and Daddy is really enjoying that he can at last feed you too.

You are one and you are yet to sleep through the night little Belle. I have got through more under eye concealer in the last year than I had in the last five. Good job you are cute.

You understand SO much. Whilst you only have a few words, you know and understand questions and you can now communicate what you want (some of the time). My favourite is when I tell you that we are going to brush your teeth and you get all excited and smack your lips and show me your teeth.

Belle, you have been through so much change in these last few months and we are SO proud of how well you have coped with it all. We have lived in about 9 or 10 different places since we left our London flat and you have just embraced it all.

You really are the most incredible little miracle and we love you endlessly.

Happy Birthday darling girl