Eleftheria's 1st Birthday

I can’t believe that a year has passed so quickly, my daughter has gone from being a helpless tiny baby to a tiny little walking, talking, clever little person. We kept her birthday party small and enjoyed it with our close family, she loved having her parents and grandparents give her all their attention all day. As a birthday treat I made some cookies for Eleftheria and I, they were delicious and we both enjoyed them. The recipe I used was adapted from http://rawdorable.blogspot.com/ by Shannon marie a great website with tons of recipes and ideas. The recipe itself was called Chewy Trawfoils, I doubled the ingredients from the original recipe and used extra dates instead of agave syrup.

Ingredients
1 cup cashews
½ cup coconut flakes, ground into a powder
½ cup sesame seeds, ground into a powder
½ cup flaxseed, ground
10 medjool dates
1 tsp. Vanilla powder
dash of sea salt
10 tbsp water.

I ground the cashews, coconut flakes, sesame seeds and flaxseeds into a fine powder using a coffee grinder. I then chucked everything into a food processor adding the water bit by bit and processed it until I had a smooth sticky mixture.
I placed the dough onto a teflex sheet on a flat surface covered it with another teflex sheet and using a rolling pin rolled it out into a flat sheet about half a centimetre thick. Using cookie cutters I then cut out various shapes. Carefully removing the left over bits of dough around the shapes, and not disturbing the cookies on the original teflex sheet, I put the tray in the dehydrator and repeated the rolling of the dough and cookie cutting step until I had no dough left.
I dehydrated the cookies for about 12 hours until they were solid but still chewy, flipping over halfway through and removing the teflex.



The results were chewy little mild tahini flavoured not so sweet cookies. A definite recipe for keeping. The cookies store well in an air tight container, mine lasted about 4 days before we had eaten them all.

Progress update

I haven’t kept it a secret that I am still breastfeeding but because the feeds are less frequent it isn’t so obvious, however those that know me well and know I am still breastfeeding are making comment like: its about time you thought about stopping’ etc. Honestly if you want to know every ones view about something have a baby and they will soon be quick to judge.
In 3 weeks Eleftheria will be turning 1 year old. The months have passed by so quickly. I have been getting pressure from some people to stop breastfeeding, I am not ready yet and I don’t think Eleftheria is either. Most people think I have waited too long already but I can’t think of any reason to stop.
I let Eleftheria dictate when I breastfeed her, and her own natural progression has lead us to 2-3 times a day. At lunch time and in the evening before she goes to bed and once during the night.
We are off to England again for the holidays, in one sense I can’t wait to see my family and friends again and for them to see my little angel and how much she has grown and how clever she is, but on the other hand I know that I will be scrutinized again for my choices.

Eleftheria’s new tricks
She is now walking, and that means mummy is now chasing her everywhere.
When I point to my lips and ask for a kiss I get big wet kisses.
She waves, blows kisses and covers her eyes to play beek a boo.
The odd word is sneaking in like Dada, Hello, Yiayia (greek for grandma) and Ta (thank you).
She can also put the shapes into the right holes on one of her toys.
Her favourite game is emptying the cupboards, be it Tupperware, pots and pans, food or clothes it has to come out and put on the floor for inspection.

Summer in Britain

I spent a month in England over the summer and was attacked by more traditional parents every day for the way I am choosing the raise my daughter. I had aunties offering the baby bread and telling me I was cruel for not feeding her the normal rubbish other babies are fed. My mother also made regular comments about me not feeding the baby enough. It was quite exhausting at times and it would have been sooo easy to just give in and follow the sheep in their child rearing ways, but I stood my ground. While we were there I still breastfed and stuck to 1 fresh fruit puree in the middle of the morning. Because of where we were I was able to give her fruits such as papaya and mango which I cannot get back home, Eleftheria loved it.

When we got home she was 8 months old and we decided to increase the food intake to 2 meals a day. I tried to give her some blended vegetables with a little flax oil but Eleftheria would take one mouthful and then purse her lips closed. So I then went back to fruit. Again I have been under attack by more traditional parents telling me that I have given my child a sweet tooth and I really have to start introducing vegetables into her diet otherwise her teeth will rot. I have learnt to take these comments with a pinch of sea salt, some of the advice I take on board and the rest I discard, otherwise I get confused and worry too much about it.

1 step forward 2 steps back

The baby is now 6.5 months old and I have started to wean her because she has a real interest in whatever I am eating. I am still breastfeeding on tap. I started by letting her have a lick of whatever I was eating, i.e. apple or cucumber, then I let her play with chunks of the same foods, while I carefully watched her; she has 2 teeth now so she often bites out chunks and so I have to be extra vigilant. Her first real food was mashed avocado with breast milk in the afternoon and she seemed to enjoy it. We have been doing this for a week and now we are adding some fruit in the morning too. Now that I have started giving her fruit she no longer wants the avocado, I still haven’t figured out why, perhaps she isn’t hungry enough at that time so I haven’t been forcing it. I figured that avocado doesn’t really have that much taste compared to sweet fruit.
Fruits are the natural food for kids to eat. If they were in nature, they would gravitate towards fruit and live on it! Fruits have an enormous variety of vitamins and minerals. They provide carbohydrates and protein. Some even provide fat (coconuts, durian, and avocado). Feed you children a wide variety of in-season fresh organic fruits.
Raising Raw-Vegan Children eBook by Storm and Jinjee Talifero
The Garden Diet.
I have been asking around for advice and ideas about baby’s first raw food ideas. Everyone seems to be leaning towards baby led weaning, and I actually started to feel terrible for thinking that at 6.5 months it was time to start weaning.
But I had my reasons for wanting to wean at this time, firstly I felt Eleftheria was ready to take the next step, she had teeth, was trying to grab food out my hands and watched us with interest and curiosity whenever we ate anything. And a huge factor was our religion; Eleftheria was only 5 months old when we baptized her, what I didn’t know at the time was that soon after the baptism the child should receive holy communion on 3 consecutive Sunday’s. I had a real challenge convincing the priest and my motherinlaw to wait as long as we did, I really didn’t want the first food item to go into her mouth to be bread and wine hence why I decided to start weaning this soon.

A whole big nappy story

When I was halfway through my pregnancy I started searching the internet and asking for advice about the best re-usable nappies. There were so many to choose from that I quickly became confused and didn’t know which to get; all in ones, birth to nappy, flat nappies the list is endless. There are some websites which offer a trial pack which includes various different styles to help you decide but living in the sticks where I live that wasn’t an option for me. I asked on the Raw Families Forum (http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfamilies/) and got varied advice. I then decided to go with Kushies because they are available from Mothercare and meant my mum could pick them up for me with some gift vouchers I had. But when she went to get them she didn’t think they looked that great and thought they were a lot of money so she decided to get me the Mothercare Smart Nappies instead, for about £40 you got 4 nappy outers and 10 re-usable nappy pads, the first size was from birth to 3 months, I had 2 started packs and they actually lasted me until the baby was 4 months old. We got on very well with these and had very few leakages. However when it came to going the next size up the same size re-usable nappy pads were to be used in the 3-6 month outers, the pads didn’t stretch the size of the outer and almost every time they would leak. I put up with this for a little while and eventually searched for a better nappy. I figured a birth to potty would be more economical in the long run and seeing as I already had some new born ones which were perfectly fine i could use them again for my second baby (god willing) and wouldn’t have to use the rather large birth to potty. So, when my parents came over recently I got them to bring me some new nappies this time I chose Wonderoos, from birth to potty. I have been using these for the last month and so far so good, they are rather bulky and I think Eleftheria would have got lost in them if she was wearing them from birth, but they are very soft and the top fleecy material keeps her very dry thus very happy. The full time kit cost about £230 and comes with 15 nappy outers, 15 re-usable pads, 15 nappy boosters and 15 re-usable wipes. I only use the booster over night and during the morning and have worked out that between the hours of 8pm-midnight the baby doesn’t wee so much so I am still using the smart nappy once a day and this way it means I can stretch the nappies an extra day before I need to wash them.

Since Sunday the 24th May, I have been making an extra special effort with my diet. I actually got quite down about it a few weekends ago and it affected my whole Sunday. I was almost resumed to just accepting the way things are and giving up, but I managed to pull myself out of the doom & gloom mood I have fallen into. And things have been very good ever since. As much as I have tried and have cut back I just couldn’t give up dairy and bread was forever calling me. But something clicked in me on that Sunday and ever since I have been able to resist, I still get those urges don’t get me wrong but I am able to resist the temptation. Now I am not saying that things are perfect but I am certainly getting on the right track. Breakfast is a huge fruit smoothie (I am practicing for when the baby starts weaning ;-), fresh orange juice with superfood powder from Kiki. Lunch is vegetable crudités with a raw dip and then dinner is whatever vegan I have cooked, or if my husband has eaten out or has meat I whizz up a salad for myself. My favourite snack at the moment is banana with almond butter. I’ve also been creating some delicious raw desserts such as divine cherry cheesecake and cherry ice-cream and every so often I make a whole dehydrator full of fruit leathers, my last batch had honeydew melon and peach leather, simply delicious.

The Christening

We recently had some family and friends come over from England for a week for the baby’s christening so things got a bit hectic around here, my parents and a friend were actually staying with us which was an absolute pleasure and another 4 friends stayed nearby in a hotel. In the evenings our tiny little flat was very crowded but it was so nice to have friends and family around. My mum was a star, cooking and cleaning and helping out with the baby and it was great to have her around and I am sure it was a pleasure for her to spend some time with her granddaughter whom she hasn’t seen since she was 3 weeks old. Panos and I even had a couple of nights out which we haven’t had the opportunity for since the baby was born. Eleftheria was wonderful she wasn’t overwhelmed by all the people and she rarely complained; in fact I think she quite enjoyed the constant attention, it took me a day or two after everyone left to reverse the clinginess. My best friend Nat (and the baby’s godmother) stayed for an extra week which was great because she helped me straighten out the house and babysat one night so Panos and I could go out for our first wedding anniversary.

With regard to the christening poor Eleftheria cried throughout the whole service and actually got quite worked up at one point, but by the end of it she was exhausted from all the crying that she fell asleep in my arms. The highlight of the day was when she pee’d in the font, her godmother Nat and I were very amused. The funny thing is that I was holding her naked for a good 5 minutes, the whole time I was whispering in her ear ‘don’t wee on mummy’ and as soon as I held her over the font she started to wee, that’s my clever girl.

While Nat was here I managed to persuade her to give the raw food diet a go (it didn’t take much persuading) she has always known it is great and has been behind me every step of the way, but I guess she wasn’t quite ready to make that change until now. It just goes to show that when you are ready to open your ears and your heart to something the opportunity arises and it is easy. So while she was here we had a few 100% raw days and had fun making green smoothies, dips, crepes and chocolate cakes! Since she has gone I have been more focused and we have been exchanging our successes and downfalls via e-mail. I have many raw food friends and am a member of many forums and chat rooms but knowing a good friend of mine is now on the same path makes a huge difference in my own battle.

Eleftheria is now rolling over all by herself and it probably wont be long till she is crawling as now she is getting more belly time so her arms are getting stronger. Up until now we’ve had it easy but now she is virtually on the move we will have to keep an eye on her at all times.


Sorry to rub salt in the wounds of those living in cooler climates but temperatures here are definitely on the rise. It is now almost too hot to go out between the hours of 11am and 4pm. Very irritating when that is the most convenient time for me and the baby to get out and about. On a good note we have already started going to the beach, Eleftheria loves lieing on the beach and listening to the sound of the Sea and feeling the cool sea air on her skin. Even though I am very keen to get the baby in the water it is still far too cold to take her for her first swim, the Ionian Sea is particularly cold even during the summer heat waves. I have dipped her feet in but she doesn’t seem to like it and cries whenever I do, either the cold temperature of the water or the crashing of the waves frightens her.

Struggling to Get Back on the Wagon

Why is getting back on track so hard? I have been to and throwing more or less for the last 3 months. I am desperately trying to get back on the raw food track but why is it so difficult? At first I thought it was just me, but then I spoke to a good friend of mine who has also just had a baby and was high raw before pregnancy, it seems she is also struggling with a new born baby and raw food. My heart is genuinely in it but my will power is poor. Before I was pregnant there were times in my raw food journey when I fell off the wagon but when I consciously decided to hop back on I was able to easily give up the bad habits i had picked up at the time and even when cooked food was consumed it was never the terrible things I am tempted by today. So is breastfeeding to blame? Is it addiction? Is it poor will power? I can’t figure it out. Perhaps it is because I have been eating all the naughty things for so long that I am finding it hard to give them up for addiction reasons. Or is it even because I have been eating things that I hadn’t eaten for years and maybe I have just got a taste for them again? Maybe i should just stop trying to find an excuse or reason behind it and keep trying.

To Teeth or Not to Teeth

Since the weather has been getting warmer I seem to have even less spare time. I try as much as I can to get out into the fresh air, I think it does both Eleftheria and I good. So if it is a nice day we go for a walk into town to pick up groceries or we go to the Castle to visit Daddy who is a security guard there.
I have also had 2 menstrual periods since I had the baby which I think is cruel because I am still breastfeeding and I was hoping not to have one so soon, the worst part is that I get sensitive nipples when I am due on so Breastfeeding can be painful and I also feel that I am not producing enough milk because Eleftheria is hungrier more often then normal. It could of course be that she is going through a growth spurt at that time but when I am due on I do generally feel less full and she doesn’t suck for as long, then again maybe I taste or smell different due to hormones.
I think Eleftheria is going through the first teething pains. It may well be months before we see a tooth because there doesn’t appear to be anything coming through right now. But there are definitely times when she cries out in pain for no reason, her cheeks are sometimes redder then normal, she dribbles a hell of a lot and she can’t stop chewing on things. Sleepless nights haven’t started yet, and hopefully they wont but if they do we’ll deal with it as best we can.

So little time

The days seem to be whizzing by right now, I am just so busy all the time and there is always something to do, aside from doing laundry almost every day, feeding the baby around the clock, cooking for my husband and keeping the house clean I have been busy making fruit leathers from all the kiwi’s from my mother-in-laws garden, making my own tahini, buckwheaties, and flax crackers, green juices, sprouts, wheatgrass juice and more. Everyday there is something new to do. At times I feel like superwoman because I seem to be on top of it all and enjoying the challenge, other days I feel like a bit of a robot because I know what needs to be done and I just do it, and on the odd day I give a huge sigh and wonder how other women who have jobs and families cope with it all. If I were working on top of everything else I doubt I would be able to keep on top of it all.
Then I look at other mum’s (especially in Greece) who have tonnes of help from their mothers or mother-in-laws and still can’t hold it together. Don’t get me wrong I would love for my mum to be around to help me more, or my mother-in-law to be well enough to lend a hand but at the same time I think that the fact that help is not readily available is why I have learnt to and am able to stay focused. When you have no one to fall back on it is a lot harder to quit and so there isn’t the option of giving up. Therefore I am happy with my situation and am grateful every day for having a very relaxed and happy baby who is a pleasure every day.
Eleftheria is now getting touch curious and is feeling around all the fabrics that come into contact with her little hands, and reaching out to touch toys. We went to see the paediatrician a couple of weeks ago for our regular check-up, Eleftheria is growing nicely although I was told that she is gaining the minimum amount of weight they expect to see in a baby, she is still top of the charts but her growth is starting to slow down, I am not worried about it. I also had a little chat about vaccinations, we have decided not to vaccine, the Dr did try to convince me that vaccines are a good thing, she also said she cannot make me do it, which you don’t often hear, but she strongly suggests I think and research it thoroughly before I make my final decision.
As Eleftheria is becoming more alert she is also spending more of the day awake and needs more of my attention. We play together and do our daily exercises (sit-ups, various standing exercises, rolling and touching among other things) therefore I have less time to spend blogging and researching newsletter subjects for The Raw Greek (www.therawgreek.com).
My little bumble bee is very entertaining I love watching her to see what she will do next. She sometimes rubs the blanket in between her fingers and has the most curious look on her face. Other times she looks at the toys hanging in front of her and gently with her fingers touches their legs.
She also rubs her hands together in front of her chest like she is scheming or plotting something.

Here’s a funny story to lift your spirits- I’ve been weed on, puked on and dribbled on many times but never pood on. I guess there’s is a first time for everything. Today while changing Eleftheria she decided to project runny yellow/orange poo from her bottom and it just happened to be while the nappy was off. It flew out at record speed covering me and my pyjamas, her clothes and the bed sheets. I didn’t know where to start. If you’d have been there you would have been in stitches it was very animated at the time. Oh and to top it off while I was clearing up the poo she decided to be sick too I guess the excitement was too much.
She is very vocal now too, we call it singing because it is music to our ears but to others it sounds like a high pitched scream from a distressed eagle or something.

Oh and thumb sucking has become a favourite past time even though we try to distract her from making it a habit.
As for me I’ve been juicing lots and drinking wheatgrass juice, I happen to have a freezer full of wheatgrass cubes. I ended up with tons of wheatgrass and there was no way I could drink it all so quick. For the full wheatgrass story you can visit my new blog www.therawgreek.blogspot.com
I have also been having buckwheaties for breakfast with banana milk (blended banana with water and a little honey) Yum and it keeps me going till lunch time.
I wish I had more good raw news for lunch but sadly not, so I have been having a late cooked lunch and later I have a tahini/banana split (a sliced banana with tahini or almond butter spread in the middle, simply delicious.

Let the Battle Begin

My journey in parenthood and back into raw food has been a slow and steady one but I am now starting to see some changes. I am slowly losing weight and my energy levels are up. I started off eating a lot of fats, and have now balanced it out a little better and am consuming a lot less fat and much more carbs and greens. I’ve been having fun experimenting with new recipes and rediscovering the old. My dehydrator has been jump started back into gear with things such as banana bread, buckwheaties and cookies and my kitchen has become a regular sprouting ground. My daughter hasn’t complained once about the new flavours she has been experiencing.
However is it always true that when one area of your life is going well another deteriorates?
My baby is perfect in every way and I feel like I am in a good place right now too. My husband and I have a great relationship and we are as much in love today as we ever were and having a baby hasn’t changed our relationship at all.
On the down side my mother-in-law’s health has been deteriorating since the baby was born. She has been battling cancer for a while now and it isn’t the first time either, but before Christmas she was given the all clear. However since the new year she has been complaining of pain in the stomach and has been in hospital twice and as it turns out the cancer hasn’t cleared up at all and it has gotten so bad that it has blocked her intestines so that she has now had a tube inserted to allow the waste to pass out of her.
She finally came out of hospital on Monday but she is very week and has lost a lot of weight. She has been told that as soon as she has her strength back she will start chemotherapy again. For years I have been telling her that sugar feeds cancer but she was not willing to give up her love for sweet things, however this time I think she got scared and with the baby now she has even more of a reason to fight the cancer, so she has finally agreed to listen to me and let me help her. With the help of Jill Swyers (www.jillswyers.com) a Hippocrates health educator we are going down the living foods route. Although my mother-in-law is at a very critical stage of her cancer by eliminating all sugar and with wheatgrass and green juices we are going to combat it together. It means a lot of running around on my part and with a baby in tow it wont be easy but I am confident that we can make a difference and I am determined to prove that food can be thy medicine.
As of Friday (the earliest we can get the wheatgrass) my juicer is going to be turned up a notch or two.

A Raw Start

It has been a week of my new healthy eating plan and I started the week really well, I had 3 whole days of 100% raw but found it really hard to eat enough calories and a lot of my calories came from foods with a lot of fat. As the week wore on I ate a little cooked food but started eating sprouts too, I’ve been making essene bread every couple of days and having buckwheat porridge for breakfast. I am feeling a lot better and not so tired during the day but the scales haven’t changed. I have noticed a little difference in my breasts before every feed in that they are not so swollen but the milk flow is still the same.

Back to raw

Eleftheria is 2 months old now and I can’t believe how much she has grown, she has now grown out of her new born clothes and is comfortably into the 0-3 month range. She has gained 2kg since she was born and about 7cm in length. And she is now getting into a sleep routine and sleeping through the night, which is a relief for my tired eyes. Breast feeding is going well but I do notice that when I haven’t eaten so well or if I have overexerted myself physically I produce less milk, so I am particularly aware of how much I eat to ensure my milk supply doesn’t cease. I do want to lose some of my pregnancy weight and so I am working on a program.
It is my own Raw Challenge
During my pregnancy I wasn’t exactly a raw foodist, even though I was still having green juices and smoothies, nut milks, carob smoothies and salads I was still eating a lot of rubbish. There are lots of reasons for this and excuses I can give you, but the actual truth is that I was weak and very much fell into the trap of ‘I am eating for two’ school of thought and ‘I am pregnant I can eat what I want’.
Now that my daughter is 2 months old and we have both settled into a routine I think it is time to make some changes. I had the frighteners put on me by the Dr’s and was told not to eat vegetables and pulses for fear of giving the baby cholic. I didn’t really believe this 100% but after eating cooked lentils Eleftheria screamed and cried for 2 nights on the trot, so maybe there is a little truth in it. Since the baby was born I have been eating limited gassy vegetables and literally no pulses, as a vegetarian it didn’t leave me many options as to what I could eat so my diet has been very poor and I have been concentrating on just getting the calories in. Because I now want to start eating better, reducing calories from sugar and increasing my raw food intake, I have to be careful not to overdo it and stop my milk production. Therefore for me it means I have to carefully plan what I am going to eat so I make sure I have all the ingredients in the house and to make sure I don’t get caught off guard and get hungry and eat the first thing I find. I have searched around for recipes which are not very time consuming and easy to make as well as not requiring exotic ingredients which are impossible to find where I live. Using fitday.com I am going to ensuring I eat at least 2000 calories a day.
I am probably not going to go 100% raw straight away and may still eat a few cooked wholefood meals a week because I don’t want my body to go into shock and start dispelling toxins into my milk thus into my baby.
I did plan to take my body measurements but cannot seem to find my tape measure. I’ll just have to use my clothes as a reference.
Now that my body has pretty much recovered from the c-section I am also going to try and do some yoga a couple of times a week.
There it is all in writing, therefore I will be more determined to make it work.
Lets make this baby a real Raw Greek baby.

She's finally here

I have been debating with myself for a while now as to whether I want to share my whole birthing story with the world or not, and after a lot of to and froing I have decided I might as well go ahead and tell it as it is.

The final weeks leading up to my Estimated Due Date (EDD) flew by during which time my mum arrived. My EDD came and went and there was still no activity in my pelvic area. I tried everything to go into labour, I was walking every day, rubbing evening primrose oil on my stomach, eating super spicy food, having hot baths and regardless of being exhausted every night still found energy to get intimate with my husband.

On Wednesday the 17th December (6 days past my due date) I went to the birthing clinic for a check up and was told that that the baby still hadn’t engaged and appeared to be in distress. And then the bad news came. I was told I needed a caesarean, you can imagine my horror on hearing this, but by this point everything was out of my hands. Within minutes I was taken into surgery stripped and strapped to the table while the anaesthetic kicked in Dr’s and nurses in scrubs fussed around me preparing for surgery. It was really horrible, I felt like a piece of meat on the butchers table. The whole time I kept thinking how I didn't want to be there and I couldn't believe this was happening to me.

The next thing I remember was waking up and being completely disorientated, I didn’t really remember what had happened but was in agony in my abdominal area.

Panos came in to comfort me and it took me a couple of minutes to come around enough to remember that I had just had a baby. I asked if I had a boy or a girl and to my amazement (I was convinced it was a boy) I was told it was a girl and she was 6.6lbs (3kg) and healthy, they brought her in to briefly show me all I saw was a thick head of black straight hair and a little pink face.


Apparently the surgery was really quick; within about 20 minutes of being taken in everyone could hear the baby crying. And 10 minutes later I was coming round which is quicker than most who take about half an hour. The baby couldn’t get down into the pelvis because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her shoulder. I was taken to my room and the baby was brought to me, but the pain was so intense I could barely move.

I was kept in the clinic for 5 days and needed help with everything to begin with, I could barely move let alone get out of bed. I have never been so helpless and dependent and I didn’t like it one bit. The worst part is not being able to get up to see to my baby. Since then I have been getting better and better each day.
I was eventually released from the clinic in time for Christmas.

As my good friend Eirini said, we may not have had the perfect delivery we wanted but we have the perfect babies.

Now moving on to the miracle of life. My baby girl is gorgeous and healthy and such a good baby that I can't really complain, she sleeps well just like her daddy and eats well just like her mummy. Panos is absolutely besotted with her and is so cute with her it makes me smile just seeing them together. My mum has been the biggest help and I don't think I would have made it without her. They both stayed with me every night in the clinic and have helped me with absolutely everything. Eleftheria (which is Greek for freedom and is named after my motherinlaw) is perfect!!

I think she looks like Panos she has his big lips, thankfully her ears don't stick out like his and has a thick head of hair which she gets from me.

It has now been 3 weeks since I became a mummy and when I look down at my daughter I still can’t believe she is mine, I can’t get enough of her and when we go to bed as exhausted as I am I can’t sleep because I can’t stop looking at my little bundle of joy.