This time eighteen months ago I was lying utterly exhausted in a hospital bed after a long and incredibly painful labour and an emergency caesarean after my tiny little baby became distressed in the womb.

I had a horrific reaction to the drugs used and for a few hours after the birth I was throwing up everywhere and drifting in and out of consciousness. I only vaguely remember a little scrap of a thing being waved at me as I lay on the operating table feeling so awful I thought I was going to die. It was not until around 10 pm (four hours after the birth) that I was first able to hold my little girl, although it was very difficult as I was hooked up to so many different wires.

The Minx was only 5lbs 10 oz when she was born, and looked thin and wasted as if she had been starving in the womb. The hospital suggested that there had been problems with the placenta caused by the blood clotting problems which had previously been responsible for several early miscarriages. Neither of us were very good at breastfeeding, and her weight dropped to 5lbs and she was packed off to the Special Baby Unit for round-theclock monitoring until we were able to establish a good breastfeeding regime. We were only able to take her home a week after she was born.

My most overwhelming memory of the first few months is of endless hours sitting breastfeeding as she tried to make up her weight. One day I calculated that I had spent nine hours with her at the breast as my frail baby spent over an hour on each feed and the rest of the time crying because she never seemed to be satisfied. After three months I was utterly exhausted and depressed and convinced I had made the biggest mistake of my life.

Today, at eighteen months, my little girl is above the 50th centile for both height and weight and is a bundle of fun and energy. She has white blonde hair, a peaches and cream complexion and denim blue eyes. She runs and (more worryingly) climbs everywhere and chats almost constantly. Her vocabulary of about twenty words is growing daily, supplemented by around twenty ‘signs’. I was very sceptical about babysigning to start with but am now a huge fan. Apart from very useful concepts such as ‘more’ ‘all gone’ ‘change my nappy’ ‘hungry’ ‘ow’ ‘where’ and ‘hot’, she can tell us when she sees things like birds, trees, aeroplanes and dogs, so we can really communicate. Reading books is much more interesting when we can sign the pictures together and we know lots of songs full of signs and actions.

The Minx loves to sing (she carries a tune really well, but the lyrics are somewhat approximate) and dance, adores animals of any description, cars and babies and is very adventurous and gregarious. She can be both unspeakably cute and charming and unspeakably pesky – usually both at the same time. She can be both immensely exasperating and immensely fascinating – usually both at the same time. I’m very often bored when I’m with her, as she repeats some mundane thing or word for the umpteenth time, but always miss her immensely when she’s not around. I hate the way she always wakes up around 7.15 (I’m not a morning person) but look forward to seeing her every day. Every day she makes me laugh and she makes me proud. Her hugs are the nicest things in the world.

Motherhood has been without question the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do, but now every day I’m enjoying it more and more.

All my love and a happy un-birthday little one.

Poor Siobhan had a bit of a baptism of fire while we were away.

I thought things would be quite quiet in mirrormirror land since it was the summer, but we had a great piece of coverage in Ideal Home, which featured both the Atelier LZC Butterfly mirror and the Lace Mirror, so it all went a bit nutty, particularly when she managed to break her laptop screen in spectacular fashion. But we sorted everything out over the weekend and July is turning into a pretty good month for us already, which is very unexpectedly pleasant.

Speaking of great coverage, mirrormirror’s slightly saucy ad on Guido Fawkes’ political blog was mentioned yesterday in the MediaGuardian diary.

Tuesday July 11

The blog with more bling

Never let it be said that Guido Fawkes, the “attack blog” that is making life difficult for John Prescott, doesn’t know when it is on to a good thing. An advert on its homepage asks readers, “Caught with your pants down? Need jewellery fast?” Who can it possibly be referring to? “Mirrormirror is the online store for all the women in your life.” That’s ALL the women in your life. Further down, a banner ad reminds advertisers: “Nick Robinson reads Guido’s blog. An advert here will reach more opinion formers than an advert in Private Eye.” Who said bloggers weren’t commercially minded?

Traffic from the ad to the mirrormirror site has ballooned recently as Guido has been revealing more interesting John Prescott gossip, so let’s hope there are loads more revelations to come. Cheers Mr P!

(Editing to say that the arrest of Lord Levy – also trailed on Guido’s blog – will do nicely for starters).

I’ve decided that there are very few greater pleasures then seeing the team you support win the World Cup. Especially when it’s been totally unexpected and said team have played with style and courage (and look just so damn cute – though I wish Cannavaro hadn’t cut his hair). The semi-final against Germany was absolutely unbelievable – end-to-end stuff, loads of agonising near misses and then finished off with two quite spectacular goals at the end – can’t remember the last time I was so excited.

We had such fun in Sardinia watching the games in the hotel bar and bantering with the waiters and the other guests, or else making the Minx stay up way past her bed time so we could watch the Italy games on the big screen in the piazza in Santa Teresa Gallura. The Minx much enjoyed shouting ‘yay’ every time the crowd cheered, though that usually meant she ended up cheering on the opposition (though she didn’t enjoy it quite as much as Wimbledon, where she loves clapping enthusiastically at the end of rallies).

I just wish I were still living in Rome (I spent five months out there a few summers back) and could have joined the party in the Circus Maximus. My brother’s living room – where we watched the match – is somehow not quite the same.