Eight months today since becoming a mum

Wow, eight months today since we became a family. And how better to mark that than with a family holiday. We just returned from a week in Devon, in a shack on the beach at a place I hope you will become very familiar with. It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful in every single way.

Day one on arrival, instant de-stressing for Pa and me, and you were delighted at the massive playground we had arrived at. The sky was blue and the sun was shining, the water was pretty still and the view from our shack was a perfect composition of shingle, sea and sky. Worth noting that this also happened to be the week that European airports ground to a halt due to a volcanic eruption in Iceland and the subsequent ash cloud traveling in the skies. So not only was the sky bluer than blue, but there were no vapour trails and no distant hum of airplanes flying by. Amazing.

Our first few days was just you, Pa and me, which was lovely. I think you reveled in the fact that we were all together and there seemed to be nothing to do but play, eat and sleep. Think the sea air knocked you out cos you were having epic naps and deep deep nighttime sleeps. Even when your little pal F arrived after the weekend with his mum, his crying didn't disturb you.

Interesting developments this week on your part: new words – sea, sky, beach, boat, bird and ice-cream; learning to play with, rather than alongside, F; and realising that if we thought you had fallen, you would get attention and sympathy... I actually caught you just lying on the ground, looking to see who'd noticed, then fake cry. Hysterical.

I think it has been very good for us to go away on this holiday, very bonding. We had a small bump to reality when V, our social worker, called mid week to check how our finances are for her final report; honest answer: *ucked! Quite a shocking moment to be reminded that we are STILL in the process of adopting you and that, theoretically anyway, you could still be taken away by the powers that be. At this stage, and on this holiday, that jolted me. I thought, I wonder what would happen if I answered really truthfully, what would they do, take you away having spent the last two years telling us you don't have to be rich to adopt?? Anyway, I fluffed and answered and reassured that all was ok, which it is I suppose, albeit by skin of teeth. Not much longer now til last hurdle, court hearing this week that we do not attend and then the final one that we do go to should be in about six weeks. I think that will bring a level of relief I can only imagine at the moment, I suspect I will breathe freely as though I had held my breath for several minutes.

So holiday – fantastic to spend all day outdoors with you, toddling around, rearranging stones, kicking a ball, climbing in and out the shack, going up and down the shingle, paddling, and eating ice-creams. And most of all, fantastic to have all that time with you, with no work or dull chores to get in the way. You definitely thrived on it, I definitely did. I think you would claw someone's face off if they tried to remove you from us now. You have become yet more attached and have demonstrated this in ways that move me really – when wandering around pub garden while we lunched, you chatted to strangers as usual, but this time took me with you, made me carry you and rested your head on my shoulder coyly (not like you at all!) as they chatted to you. Funny bean that you are.

Finally, you now say hello. Well, you actually say – huwo, like Elmer Fudd. And I knicknamed you and F, Walter and Irma cos you were acting like a little old couple.