Brotherly Love

Harry is taking a more hands on role with Rosie, he was a little reserved in the early days but he can't do enough for her now and I sense he's taking pride in his position as head of the mini Bachofner bunch. Whenever Rosie gets bored or upset he's in there like a shot, pulling faces, chatting to her, playing etc – I've yet to see him fail in making her smile or giggle almost immediately.

Joe shows his love in similar ways but is still quite boisterous around her and sometimes it has an adverse effect! He gave us a great insight into his true nature on Saturday night though. Karen went upstairs to check in on Rosie only to find he'd sneaked into her room, laid a blanket over her and put one of his treasured teddies in her bed. Nobody around to prompt him, he did it off his own back to comfort her. It's little things like this that fill me with great confidence for their future as siblings.

That same night Rosie was up and down crying, at times screaming. Karen, being dreadfully tired from being up most nights of late definitely deserved a rest so I told her, 'I'll sort it tonight'... 

Within twenty minutes she's lying in bed next to us - oops! She's still not happy however, then Karen asks (well I did manage to give her 20 minutes off) if I'd tried winding her, "course I have, I've tried that for the last twenty minutes" I reply sharply, "it's not that, I don't know what it is?". Karen picks her up and there you have it – burped and smiling within 10 seconds.

I spent ages gazing, not at Rosie, but Karen… I was in total awe of her completely natural and maternal instincts. No way in a million years could I have the patience or indeed the ability to settle her tonight.

In terms of Rosie's development she seems very interested in her hands this last couple of days, staring at them, waving them frantically about whilst shouting at them, clasping them together in different ways and giggling when they're tickled.