Hanging out

The arrival of this weekend was much welcomed, capping a brutal work week for M and a stressful week for myself and an unsettled Little Planet. The weather was glorious and our little family of three enjoyed some quality time together.

Now I have a house and a new baby, my life is much more domestic than it's ever been. Just look back at the evolution of this blog from 2004 to see just how domestic my life has become. New motherhood, and the mundane, housebound routines that accompany it, has been a hard thing for me to adjust to as you well know from my recent posts. However, though I am greatly looking forward for Little P to get a little older so we can go out and do more things again - a few months, just a few more months - right now this is my life and I am resolved to make the most of it and make the little things count, like Little P's first smiles (above)!

Saturday morning began as leisurely as a morning can begin with a baby who awakes at 5 or 6am. We fed and played with her, put her down for a nap, had our own showers and breakfasts. M went for a run as I made up a few feeds, washed up and put on a load or two of laundry. Then the three of us went shopping for provisions.

We put the baby down for another nap at lunch time (though she had slept a little out in the pram too) and I headed into town alone to watch the gloriously camp and hilarious Mamma Mia! movie with the gorgeous Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan. The music I grew up with and still love is the gritty, dark likes of Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen, but the mother-love hormones currently raging through my system made me laugh and cry at the wonderful renditions of Abba songs and the emotional mother-daughter storyline. And like the rest of the audience at the West End Odeon, I applauded when the closing credits came up. How wonderfully embarrassing! I popped into Liberty for some decadently expensive Ren body cream for myself, and then into Borders and John Lewis for colourful Lamaze toys and books for my little treasure.

Back at home, M filled me in on his day. Now we have this house, he loves spending time in it at the weekend, especially because he's rarely home during the week. I, on the other hand, crave to disappear for a little bit on the weekends as I now spend so much time at home. So he had spent an enjoyable day feeding and playing with Little Planet, putting her to sleep, doing some gardening, reading, cleaning... generally pottering around.

We ended Saturday with a barbecue dinner à deux of chicken and lamb chops and sat in our garden until darkness fell catching up as we have hardly seen each other this week. Though we both have some very good friends, essentially we are both loners. When we were single and didn't know each other, we had both always been able to spend contented days, even weeks, without seeing other people. Fortunately for our marriage - and perhaps why it works so well - we also love being loners together. It does sound cheesy, I know, but M really is my best friend.

After our al fresco dinner, we gave Little P her last feed of the day, put her to bed and then watched a few episodes of the brilliant Californication on DVD starring the surprisingly sexy David Duchovny.

I spent all of Sunday at home with M and the baby. We went for a stroll around the park in the morning, ate feta cheese and watermelon for lunch, cleaned the house, read, napped, ate roast chicken and homemade alioli for dinner by candlelight in the garden, looked after Little P who slept for much of the time but who, when awake, brightened up our day even more by throwing us little smiles. Yes, our baby turned 7 weeks old on Saturday and is smiling at us.