Welcome to the world, baby girl!

Today, my friend gave birth to her daughter at home, and this evening we went over for a chat and to buy them takeaway for dinner. Mother looks better than I did 6 weeks after our birth, baby is ADORABLE and feeding well, clever baby, Daddy is oddly rational on the surface but actually pretty besotted, and big brother (17 months) is In Wuv and likes to cuddle baby Rose, whom he can already identify when asked "Where's Rose?"

Something in me has just sort of knitted up back together the way it's supposed to be. I've lost a huge weight of fear for Linnea. This is what it's supposed to be like. This is what the hippie books talk about. There's no reason it can't be like this for my daughter. Wow.

I am amazed. And I came home to photos of people sleeping on the fold-down chairs of a public sports ground because their city is being torn apart by a hurricane. Today is a big, big day.

(Linnea painted outside in the garden. Everything got very red.)