Happy Birthday FF
Hope you are having a lovely day, I'm guessing last birthday was a fug of new motherhood, so hope you can enjoy celebrating with LO this time. In a years time he'll be wanting to unwrap all the presents - and complaining about the thoughtless lack of Duplo and toy tractors or dinosaurs among the gifts It was lovely to get your update, and I too am sorry you have had a struggle, but loved your warm and vibrant description of DS. Hope to see you again soon.
Rosie v good call on the trip. You will have better first memories if you go when you are ready. I feel for you about SIL - such cultural,differences must be awkward when they arise despite an obvious love and empathy with the culture. I'm guessing not all Egyptian women would think it was a good idea either though?! Reading your post made me wonder if you would be a good person to read the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg? It's less about routine (though I, like Knotty, am a bit more routiney than many I wanted the routine without the Gina methods because I'm a wimp!) and more about finding your baby's and your natural rhythm of how long she is happy to be awake, what sleep she needs, and approx how long between feeds at different points in the day. Like all such books, just something to add to the mix, but it strikes me it might suit you.
Somewhere hope you are having a lovely time if you are reading us. If it suits, I highly recommend Morwenstow. Won't bore everyone with why, but it's a very special place. Golly I miss the West Country (I lived in Devon and travelled widely when I was training for three years).
We are having a lovely time in France again: a v brief stay as up at 3am to drive back to Ferry tomorrow. With friends south of Tours and area new to us, but packed with beautiful villages, and so so friendly. My girl friend and I took T and spent the afternoon potting under the supervision of a woman who does lovely glazed stoneware yesterday. It was so so wonderful to have time absorbed in something else (though if I'm being brutally honest will enjoy going back with no DC one day and becoming absorbed totally). The woman and her husband and grown up daughter (who shares my name ) were so so wonderful with T, who smiles and gurgled and tried to giggle, and did the whole being coy with a muzzie act for them. The potter woman rightly noted he is "cocquin" (have I spelt that right bbd?!) - a tinker who gets his way by charming everyone, especially his mummy At least I think that's what they were saying 
On that note, I've been wanting to find time for a while to update on my early bonding, which as some know was slower than I hoped and though I resolutely didn't panic, made me a bit 
. Somehow trusting to time and my innate love of children, the bond has grown and grown, helped I think a lot when he became more responsive. I am now slightly addicted to him: I ache a little when we are apart, even having to leave him in his crib to sleep, and can hardly stop cuddling and kissing him. He is so so smiley it is untrue, and radiates a sweet, easy, happy-going nature. It's as if he instinctively know he can't out-character his sister so has chosen a very different route. He is like balm to her heat, and I know I love them both very deeply for their different ways. Anyway, if anybody else is worried about bonding, and I hope you are not, I just offer this as reassurance.
Hope a few absentees like Chairman and MrsW are okay. Waves to all, S