Dear Vicky....

Little Harper Seven has been all over the news this week.
The new baby daughter of the Beckham household has caused quite a stir, not just for her unusual name, but because she’s the first girl in that particular house.
Now I know Victoria reads this column, I know she follows the lives of the O’Neillios in an almost stalkeresque fashion. Me and her can relate, you see. She’s all fancy shopping bags, groceries from Harrods and holidaying in Bermuda. I’m all under-eye bags, messages from Sainsburys and holidaying in Buncrana.
She, obviously, saw my stunningly beautiful baby daughter Maolíosa on these very pages and said to herself, ‘I want me one of them girl babies’. Well, Victoria is a follower of fashion and we do constantly strive to set trends, us O’Neills – look at our Finn’s hair for example. He has brought the curly haired bird’s nest look back. Where we lead others do actually follow.
Saying we’ve so much in common now – we both have husbands who are Adonis’s, are utterly fabulous ourselves and have found ourselves in the wonderful, fluffy land of pink things after three boys – I thought I’d write her a bit of a letter, offering some advice.
Dear Victoria,
How’s things? I bet you’re really knackered at the mo, what with the new addition and all. Take it easy, love, let that nanny earn her £70,000 a year. Just you sit back and keep looking fabulous like you did in that not-posed picture of you in your false eyelashes pretending to sleep after a long labour. I looked that good two hours after giving birth too, to onlookers who were a good 300 metres away and looking at me through heavy tracing paper with their eyes squinted.
You and me have led almost identical lives, Vic, and that is why I’m writing. I too met a handsome and talented man around 15 years ago. He wasn’t a footballer, he was a photographer but I suppose both occupations start with the same letter don’t they? When we got hitched we too had a million pounds in the bank, of love that is, not actual pounds like yourself and Dave.
And like you and your man we had three sons in a row. I too thought I’d never have a daughter to do girly things with – like not watching football, like not digging for worms, like not having burping competitions.
Your daughter is only a week old, Vic. What delights await you with her. You will, at last, find yourself in the baby girl department of Next and think you have died and gone to pink heaven. David will no doubt go a ghostly shade of white and take one of his turns when you inform him you’re going to the Debenhams sale and need his bank card. Don’t let him put you off, love, this is your right of passage.
Your house will look like a pink-coloured bomb exploded – pink blankets, coats and cute hats strewn everywhere like debris.
You will find yourself strangely drawn to random pink stuff – fridges, cushions, computers, curtains – and will try and introduce it to a household mostly used to manly colours like magnolia and brown.
You will find yourself dressing your girl up like a pink blancmange – big floaty, impractical dresses with sequence in the daytime, cute neon pink sleepsuits with little bunny hoods on them for night.
But remember this Victoria. Pinkness is not an illness, this compulsion is because you have been blueified for so long. Just roll with it, sister. Pink never did anyone any harm.
Enjoy your baby daughter Victoria. Scoop her up into your arms, take a big whiff of that gorgeously sweet newborn smell and savour it, for she will not stay small for long. In the blink of an eye she’ll transform from the cuddly little bundle with the squishy face to a giggly ball of gorgeousness like my own little star.
Much love to yourself, Dave and the fam,
Leona
x