Saturday 8th January

There goes the New Year diet anyway.

Had a bit of a horrible moment this evening while feeding Stanley. The milk decided to go the wrong way, so he choked, turned blue and just didn't breathe for a couple of minutes. There was a bit of a panic and the dreaded bag was brought out to bring him round. I'm sure a lot of babies choke on their food like this, but this was one of the most distressing incidents I'd had yet; even after all these babies been through. Up to about a couple of months in, when both of them were in a pretty bad state having moments like this all the time, we never allowed ourselves to let go fully. You subconcsiously hold back somehow - not letting yourself get too attached in case the worst should happen. But ever since a few weeks ago, we have now completely let ourselves go and are well and truly in love with Willow and Stanley. So this was the first major pang of parenthood panic that I'd had; these are really my babies and to see them like that is terrible. It's amazing though, to be able to even have these normal parenting worries now, and this is the start of the next however many years to come.

So after all that, we decided we definitely needed to go out for dinner. It's been a long few days since our last meal out, and we'd both been craving a Thai feast for weeks. So a Thai feast it was, and it was delicious.

Anyway, it wasn't all bad at NICU today. Willow was wide awake and looking extremely adorable; and Stanley was back to his normal self almost straight after his little episode. This should be just a blip on an otherwise smooth journey towards the fresh air outside the exit of Poole Hospital (once you get past the pregnant smokers), and beyond. We're moving in to the on-site accommodation on Wednesday to 'try before we buy' and see how we get on looking after a baby. I just hope they don't make us eat the food - the 'room only' deal is more than good enough for us.