An amazing couple of weeks...

I just loved having Phil home for the holidays. We spent 2 1/2 weeks together, the three of us, a tight, intimate, loving little unit. We picnicked at Canterbury — a lovely, yet cold, grey-skied day that featured Otis' first choking episode (a soldier of wholemeal toast was the culprit). We ate together, every meal — Otis usually eats in earnest, to begin with, but by the end is whingey and wants to be held, and prefers sucking water from a cup to chomping down the calories and nutrients he really needs. On Phil's birthday we enjoyed Spanish churros and Baci shakes at San Churros at Glebe, and I shared my whipped cream with Oti — he loved it! We played Scrabble, sans Otis, in the evenings whilst he slept, fitfully.

Otis has choked a couple of times over the past few weeks. It's usually due to my negligence, I'll admit — the bread incident occurred when I turned my head. It was very scary, Phil had to reach in and dislodge the chunk of toast he'd managed to gum away from the larger slice. Then, in the car, on King George's Road of all places, I was spoon-feeding him from the passenger seat. It was mashed — albeit, not mashed enough — avocado. It did cross my mind that this was not a safe thing to do, given that he was tightly strapped in and that I had only very awkward access to him — but for some reason I went ahead regardless. It probably had something to do with the crying! Anyway, all of a sudden he went very red, and made no sound. I alerted Phil to the problem, and he went to veer onto the median strip... Luckily he swallowed and all was well. Phil and I felt rather queasy with fear, though...

He's unwell at the moment, just a cold at this stage. His breathing is a little louder, a little faster, and he's sleeping poorly. He's in with me all night. As soon as he's recovered, I am going to start being stricter, in preparation for his move to his own room once we relocate to Mortdale (in less than 2 weeks time!!!)

His favourite sound is "aye", his favourite song is still that short little refrain from Sister Act 2 that I pulled from nowhere one day and have sung to him ever since... "If you wanna be somebody, if you wanna go somewhere, you better wake up and paaaaay attention..." His favourite toys are the foam animals from his Farmyard Animals book, they are removable, easy to clean, and he enjoys trying to tear them with his teeth.