Don't panic!

I have discovered several new emotions since Harry arrived on the scene; from a feeling of pride when Harry does something well, to the sense of hopelessness you feel when he's ill and you can't do anything to help him.

However, one of the most powerful emotions is panic. When you suddenly realise something is wrong, it's as if the pit of your stomach has just dropped out – rather like being trapped on a particularly violent rollercoaster.

It happened to me last weekend when we took Harry to Chirk Castle. He was tearing up and down a ramp, completely oblivious to my warnings about tripping over and hurting himself. As I stood watching him, he tripped and fell landing, chin first, with a thud.

Fortunately he wasn't hurt and was back on his feet within seconds – and the feeling of panic passed just as quickly as it arrived. I had the same feeling when Harry disappeared recently at a playbarn.

For what seemed like minutes but was actually probably no more than 30 seconds, I couldn't see him anywhere. Then I spotted him – he'd somehow managed to find a way into the out-of-bounds area behind the play equipment.

It's reassuring to know that Melissa suffers just as badly from 'Harry panic'. At swimming last week, she convinced herself that Harry had swallowed her pound coin from the locker and proceeded to bang his back in an attempt to get him to cough it back up.

Harry, obligingly, started coughing which made her panic even more. I'm not sure how long this went on for, and I can only imagine what the people in surrounding cubicles thought of the commotion. Eventually, Melissa decided that he must have swallowed it and survived and gave up the rescue operation – before finding the coin clasped very tightly in his hand.