De Silva Family Blog

Ollie's just had his 8th month check-up and he passed with flying colours. In fact it's been quite an eventful week for him as he's recently become mobile. He's not quite crawling yet, but does manage to commando crawl when there's a toy of Leo's that he wants. Otherwise, he's become quite adept at rolling his way around the room. Ollie's first tooth finally broke through after four months teething and several gallons of dribble. Unfortunately it wasn't much use at dinner this evening when he discovered Lamb Chops for the first time. He thought he'd gone to heaven as he sucked on a piece for 15 minutes, desperately trying to use his 1mm long new tooth to chew it!

Nee naw! Nee naw! That's the soundtrack to our life. Leo is obsessed by emergencies - mostly by fire engines and ambulances, but also police cars and rescue helicoptors. Fireman Sam is his hero and we watch the cartoon series several times a day. He say's he's going to marry Firewoman Penny from the show and he spends all day making up emergencies and rescuing his toys (or parents). He has his own medical kit and is very good at bandaging up arms or legs. Every other saturday I take him to Dad's Club at the primary school in Watton-at-Stone. They have a toy library there which we used for the first time this week. Whilst searching through the items, we found this fireman's costume and our little hero couldn't believe his luck. He's been at it all day and is even talking about sleeping in costume just in case there's an emergency at night!

Went to Boston this week for the CAS Annual Meeting (an actuarial conference). It was a great conference and the US actuaries were very welcoming, so I really enjoyed myself. I even found the time to wander around Boston for a while. I learnt about the start of the US revolution by following the "Freedom Trail", visited Fenway Park (the home of the Red Sox), and even went clothes shopping for the first time in a decade! I then checked out the US version of Cambridge and their top university, Harvard. It doesn't quite match ours! Here's a statue of John Havard, also known as the "Statue of Three Lies", because he wasn't the founder, the founding date is wrong and it isn't even John Harvard!!! The best thing about Cambridge was the cool toy shops I found: Joie de Vivre and Curious George & Friends where I got a little carried away. Luckily it'll be Christmas soon.

As Dado's getting old he needs the help of his grandchildren to blow out the candles on his cake! Apparently they think he needs help eating it too...

I took Leo Gruffalo hunting this evening. We got kitted out in our explorer's gear and headed out into the deep dark woods under the light of the full moon. It was all very exciting for our intrepid adventurer. We heard a fox (probably a cat) rustle in the undergrowth and an owl call overhead. Then all was quiet as we crept softly along. Suddenly the silence was broken with, "I need a wee wee Daddy!" As he relieved himself by the moonlight, Leo asked, "Will the Gruffalo eat me, while I'm doing a wee wee?" "Probably!" Funnily enough, he didn't feel like walking after that!