De Silva Family Blog

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.

After a few days in hospital, we welcomed Ollie home for the first time on wednesday afternoon. Leo was delighted to show him around the house. He was even more delighted when he found out that Ollie had bought him a slide as a homecoming present. Leo's very proud of his new slide and keen to show everyone his prowess, as Nana found out in the following clip. As our little lion cub, Leo is naturally fond of other cats. Unfortunately those feelings are not mutual!

You may have noticed a dearth of blog entries during January. Well that's because Father Christmas was a little late getting round to me, but when he did he made up for it by delivering a whole sleigh load of electronics. I've spent most of my free time last month setting up my home network and home cinema system - including a whopping 50in plasma screen! It was capped off today with the installation of Sky HD. The picture and sound is simply amazing. It's taken 10 long years to convince Mary of the benefits of a home cinema (and the bribe of getting the garden done), but it was worth it in the end. Now all we need is a popcorn machine and a tall person to sit in front of me!

Leo loves to "walk" (although he can't support his own weight yet), so I bought him a baby bouncer . As you can see, he loves it.