De Silva Family Blog

Leo is becoming cheekier by the day. Here are some of his recent gems... As I'm carrying Leo upstairs to bed: Mary: "Ni! Can you just get me ..." Leo: "Ohh! She always wants stuff!" Mary's looking at bracelets in a shop: Leo: "Mummy. Do you really need another bracelet?" After school today: Mary: "Leo. Can you count from 1 to 20?" Leo: "1, 2, 20!"

Following her maternity leave, Mary returned to work this week. We'd been wondering what to do about childcare and whether we should put Ollie in a nursery when Kelly, our cleaner, mentioned that she'd trained as a nursery teacher! Dropping her apron and rubber gloves and we were suddenly looking at Super Nanny! Not only does she have two children of her own (including Abbie, who Leo's got a crush on), but she cooks, cleans and decorates the most fantastic cakes as you can see with this chocolate orange flavoured "Christmas Muffin" cake! Most importantly the kids adore her, much to Mary's chagrin as they promptly run/crawl to meet her the moment she comes in the door!

  I was trying to explain to Leo this morning about how today was the start of a New Year, but to a boy whose concept of time extends to today, yesterday and tomorrow (sometimes he even gets those mixed up) it was perhaps asking a little too much. Nevertheless, he is saying "Happy New Year" to everyone he meets. I was also discussing New Year's Resolutions with him and I told him how mine was to play more sport this year. I asked him what Ollie's should be and he replied, "Eating!" Finally I asked what his was, hoping that he would say eating too... "Playing!" "That's not a New Year's Resolution. It should be something that's good for you; that you don't do very much of." "Playing computer games!" Anyway, to all our nearest and dearest (in fact any who stumble across this blog), we hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and wish you all the very best for the new year. Love Nigel, Mary, Leo and Ollie xx...

Like his elder brother, Ollie's been babbling "Dada dada da..." for a while now and I thought he might follow in his brothers footsteps and say "Mama" first. Thankfully, this this little Daddy's boy figured out who's his Dada and as I came into the room this afternoon, the sweetest little voice cried out "Dada!" as he turned around with his arms aloft wanting to be picked up. It won't be long before he figures out that little word will get him all the attention he wants. At least for a while anyway.

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.