Today, the Recycle Bin, tomorrow the world...

Dylan has been doing lots of new things lately and there are no two ways about it, the little monkey is getting cheekier by the day. It seems as though he had it all stored in reserve for once he’d cracked walking, because since we took him out for his first stroll in real, big boy shoes, he has been a right little scamp!

Look at the mischief on that face. Monkey.

The other day, for example, he got into the kitchen because I was fixing the safety gate which had become stuck, and had left it open. There was no problem with this, I was in there so he couldn’t get up to anything to put himself in any danger, but this didn’t stop him making a beeline for the cupboard under the sink replete with its collection of chemical nasties. “Dylan, no!” I said to him in a firm, authoritative tone. “Ner, ner, ner!” was his reply, a huge grin across his little face. He knew he was taking the Mickey and also that I was telling him off. To his credit, he left the cupboard alone, but the look he gave me said something like “Now listen here, old boy, you know that I’m in charge here and could open it if I so desired. I shall humour you on this occasion, however.”

The next day, he decided he was going to have a go at computer hacking. I had left my laptop on the sofa for all of a minute. Kate got there in time to see Dylan confirming that, yes, he did want to delete the thing he had elected to. “What was it?” I hear you ask. The book I’m working on? Thankfully no. Our wedding pictures? Again, I’m relieved to report it wasn’t those either. No, Dylan somehow managed to delete the Recycle Bin. Not just any old word document or picture file, oh no, he managed to delete the facility for deleting things. We have a criminal mastermind on our hands! We still haven’t managed to work out how he did it or, indeed, how to fix it properly. Did we learn from this? Of course not. I caught him playing with it again a few days later. I uttered the same ticking off and his response was to simply cover his eyes and laugh. Apparently that meant I couldn’t see or hear him while he tried hacking into the Pentagon.

We went for our second scan on Monday and, once we’d established that everything was well, we were offered to find out the gender of Baby Briggs #2. The news is that we’re expecting another boy. We’re delighted, but also all too aware of the fact that Dylan will quickly turn his little brother into a sidekick en route to his megalomaniac plans. Today, the Recycle Bin, tomorrow the world!