October 1998.

19 months old, and Matthew seems to be a real 'little boy'. He is talking very well now and added to his vocabulary are some adjectives: nice, noisey and bad are his favourites. He can also name some colours quite accurately: If he is shown yellow, blue or black he names them correctly about 80% of the time whilst red, green and all the other colours are still a complete mix up! He fully understands names which is really sweet, and he can even say 'Matthew' too. He has started to count as well, and can get up to seven correctly - with prompting sometimes. I have seen him counting balls and other things when he is playing and he is always thrilled to demonstrate that he knows numbers when I am doing up his buttons. To encourage him I try to count aloud whenever it is appropriate, and I have started singing counting rhymes to him to reinforce the idea.

Since his operation he has been very unsettled at night and I have eventually given in to him, and moved back into his room. He still sleeps in his cot and I am on the futon, which we bought as a spare bed for when we have guests, but it works quite well and I will almost certainly be staying put now until the new baby is born since I am more comfortable here! Matthew is happy with the arrangement and we have only had one bad night since I moved in.

We are all looking forward to a Halloween party at Matthew's nursery at the end of the month. I am sewing a vampire costume for him, although I'm not sure about such a blond vampire - at least he is already pale skinned! Matthew helped me to bake some cakes for the party, and it is at times like this that I love being mummy to a toddler. He helped me to pour the sugar into the bowl and was delighted by cracking eggs on the worktop and tipping them into the mixture. He also enjoyed holding my beater, and he can manage it quite well, on the slowest setting when he was holding it with both hands! It was really, really fun to be able to share a job like this with my son, and the cakes have turned out really well too. I will of course be letting on to everybody who cooked them because I am so pleased.

Matthew has hit a really big milestone this month too: he has grown out of his last babygrows! 12-18 months is the largest size you can easily get hold of, so now he is wearing PYJAMAS! We bought a pair of 'Thomas the Tank Engine' ones, because he loves "cho cho trains", and he didn't want to take them off again. I had great trouble getting him dressed for nursery... and even then he tried to put his PJs back on, ontop of his clothes. He has also got a new tooth, the bottom right canine has come through, and I'm guessing the left one will be along soon. This means he has a complete smile, with only the last four molars to go, which will be a while still. I only hope he finally stops dribbling now, as I'm staring to find cuddling a soggy toddler somewhat unpleasant.

Matthew's sleep pattern really hasn't settled down and I am getting very "tired" of it. I think that now the problem is just a self-perpetuating thing. He doesn't seem unwell at all, but he has got totally out of any kind of routine. Tonight he screemed for a hour before I finally gave in and picked him up, and lying on the futon together he was asleep in minutes. I am totally at a loss, but I guess he has become more self-aware recently: demonstrating this by his new-found willingness to say his own name. He is also so perceptive that he cannot fail to have noticed that we are preparing for the new baby, and I think this maybe affecting his sleep even though none of these things bother him when he is awake. We feel that now the only way forward is to create, and stick to, a more strict routine. It is so tempting to leave Matthew sleeping in the evening, so we get some space when we are tired too, but I think this is our fatal error when we are trying to settle him into a decent sleep pattern.

A friend of mine had her baby last week and Matthew seemed quite taken by the baby so that was very reasurring. He was very gentle with her, but wanted to keep patting her! Apparently he is really good with the "babies" at nursery (6-9 month olds), and he loves to fetch toys and other things for them! So I hope he likes his new brother or sister.