In the barber's chair

Having his hair cut on his own!

Matthew came with me for a haircut this morning as usual, but instead of sitting on my lap after I'd had my hair cut, he was offered the chance to sit next to me on his own chair and have his hair cut at the same time with a different hairdresser whose appointment hadn't turned up.  I wasn't sure how he'd react to this, and he didn't look sure to begin with, but he ended up having fun.  He gets on well with the staff, and one made him laugh by telling him that he was going to "beat Daddy" and finish first while another cut his hair.  He's still happy to have the clippers, and was better at staying still on his own than he usually is on my lap.  He even wore a gown today for the first time - he usually throws it off.

After being very good lately, we were fooled into thinking Matthew's tantrum days had become less frequent.  This week, he's been quite trying, moaning and crying often.  On Tuesday he tried to leave the house when Louise told him off, and so we have to be careful to keep the front door locked.

We went to stay with my family in Cheshire last weekend, to celebrate my Aunt's 60th birthday.  Matthew was generally very good in the car journey and didn't complain this time about me driving too fast.  I wonder if this is to do with my car, as I was driving Louise's car which has a better fitting car seat.  When I took Matthew to the beach, he told me to slow down so much I was driving at 35mph and he still thought I was going "too fast Daddy!".

After being shy to start with, Matthew had a good time at my Aunt's party, and ate lots of the buffet food.  He was comical during my cousin's speech and laughed very loudly when everyone else laughed, and clapped when everyone else clapped.

Rainbow Reflection game

Another development this week is that Matthew has started to correctly play his Rainbow Reflections game, where he has to stack coloured blocks in the same order as shown on a card.  He used to stack them in any order, but on Thursday Louise taught him to try and follow the card and while he was paying attention he managed to do it several times.  He can already play his card game "Nosh!" correctly, which is meant for children 4+, and has learned how to play dominos (though often takes extra turns if he loses his concentration or gets too excited).  He hasn't done so many jigsaw puzzles recently but can do some of the Chuggington jigsaws he was given for his birthday on his own, seemingly without looking at the box.