It has been an unusually ordinary month. Or perhaps I have not been paying enough attention?

There has been a lot of talk about the baby, of course: about what s/he will be able to do (sleep and drink milk) and will not be able to do (walk, play), things that Ingrid is allowed to do but the baby won’t (help cook dinner, play with daddy’s iPad), things Ingrid will help the baby with (teach her songs), and so on. Ingrid is taking a long view of things and is already planning for how she will help carry the balance bike down the garden stairs when the baby is old enough to use it. I guess she finds it easiest to relate to her own age, so she imagines the baby in her place.

Eric’s iPad, by the way, has been a very appreciated toy. (I agree, I like it too.) It made its way into her life during a longer car trip we undertook, and has since then been almost a daily fixture. Eric has found a bunch of apps for her: finger painting, dress-up, jigsaw puzzles, simple connect-the-dots, memory (find the pairs) and so on. She can manage all of them on her own, because the interface is so simple. The touch screen is perfect for her – so much easier and more natural than using a mouse or a stylus – and the small size is also a big plus.

iPad use counts towards the one-hour screen time limit I try to keep to, so there hasn’t been much movie-watching this month. Not much reading, either, although I don’t think that’s because of the iPad. In fact I don’t know where all our time goes. She hardly plays with any toys, rarely touches her jigsaw puzzles, hasn’t drawn much… we’ve played some board games now and again but not much of that either.

Every week she spends one or two afternoons with friends, either here or at their place. A few afternoons are filled with errands, and since I don’t walk very fast nowadays we get home so late that it’s time to cook dinner. She usually helps me with that, or just potters around.

If she could, I think she’d have a friend over every single afternoon. She loves company. She also loves novelty: other kids’ toys are far more interesting than her own. And now she and her friends often play together on their own for long stretches of time, which means that I am more than happy to have her friends here, and I don’t feel like she’s too much of a burden for their parents either.

I don’t really know what she and her friends do together. “Mummy daddy baby” is one game that I’ve heard them play. Various sorts of dress-up, too: whenever I arrive to pick her up, she’s wearing fairy wings, flouncy skirts and such. There are also games with rules: “if you step on the gray ones then you die, if you step on the green ones then you win, and on the red ones nothing happens”. Death is a common part of such games. Stepping on certain stones in the street, touching a certain part of the rug, etc, all lead to death. Not very seriously, though: she’s not concerned at all when she does happen to step on them. There’s a general focus on the bad things in life – perhaps an effort to conquer them? When drawing with Majken she told me they were drawing “things that you can die of, and stinging nettles”.

She thinks a lot about her friends when they’re not together, too. She draws pictures, or takes home drawings from nursery, and tells me that this one is for Elin, or for Julia or Majken, and wants to take them with her when she next meets them. Since Julia lives in our street, just two houses further up, she sometimes walks to their house to put the drawing in their letterbox.

At first it was just the drawings; now it’s growing into a whole exchange of letters: the drawing is either folded and taped or put in an envelope, and then we have to write “FROM INGRID TO JULIA” on it (me spelling it out, her drawing the letters), and then she delivers it. Apparently Julia likes this too, because sometimes we find similar letters in our letterbox, which always makes Ingrid very happy. She checks the mail every day and inspects all the envelopes to see who they’re addressed to. (She can spell her own name all the way, and knows the first letters of mine and Erics. She’s viewed I as her letter for a long time; now all the letters in her name are “hers”. “R as in Ingrid!”)

During the first few “mail runs” I kept watch from the garden; now I just let her do it on her own. It’s a quiet street where cars are few and drivers are careful. Ingrid walks very carefully along the side of the street, looks to both sides when crossing, and shows a great sense of responsibility altogether – far more so than when we’re out walking together.

During weekends we’ve been to the circus (twice) and to the swimming pool (twice). Now that the school term has started, various organized activities are also starting up, including our Estonian playgroup. We’ve tried to find some more organized activities for her, since her hours at nursery will be shorter during our parental leave – now she’s there about 8 hours a day, but she’s only allowed 6 when one parent is staying at home. I looked for swimming lessons, but there weren’t any groups that took children under 5. Eric and Ingrid tried out “family judo” but she didn’t like that.

Today we tried out a dance group, since Ingrid has been talking a lot about dancing recently, and every nice dress is a “dance princess dress”, and her favourite thing by a mile is a pair of purple “dance slippers” with Hello Kitty. Really there was very little dancing involved and a lot running around with music, and some music-related games (Head, shoulders, knees and toes, Follow the leader, Freeze dance etc.) – just right for Ingrid, it seems.

Other minor points:

  • We’re back to using nappies at night, full time. Every time we try to make it without, there’s a puddle in the bed.
  • Ingrid has realized that some mushrooms actually taste good, and will not poke them to the side. I guess all our talk about tasting food before rejecting has not fallen on deaf ears. Still doesn’t eat onions or “leaves” (which covers everything from lettuce to spinach to herbs).
  • Other things she likes: Cake dough. Picking flowers. Opening surprise parcels and packages. Pink clothes. Cuddly blankets.