This month’s big thing is of course Adrian’s arrival. Ingrid had been excited about the impending arrival of The Baby for a long time already. After he was born, she was very proud to be a big sister, and wanted to show him off to anyone who’d listen.

Now that he is here, she’s not quite so excited any more. I totally understand her: he isn’t very exciting, really. At first she tried to show him stuff (toys etc) but when he turned out not to be ready for that kind of interaction, she pulled back. He does cry quite a lot, and loudly, which Ingrid doesn’t like much, so she keeps a bit of a distance to him: cautiously pats him occasionally, but otherwise stays away.

She’s coping well with all the disruptions to our normal routine, and is pretty understanding when I cannot help her or spend time with her right when she wants. And while she may not like it, this change is also pushing her to do things on her own, without my help. On Tuesday nights Eric is away from home and I have to put both children to bed. This Tuesday Adrian was awake and most unhappy just when it was time for Ingrid to go to sleep. I left the room and told her I’d be back when Adrian stops screaming. When I came back, she was asleep: the first time she’s gone to sleep on her own.

Similarly Ingrid is now forced to get by without the stroller, which she was so very fond of. She can walk, run or bike, or stand on the buggy board. And of course she manages just fine, and doesn’t even complain much. When she sees that there is no choice, she is usually very sensible and accepts reality.

There is some frustration, of course, but I’m not even sure that there’s more than in a “normal” month. Ingrid’s current way of expressing her frustration is through (more or less realistic) threats and blackmail, or calling me “stupid mummy”. “If you do X then I won’t invite you to my party” and “if I can’t get an apple now then I will just stand here [in the middle of the street]”. She’s even taken to hitting me sometimes, but not with real force, mostly as a challenge.

I’m “stupid mummy” at times but Eric gets an even rougher deal. If Ingrid had her say, he’d always be last and get the least. And his clothes are the ugliest and so are his shoes. When Ingrid happens to draw three humans, the largest and prettiest one is mummy, the middle one is big sister, and the smallest one, drawn almost as an afterthought, is daddy.

That is mostly an act: when I’m busy and can’t be with her, daddy is perfectly acceptable. Again, when it comes down to it, Ingrid is a sensible girl.

The one thing she’s least able to cope with is boredom, and having to entertain herself. She’s always been very social and is never happier than when she’s playing with someone else. Then she can be as inventive and full of ideas as anyone could wish. But on her own, nothing is fun. When she has a choice between doing something on her own, or standing next to me and whinging “mummy can you read for me NOW” and “I have nothing to do” and “what shall we do”, she will choose the whining more often than not.

When we play, it’s mostly board and card games. I can’t even recall the last time we played shop or doctor or anything like that. When she plays with her friends, it’s often role play with dolls, and the girls themselves are mommies or big sisters. At nursery they also seem to play group games (vargen och kycklingarna, which in English is called “sheep, sheep, come home” I think, and bro bro breja). Ingrid has also brought home a counting rhyme from nursery (ole dole doff) which she uses in all sorts of situations, such as choosing a toothbrush in the evening, deciding which chair to sit on, etc.

The iPad remains a big favorite and is now even crowding out movies. Ingrid likes games where she cannot really fail: when she does fail some task in some game, she often decides she doesn’t want to play that game any more. Her favourite app is a dress-up game, and the next best one is a drawing app. Both often turn into social activities: we choose clothes together in the dress-up app, and take turns drawing or choosing colours in the drawing app.

Ingrid has figure out addition and can add small numbers. When both terms are no greater than 3 she knows the answer without thinking, and she can usually figure out the sum as long as it is under 10. Pairs of numbers are easiest: 3 and 3 makes 6, 4 and 4 makes 8. On a few occasions she’s done some subtraction, too (without knowing it herself). One day she was painting invitation cards for her birthday party. Eric and Ingrid had previously counted that they needed to make 6 cards. Halfway through she said, “Now we’ve done 3 cards, so we have to make… 3 more. Then it will be 4, 5, 6.”

At the same time she is close to figuring out writing. She used to focus on the dominant vowel in each word: she’d say that “raamat” (book) begins with an A and so on. Now she can say the word slowly for herself and pick out the first letter, and a few more as long as the word isn’t too long or tricky. She does even better if Eric or I pronounce the word for her, really slowly, focusing on each letter in turn. Interestingly, when she writes, she sometimes writes an L instead of an R because she pronounces them the same.

Writing seems to interest her more than reading. She isn’t interested in trying to spell out written words. But she does like emptying our mailbox and sorting the letters (E for Eric, H for Helen, I for Ingrid) – in part because she hopes that one of them will be for her. And the other day she recognized that ingen (as in signs saying “Ingen reklam tack”) starts the same way as Ingrid.

She also likes rhyming words. And with the help of the alphabet song (which they seem to sing at nursery) and a connect-the-dots app, she seems to have learned most of the alphabet.

Likes: The dance class. Slippers. Drawing princesses and hearts. Going to the library. Surprises and presents (real or play). Eating nuts.