This morning we went to see the famous Maspalomas sand dunes. Since Ingrid generally refuses to walk any longer stretches, we did it on camelback. We sat in metal seats hung over the hump of the camel, one person on each side. (If the number of customers was odd, the odd man out was balanced by ballast, sacks of sand hanging off the other seat.) At first the rocking felt somewhat odd but when the camels settled into their slow and steady pace, it was pretty comfortable.

The dunes (the part we saw) had more plant life than I’d expected: enough bushes and shrubs of various sorts that you couldn’t see far across the dunes, even from atop a camel.

We also saw a baby camel, resting in the paddock behind the house, just 2 days old. All skin and bones. And lying down, not like lambs or foals who are up on their feet straight away. Then again, adult camels also lie down, unlike adult horses.

After lunch we tried out the beach. It wasn’t particularly swimmer-friendly: strong waves made it hard to get into the water without getting swept off your feet while still in knee-deep water. Much of the beach was covered with round rocks (ranging from roughly fist-sized to four times that) and some were strewn on the sandy sea bottom as well, which made walking even harder. The rocks made a continuous clattering & rumbling sound as they were rolled about by the waves. Ingrid, Eric and my mum spent a while splashing and dodging waves while I sat in the shade with Adrian.

On the way back we had ice cream and then I took a nap with Adrian.

For dinner we went to the Chinese place next to the hotel, Bamboo Garden. The food was lousy (flavourless veggies and meat, too-salty dough for the deep-fried stuff) and we’re not going back there.

Adrian has been generally unhappy these last few days. He’s not the most contented baby normally, either, but it’s even worse now. He takes lousy short naps, no matter whether it’s in the pram or in a sling. He is least unhappy when someone carries him around, but not very happy then either. Perhaps it’s a good thing he is too young to remember this – I don’t think he would have very happy memories of this trip.

This will be a very brief monthly post for Ingrid, since (a) I have hardly taken any notes, and (b) I didn’t get this done before the vacation.

Ingrid got bored of staying at home with me and asked to go back to preschool on Thursdays. For now she will still be at home on Mondays, sort of as an extended weekend. The clinginess I saw during last month is now gone. Indeed she is experimenting with distance from me: when we’re out and about, she will regularly ask if she can take a different route. For some reason this happens most often in train stations: she will take the stairs while I take the elevator with Adrian’s pushchair, and we meet at the other end.

The first time we did that she underestimated how much slower the elevator would be, so she got a bit worried when she had to wait for me. Now the only thing I worry (slightly) about is bystanders’ reactions – that they will try to help her find me (even though we’ve agreed specifically that she will wait for me at the top of the stairs) and then I will have to go looking for them.

She still longs for spring to arrive and happily points out every puny little green speck, even if it’s last year’s grass in someone’s lawn. The moment it was above-freezing she started walking home from preschool in just a long-sleeved top, or perhaps a t-shirt and light sweater.

Happy with her new bathing suit

She likes to jump over things while walking. It makes walking slightly less boring (because otherwise walking is just about the worst thing she knows, topped only by getting a shot or taking bitter medicine). She jumps across puddles, manhole covers, and cracks in the street. She jumps across spaces marked by whatever happens to be in the street: from one crack to another, or from the edge of a shadow to the edge of a darker section of asphalt.

As always, the jumping is a social activity. She tells me to watch her jump, and asks me to guess beforehand: “do you think I can jump this one? what about from here?”.

Her new favourite toy is a small pink glittery plush unicorn, about the size of my fist, which I found at Myrorna (a chain of charity shops). The unicorn also plays the jumping game, just like a little plastic horse of hers used to. “Do you think it can jump over this table? Over the table AND the chair AND this highchair?” “No, surely it cannot manage THAT!” is the right answer, and then enormous surprise when indeed Ingrid “jumps” the unicorn over the chosen obstacle.

Ingrid was very keen to go bathing in the pools so we spent most of the day at the hotel. First we tried the “beach” but that pool was unheated and the area around it quite windy, so we all got cold. When I was standing in the shade (to keep Adrian out of the sun) it was so chilly that I used a bath towel as a blanket to keep me warm. We then moved on to the shallow children’s pool, which was much more pleasant: heated and also protected from the wind on three sides. There were inflatable pool toys as well as plastic buckets lying around, so Ingrid loved it.

We had a late lunch, well later than planned: first we wandered around looking for the entrance to the restaurant where we had planned to eat. The hotel is really two hotels in one, and they share a common outdoors area, but indoors facilities can only be reached via the right building. When we finally reached the restaurant (in the “other” hotel) we found out it only served an expensive buffet (mainly aimed at guests on full board) and the restaurant that served a la carte lunches was far away at the other end of the area.

In the afternoon we went for a walk again. Ingrid was happy to walk as long as there were edges, ledges and walls to walk on, or shops to look at, or rocks to climb over. As soon as we ran out of those, her legs “got tired”. And when we found a ledge again, the legs were magically untired again. This time we walked through a few small shopping malls to see what was on offer. (Nothing of interest, really, but we did buy an inflatable pool toy for Ingrid, as well as postcards.)

For dinner we tried an Italian restaurant just across the street from the hotel. Reasonably good food, but too few staff so service was very slow. Because lunch was late, so was dinner. Adrian was so tired that Eric had to skip dinner and go back to the room to put him to bed. Ingrid, too, collapsed as soon as we got back.

Today we flew to Maspalomas in Gran Canaria for a week-long vacation. Not the destination we’d choose if it was just Eric and me, but right now a week’s rest some place warm will be just fine. In order to make this a vacation rather than an exercise in patience and child management, we brought my mum with us. She gets a free trip, we get company and another pair of hands. The adults outnumber the kids, which makes life significantly nicer for all those involved.

Now we’re all tired after a long day of travelling. The flight left at 7.30 and since we didn’t want to have to hurry at the airport, we aimed to be there two hours before, which meant getting up at 3.45. Everything went smoothly, although Adrian was pretty bored during the flight, and it was hard to get him to go to sleep. Though it could have been much worse, I suspect our fellow travellers were not too happy about having us on board.

Tabaiba Princess, the hotel we’re staying at, is large and really nice, inside and outside. It’s almost a resort rather than just a hotel, with lots of palm trees and several large pools and even an artificial beach. The only thing it lacks is wifi in the rooms. There is a wifi hotspot in the lobby but even that costs money.

We haven’t really had time to explore it all yet; that’s one thing we plan to do tomorrow.

After an afternoon snack at a bar by the “beach”, we went for a walk to the real beach. It’s about one and a half kilometers from the hotel, a pleasant walk along a palm-lined road next to a canal (dry at this time of the year). Where the canal meets the beach there’s a small freshwater lake or lagoon, with coots and moorhens and a lot of fish. Turning west/right at that point, we walked on towards the lighthouse and then back to the hotel. To the east/right, we could see the Maspalomas sand dunes, which we will definitely visit another day.

Just in time for his six-month “birthday”, Adrian learned to sit unsupported. Until now he sat very well in his highchair, but as soon as I put him on the floor, he’d fold forward or to the side and flop over within less than a minute. Then suddenly he got the knack of it and now he sits. As with most new skills, he likes it a lot, and much prefers sitting to lying down.

He also likes being pulled up to sitting from lying on his back: I give him my fingers to hold and immediately he lifts his head and starts working himself upwards, and as I pull he follows. In fact this is the best way to get him to sit: if I try to just put him down somewhere he will keep his legs straight so he lands on his feet, and then he refuses to bend his legs (or doesn’t know how).

At the six-month checkup (which he had about a week early) they enquired if he turned over yet, but that’s something he hasn’t figured out yet.

He’s found his feet and likes to pull on them when he’s lying down for a nappy change. He doesn’t do it often when he’s got a nappy on (too much pressure against his tummy I think) so now I often let him lie without a nappy for a while to let him play with his feet.

We have started serving him solid food. Mostly he gets finger food to keep him occupied while we eat. He usually enjoys it quite a lot, which gives us an extra five minutes to eat our food in peace. He hasn’t been too fond of spoon feeding, although he did make an exception when kiwi was offered. And I’m not too fond of spoon feeding him, either, because then I will have less time to eat rather than more.

Sucking on a broccoli stick

Adrian’s favourite foods are bread and broccoli. Cauliflower, cucumber and apple are also OK. Banana, carrot, melon, sweet potato and pear: not so much. The menu is quite limited because his grip is so strong and uncontrolled that he mashes most foods in his hands before he even manages to get them to his mouth. Bread sticks, crispbread, and crust from bread rolls are the best foods for him, because they are hard and won’t break in his hands, but by sucking on them he can nevertheless get flavour from them, as well as small pieces to swallow.

It’s been barely two weeks since he got his first pice of bread but already he has become much more skilled at handling food. He no longer misses the mouth, and is much better at grabbing the food in front of him. He can also get his dummy into his mouth more often than not.

He is often (but luckily not always) dissatisfied and hard to please. When left to his own devices, he bores quickly and starts complaining. When held or carried around, he wriggles and kicks. I get the impression that he wants – to move around, to do things – but cannot.

He likes people and will smile back at pretty much anyone who smiles at him or talks to him, as long as they’re not way too close or too loud. He still finds Ingrid’s antics very amusing; they entertain each other very nicely. When Ingrid has a tantrum he becomes very upset and won’t stop crying until Ingrid quiets down (or we take one of them to another room).

He still drools and spits up a lot but doesn’t burp quite as much as he used to. Which is nice, because I can now let him fall asleep on his back. Previously I always had to turn him on his front after nursing him at night, so he could let out all the burps – if I left him on his back he couldn’t fall asleep because of them.

Spent another evening packing and preparing for the trip. Leaving home at 4:15 this night.

Yesterday we did most of the packing for our upcoming week-long vacation in Gran Canaria. I borrowed a sun protection suit for Adrian and bought a sun cover for the pushchair.

Eric discovered that Adrian is getting his first tooth.

Preparing for our upcoming vacation, we went shopping for beachwear: a new swimsuit for Ingrid, plus a pair of flip flops that happened to be on sale for 10 kr, and a bikini for me.

On our way home we splurged on a large juice from the Squeezed Up juice bar.

Adrian has learned to sit up without support in just the last two or three days. Four days ago he’d fold over and fall to one side, now he remains sitting. And he likes it.

Ingrid is definitely getting bored with being at home with me. I’m hearing frequent complaints about how she has nothing to do, how her legs are tired, how boring it is to go the supermarket.

Almost finished Adrian’s new hat yesterday but then I ran out of yarn, with about 100 stitches to go… I will have to buy another skein so I can finish it.

Yesterday something went wrong with one of the wheels on the pushchair. First it was a bit hard to push and then one wheel stopped turning altogether. When I inspected it today I found what seemed to be a ball from the bearing, stuck between the wheel and its bracket, so I guess we will have to get the wheel replaced. Bother. I made do with just the slings today, but it’s not something I want to do for many days, as long as he refuses to sleep in a back carry.

My new theory about Adrian’s tummy troubles is that perhaps he’s allergic to shellfish, too, in which case it would be the prawns in sushi that cause trouble. I’m now considering taking him to a specialist to get some more clarity about this. As long as it was just cow’s milk, it was easy, but now it’s beginning to get complicated.

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