This has been another ordinary month with few noteworthy news to mention. Life with Ingrid has been routine and gone smoothly. There are no dramas and no mood swings.

Movies and iPad are still her number one hobby, but we still limit them to afternoons only. The fallback option is still Bamse, and at times it feels like there are Bamse issues lying all over the house (even though we gather them up every evening).

She also has a new book that she loves, about animals from various habitats around the world. About 10 animals per habitat (forest, desert, polar regions etc) and a two-page spread per animal – one large photo, and one page with some text plus a quiz of some sort. (Multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blanks…) The quizzes is what she really likes about this book. When we read it together we absolutely have to do the quiz first, together, and then we can read the facts and check whether we got it right or not.

She is distractible. She fidgets and climbs around and plays with her food and gets sidetracked during mealtimes, and forgets to apply the table manners that she used to have a good grip on. We have now initiated “Sunday dinners” as a way to train those table manners back into her: with a tablecloth, candles, flowers, and a focus on manners.

At some point during the last month or two she has started spending entire nights in her own bedroom, and no longer wanders into our bedroom at night. But she still goes to sleep with one of us sitting next to her.

She plays well with Adrian, especially at nursery/preschool. Almost every day when I get to nursery to pick them up, and they’re outdoors because of the nice weather, I see them playing together. Peekaboo in the playhouse, or she’s pushing him around on a tricycle (on which he can sit but his feet cannot reach the pedals or the gorund), or encouraging him to go down the slide.

At home there is more competition about resources (especially when Adrian tries to grab whatever she has) but she can be surprisingly flexible around this. She lets go the things that are obviously more important to Adrian than to her; distracts him with an alternative when she really wants to have her things in peace; helps him when he needs help; laughs at his antics.


Helping Adrian build a tower


Easter cards. Chickens (with long hair and eyelashes), and eggs in various states of development: with a tiny seed, a little wiggly worm, and finally a tiny chick. And a ghost.