Lots of things are happening in Ingrid’s head right now.

And lots of things are wanting to come out of Ingrid’s head. She talks SO MUCH. At times I would even say she prattles incessantly.

Mostly her talk is centered around herself, especially things she has done and (even more) things she will do. She spends a lot of time living in the future, anticipating fun things to come. Sometimes annoyingly so: while we are doing something fun in the now, her attention is already elsewhere, thinking ahead to the next activity – and talking about it, and distracting everyone else.

The world around her doesn’t seem to interest her much. She’s never really wondered much about how the world is, why things are the way they are, how things work.

The other day she mentioned they were learning about the US at school. That to her seemed to mean memorizing some random, mostly meaningless facts about it that she read in a book or fact sheet of some sort. She knows that the US is the third largest country in the world, that it has 50 states (“like New York and such”), and that they have a president named Obama – and that it is one of the permanent members of the UN security council. It doesn’t bother her that she doesn’t understand what this means.

When she does wonder about something, she makes up some answer in her head. It doesn’t seem to be important to her to find out what reality is like. She just seems to need some sort of image in her head. For example, she’s about to start riding lessons, so she’s been wondering recently about how big the horses and ponies will be. Instead of wanting to find out for real, she just makes it up: “I think that the foals may be about as tall as I am, and the smaller horses might be as tall as you, and the larger ones might be as tall as pappa.” And she’s satisfied with that.

When she talks about her day, she rarely mentions things that happened at school. She doesn’t seem to find them particularly noteworthy. I don’t really know what they do all day.

I do know that her homework is trivial. Maths homework this week was addition in the 0 to 5 range. And that’s after half a year at school!

Meanwhile she keeps learning maths naturally as part of life. She adds up pocket money; multiplies the number of meatballs by 5 seconds each so she can heat them up in the microwave oven; tries to divide 20 things by 7 days of the week and realizes that there will be one less for one of the days.

She is also learning Swedish spelling (and has a pretty good memory for it) and working on her handwriting. Less than a month ago I was pointing out to her that a t is taller than an i. Now her writing is very tidy and legible. For special projects such Christmas cards she likes to draw the letters “double”, i.e. draws their outlines.

Ingrid talks fast, and she mumbles when she talks. Often I have to ask her to repeat herself, not to make a point but because I really can’t understand what she’s saying.

But she is paying more attention to the people around her. When her blather cuts me off and I go quiet, she notices, and asks me what I was going to say.

She has begun to offer her help to others. It began with routine situations that she effectively learned one by one, e.g. helping Adrian get out of his snowsuit, or helping me carry our bags from the garage to the house. But now she actually also notices when others might need help in novel situations. She grabs a piece of paper towel during dinner, and asks if Eric needs one.

She is often most helpful towards Adrian. Really she is often very sweet and kind towards him. But naturally, sometimes she gets frustrated with him as well, especially when Adrian bothers her when she wants some time on her own, or when Adrian intrudes on some activity that she really wanted to do with me, without him.

The first time it happened was when we went to town one day for shopping. Ingrid was just upset for a long time and refused to tell me why. Maybe she thought she wasn’t allowed to want to have me for herself. Finally I got her to explain, and now she knows to tell me in advance when she wants it to be just me and her. Depending on the activity, sometimes she gets that, but other times I insist that everybody in the family is allowed to join. I think she accepts that.

Favourite expressions:

  • jag är superdålig på det här
  • a men gud
  • så vadå…, as in “Jag kunde ju inte veta att han ville ha den just nu, så vadå…”

Favourite movies:

  • The smurfs
  • LasseMajas detektivbyrå
  • This year’s Barnen Hedenhös Christmas calendar on TV

Favourite books:

  • LasseMaja
  • Daisy Meadows’ fairy books

Favourite things:

  • An atrociously annoying Tinkerbell-themed wand-like thing that flashes, whirls and makes noise. She bought it at a Disney on Ice show for 160 kr of her own money and actually seems to think that it was money well spent.
  • A photo album. I bought the album over a month ago. Then she picked 40 photos on my computer, and last week the prints arrived. It’s an eclectic collection, containing photos of her and Adrian as babies, of important moments in her life, of her friends, but also photos that she simply thinks are pretty (such as my current desktop wallpaper with a snowy winter scene that I downloaded from the Internet).

Favourite activities:

  • Baking and making Christmas candy
  • Photography. When I bring out the tripod, she often wants to join me. Either she borrows my DSLR, or my or Eric’s compact camera. She also likes recording video, especially of Adrian doing something silly, or of herself singing or dancing. One afternoon during the holidays she and I went out for a photo walk together and were out for an hour and a half.
  • Briefly but intensely: Eric’s labelmaker. She labelled our toy boxes and printed important messages like “Adrian my little brother is sometimes annoying”.