Adrian is not angry. Not much. Sometimes he actually lets Eric do something he really wanted me to do (such as serve him porridge). Perhaps we’re in a trough between two anger waves. We’re enjoying the experience.

The one thing he is most often angry about is nursery. In the morning he is angry about having to go to nursery; in the afternoon when I pick him up he is angry about having to leave. He is also quite angry about not getting to play with his best friend Sigrid as often as he wants. Playing at nursery doesn’t count; he wants to play at her home or possibly at ours. But really at hers.

Mornings are worst. Adrian is so not a morning person. He is often tired and usually starving hungry. Somehow the two reinforce each other: the more tired he is, the more keenly he feels the hunger. So on weekday mornings our top priority is to get food into Adrian, but on weekends, when he wakes at his own pace, he can go downstairs with Ingrid and watch a movie on the iPad while Eric and I snooze a while, and he can manage that without going nuts with hunger.

A slow, cuddly start helps. So actually the very first thing we do when we go downstairs is read a book, while Eric makes porridge. Those 5 minutes can make a huge difference for his mood.

Porridge is Adrian’s favourite food. Some months ago I would have said potatoes, or maybe bread; now it is definitely porridge. He eats porridge almost every morning, and sometimes asks for it in the afternoon as well.

And he eats a lot: his normal breakfast is one standard adult serving (1 dl grains, 2 dl water). Sometimes he eats that and then asks for more. I guess he might be going through a growth spurt.

We’ve had some discussions at home about the importance of eating vegetables. Especially after he last was ill (because he’s had a lot of sick days recently) we talked about the vitamins in vegetables and how they help keep you healthy. He was totally up for it in theory, but in practice he still usually takes one bite or two and then says he doesn’t want any more.

One thing he has suddenly learned to eat/drink is fruit smoothies. That was one of those things that he used to just refuse to touch. Now suddenly smoothies are OK.

So if he keeps adding around 1 food item to his repertoire every month, he should be eating like a normal human being in a few decades or so…

Favourite game: mummy daddy baby. He is daddy and I get to be the baby. My main job is to lie down (in our play tent, or on the sofa). He then “reads” for me (which mainly means that he looks at the pictures in a book and I do nothing), and puts me to bed (lies next to me for a while), and then fetches another book (pappa kommer snart, “daddy will be back in a moment”) and tells me to close my eyes if it’s too scary. And sometimes feeds me, too. He can keep this up forever.

But he can also join in in more and more of Ingrids games and activities. I used to set up an alternative activity for him, next to Ingrid’s, but now he does his own version of the same thing. Bowling, painting, marbles… And games. He can understand and follow the rules of “go fish”, for example.

Today we played a tabletop game called Brainstorm. It’s sort of related to this one but the process is quite different. In our version there are question cards and a timer. You play five rounds. In the first one each player has to come up with x answers, in round two with x+1, and so on. We usually have x=3 for Ingrid and x=5 for adults, to even out the field. The faster you reach your goal, the more points you get.

Today Adrian joined in with a fixed goal of 4, and (with a fair amount of prompting) managed it quite well. He could come up with 4 fairy tales (well… if Kalle Anka counts as a fairy tale), 4 round things, 4 fruits etc., before the time ran out. The fruit he did in about 2 seconds and didn’t even need any hints or prompts.

He has also started listening to the same books as Ingrid. Our bedtime story for the past week or so has been Guldmysteriet (a LasseMaja book). We also read the various Alfons books a lot.

Adrian likes books and letters and reading and writing. He reads letters. He sees letters in things. (The other day I got him to eat strips of bell pepper by showing him how they looked like the letter J.) He picks out letters from words: olika… oli K a. At nursery they’ve made letter shapes with their bodies on the floor. He draws letters in his porridge, and on his pancakes, and with his fork on his napkin. Mostly he draws A’s.

Favourite movie: Frozen, a.k.a. “the snowman movie”. Olaf is his favourite character.

Favourite item of clothing: dresses. I’ve had to buy more because we were always running out.

Not favourite item of clothing: socks. Given the choice, he almost never wears any.