The kids and I are halfway through our summer holidays. Mostly we’re on our own because Eric has had work to do still. Being with Ingrid all day, every day, has let me see her from some new angles – or rather, reminded me of angles that have been there all the time but that I haven’t noticed as much during the school year.

She really, really hates waiting and is totally unable to amuse herself without external help. After a very late supper I tell the kids it’s time to go to bed. Ingrid brushes her teeth and gets out of her clothes. And then, do you think she goes to her bedroom? No – she sits in the sofa and reads, because she sees that I’m still brushing Adrian’s teeth, and she cannot imagine sitting in the bedroom and doing nothing for those two minutes it will take us.

Her two go-to solution is reading. As long as we’re at home, there are always Kalle Anka pocket issues lying around and she will grab one as soon as there is even a minute of waiting. If the waiting time is longer, she likes to add snacking to the reading.

I’m all for reading. I like reading, and I like that she likes reading. But it’s definitely becoming a crutch for her. It would feel totally wrong to forbid reading but somehow at some point she needs to exercise her atrophied imagination…

She is loves entertainment, activity and especially social activity of all kinds. Belonging to a group and being with other kids is very important to her.

Some of her friends at school had started playing “Winx Club”, after the animated series, and Ingrid then started watching the series so she could better join in at the game. Now I think she’s trying to work her way through all the seasons. She’s been watching Winx Club a lot.

She’s particularly interested in the costumes: she browsed through a Winx Club wiki to look at all the characters’ outfits, and wants me to make a Tecna costume for her.

Her other favourite entertainment right now is Dragon City, an iPad game where you feed and breed dragons. It’s become a social family activity: almost every morning we sit together for a while and feed our dragons, and ooh and aah over each other’s eggs, and watch the dragons combat.

She got a pair of inline skates at the beginning of the summer. She’s been practicing but finding it hard. The streets around our home are hilly and the surface is often uneven – not so easy for a novice skater.

For her own money she generally buys plush animals. The most recent one was an owl. Before that we ordered a large plush horse for her from an online store. From a car boot sale she bought a plush dog with accessories, and a rainbow-coloured large plush snake. She likes taking one or two of them with her when we travel somewhere, and often has one of them in her bed at night. But after a short while she becomes bored with them, puts them away and buys a new one. I don’t know how many dozens of animals she has now.

Her favourite summer activity (after camping) is swimming. She’s one of those kids who can dive into cold lake water and tell me that it’s not cold at all! Come in! It’s great!

The snorkel and mask and goggles are the best things we ever bought for her. She’s a strong swimmer as long as she doesn’t have to think about breathing, so the mask and snorkel allow her to swim around without having to worry much about that.

At swim school they mostly focus on front crawl and backstroke, both of which make it hard for her to see where she’s going. So when we go in deep water together, she ends up doing an awkward dog paddle/breaststroke combo.

She chose a very colourful bikini for this summer, in line with her usual fashion choices (the more colours, the better) but felt too naked in it. She doesn’t think twice about lolling around in her underwear at home, but didn’t feel good in the bikini at the local pool. So we bought another turquoise tankini, like last year.

Favourite part of travelling to Estonia: just about everything. She enjoyed the ferry trip, the dinner buffet on the ferry, the flat we’re staying in (same as last year), the planning, even the packing. She pretty much did her own packing this year, with the help of my all-purpose packing list and just a few hints, although I did help her fold her clothes so they’d fit in the suitcase.

Favourite ice cream flavours: melon, mint (polka), pear, elderflower.