More and more often, when I sit down to write my monthly post about Ingrid, I realize how different she is from me. At times it almost feels like looking at an alien in a human body.

She is very extroverted. She exists for interactions with other people, especially other kids. Being on her own, having to do things on her own, is a real hardship and drains her of energy.

At the same time, she is rather tone deaf when it comes to human interactions, at least when it comes to interacting with us (myself, Eric and Adrian). She talks without listening and seems mostly uninterested in what we have to say, or what we think and feel. Perhaps it’s because we are as alien to her as she is to us. Or perhaps this is just how 8-year-olds are: I’ve never lived with one before.

She will try to dominate any interaction. With us, it’s just annoying; with Adrian it’s worrying. I think her interactions with her friends probably work better. They are on a more similar wavelength, compared to us – and they can push back more effectively than Adrian.

Whenever Adrian is doing something and Ingrid is not otherwise occupied, she walks in and, without really being aware of it, take over Adrian’s activity. She tries to steer his play, tells Adrian what pen to use when he’s drawing, etc.

She sometimes treats him as a servant: asks him to fetch and carry for her, or take messages to me. He often does as she asks. I spend quite a lot of time telling her off for that – even though they both think it’s OK, I don’t want Ingrid to treat others that way, and I don’t want Adrian to get used to being treated that way.

She is often annoyed and irritated by him, for example when he mimics her and echoes her words, or when he sings some nonsense song over and over again. And she cannot help snapping at him when she gets annoyed.

And yet at the same time she really enjoys playing with him, and truly cares about making him feel good. Or maybe she cares about making him not feel bad? She hates it when he is sad or angry (unless he’s angry because she’s been snapping at him) and makes sincere efforts to make him happy again. And the other day when we were buying Christmas gifts, her top priority was finding good gifts for Adrian.

She is incredibly utilitarian. Activities without an immediately visible utility are pointless. There are few activities that she does for the sake of doing them. Reading is the one big exception.

Take drawing, for example. As she says herself, she knows that the end result will be a finished drawing that she has nothing to do with, so she will throw away, so what is the point? Unless she is drawing at school with her friends, in which case it becomes a social activity.

She is totally incurious. She is not at all interested in finding out about how the world works. She never asks how or why about anything that isn’t in her immediate here and now. When she encounters an unfamiliar word in a book, she asks what it means, but will not listen beyond the first sentence in my answer.

Favourite books:
She reads the same series of books that she read a year ago – LasseMaja and Kalle Anka. She rarely looks for new books to read. The books she likes are those that have a fast pace, and lots of action and suspense. Alternatively, the book should have lots of pictures, like Diary of a Wimpy Kid. She also likes jokes – especially what would be called anekdoodid in Estonian, and roliga historier (such as bellmanhistorier) in Swedish.

Favourite game:
The robot game, which means that I am a robot and carry her on my back or shoulders, and she gives me instructions: “forward”, “stop”, “turn”. We play this when it’s time to go to the kitchen for dinner, or to the bedroom at night.

Favourite iPad games:
Various animal-raising games, where you breed and feed animals and collect money from them to get more animals, like Dragon City etc.

Favourite foods:
Brämhults strawberry and lime juice, with their raspberry juice as a runner-up. Cheese buns. Clementines.