Star Wars being the best thing since sliced bread according to Adrian, the party decorations had a Star Wars theme.

The idea of having vicious killers on your party decorations, masked and armed, is odd to me. But I am not a 6-year-old boy.

For him it’s not about war and killing… it’s just cool guys with light sabres.

In Malmö for two days. Waiting for dinner.

Inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s dotted designs, Ingrid and I painted the rice paper lamp that hangs in her room.

Likes:

• Making nonsense noises and playing with words in his mouth. He repeats words that feel nice, sometimes to a little tune. Anything from Crabbogoyle (“Crabbe and Goyle”) to chowder.
• Cycling on his itty bitty bike
• Cycling on the tow bike. Because he doesn’t have to think about balancing, he can relax and really enjoy himself. When we go really fast on a downhill bit, he squeals and whoops with joy. (At first he asked me to brake each time we got to a hill, but now it’s the opposite, he tells me to not brake.) He explores and experiments with all kinds of fun things that he cannot yet do on his own bike: the whole thing with gears, pedalling backwards (his own bike has a back-pedal brake), standing up, letting go with one hand, etc.
• Crisp apples, but not soft ones
• Light back rubs
• Lego Clone Wars animated series
• LasseMaja books

Best birthday present: Lego Chima Lion Chi Temple. He’s been talking longingly about this Lego set for at least a year. Unfortunately it’s “out of print” and super expensive in the few online shops that sell it – but that’s if you want a brand new one. Luckily we found a second-hand one on Tradera. It was the best one ever, he said.

I am tired, and especially tired of organising and managing things for other people, including my kids. But a birthday is a birthday, so I dredge up some energy and do my best to make it a fun day for Adrian. I don’t think he’ll remember it as his best birthday ever.

Likes:

• Reading while eating, and eating while reading.
• Non-academic subjects at school: art, music, crafts, sports.
• Computer game day at “The Club”, the middle school equivalent of after school care.
• Being responsible for cooking dinner
• Long hot showers
• Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries
• Being read to
• slither.io (a computer game sort of like Snake)
• Sleepovers

Continuing on the theme of Adrian’s bikes: here are three of them. The red Nitro, the scooter, and the balance bike, which is still dear to him even though he uses it very rarely.

All three are normally parked on our porch, together with Ingrid’s scooter.

Adrian has alternated between walking to school, and taking his scooter. Now he’s rediscovered cycling.

His is the tiniest bike in the school. By all objective measures, it is too small for him. But purely subjectively, he feels comfortable on it, even if his knees almost hit the handlebar. He doesn’t feel comfortable on a larger bike because he is too far up – it’s a long way down.

One benefit of having a tiny bike is that he can carry it up the stairs himself, when he has to.

My old desk was covered with stuff. Occasionally I make a half-hearted attempt to clear it, but I never get very far. This time I had intended to gradually process all of that stuff and then finally move the things I wanted to keep to my new desk. There was progress, but it was slow… so I ended up just moving it all in one go. My beautiful new desk is barely visible under it all.