Adrian beading Pokemon figures.

He is not quite Pokemon-obsessed, but he does love them.

Some of Adrian’s other Pokemon-themed activities: Playing Pokemon Go. Playing with Pokemon cards. Collecting Pokemon cards. Comparing Pokemon card stats. Trading Pokemon cards. Watching Pokemon videos. Drawing Pokemons. Colouring Pokemon pictures. Putting up Pokemon posters. Reading/browsing Pokemon magazines.

We had Christmas dinner at Ballbreakers with work, with shuffleboard as a pre-dinner activity. Fun and relaxing. And good food: Ballbreaker does an excellent Christmas buffet.

Well, I only eat select parts of it, so I can’t really say anything about the meaty parts of it. The important part for me in a Christmas buffet is the herring. The vegetables don’t matter to me; I can eat Brussels sprouts and red cabbage at home any time I want. The other fish dishes – gravlax, seafood pâtés – I might taste a bit of. But good herring is something that I really enjoy, but don’t make at home, so that’s what I focus on.

I damaged two of the stones on my wedding ring a while ago, and had to hand it to a goldsmith for the stones to be replaced.

Unexpectedly for me, when I got back the ring I noticed it had been polished – an odd decision, given that this ring was one of a pair, and polishing just one of two matching rings leads to a weird-looking result. Not to mention that these rings had a matte finish to begin with.

Since you cannot really “unpolish” a ring, I handed them the other ring as well and had them both re-matted. That week, with no rings on my finger, I kept noticing their absence all the time. It wasn’t so much the ring finger itself that felt empty. It turns out that, throughout the day, I occasionally touch the rings in a particular gesture with my other fingers – and when the ring is not there, they meet an emptiness.

Now I have them back, looking as nice as they did when they were new, and my fingers can feel comfortable again.

Ingrid lighting the candles for a Christmas dinner with her friend M.

Likes:

• Colouring
• Sewing (small pillows) and embroidering (colourful lines on waffle cloth)
• Order and separation. Mixing Legos from two sets is a no-no; Lego guys never climb on Plus plus constructions.
• Movies with action and bloodless fighting in them.
• Maths. Out of nowhere he tells me that “50 is an even number, because if you divide it then each one would get 25”. Or that 4 times 5 makes 20.
• Reading. While I’m reading a bedtime story for him, he starts spelling out some word in the middle of the page and distracts us both. So he gets to read a bit now and again (for example the title and beginning of a chapter) and then I read the rest.
• Pokemons. They’re almost better than Legos.

Does not like:

• Criticism. He’s very sensitive to when someone is annoyed with something he does, or even sounds like they might be annoyed with him, and marches off in tears. Especially when he’s tired.
• Chores. Even the lightest chore – setting the table for dinner – is too much. It’s “I’m so tired” and whining all the way through, even though it would take him all of three minutes if he just focused on getting it done.
• Movie scenes that are too scary or too intensely suspenseful. He cuddles up very close to me, hides his face, or hides behind the sofa. It’s just too much.

Pillows (by Adrian) and my pincushion (by Ingrid).

Adrian built a paper version of Minecraft on our chimney wall, with some help from Ingrid: complete with a login screen, dirt and grass blocks, and inventory. Later they also added a Steve and a zombie.

A trilogy in red, and I took these photos on three different days…

Likes:

• Christmas, and preparing for it. Ingrid’s mind is full of Christmas thoughts, and many days she wears a red top or a Santa hat. She makes Christmas gifts, counts days, opens her advent calendar package first thing every morning, makes plans for a Christmas dinner with her best friend, etc.
• Online IQ tests, brain teasers and puzzle videos.
• Computer games – Little things, Fireboy and Watergirl, Pokemon Go, slither.io
• Macaroni and ketchup. Soft-boiled eggs. Yougurt and oat crisps. Clementines.
• Bedtime stories. Currently Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with Eric, and I just finished reading Nõianeiu Nöbinina.
• Long hot showers.

Does not like:

• Picking up after her. Stuff accumulates on all surfaces in her room; she leaves a trail of stuff behind her in every room. Then suddenly she gets a burst of inspiration and spends half an hour putting her room in order and it looks immaculate.
• Waiting. Which means that when given a choice, she’s always last minute to every activity and appointment, and everybody else has to wait for her.

Ingrid, with “Santa’s helper’ plaits”.

Ingrid and her friends often have eating challenges, where the point is to get the other to eat weird and disgusting things. Each girl picks a bunch of foodstuffs, aiming for things that she wouldn’t mind eating but that the other won’t want to eat: peanut butter, sweet chili sauce, pickled cucumber, soy sauce… Then they draw lots to decide who gets to eat what.