Ingrid doesn’t really play with any toys any more, but she has a few favourite cuddly animals: a large panda she likes to sleep with, a giant Donald Duck Tsum Tsum and a fox. The fox is super soft and cuddly, and a tad smaller than the panda, so it’s the one that Ingrid often takes with her when she travels. Like on scout hikes for example. Ingrid has made the fox its own little rucksack, with a cardboard toothbrush and toothpaste, a pillow and blanket, and an apple. And, since we’re planning and preparing for this year’s family ski vacation, the fox today also got skis, poles and goggles.

Eat the apple!


Best right now:

  • Melodifestivalen and Sweden’s youngest master chef on TV
  • Harry Potter, still
  • Pokemons, still

Doing a lot of:

  • Qixels. Sort of like perler beads, but instead of ironing them together, you brush them with water and they sort of melt together, so Adrian can do it all on his own. Plus, there is a 3D version which involves a “gadget” to make the layers align with each other, which is extra interesting.
  • Reading. I brought more books from the library, but most “easy reading” books are frankly quite childish and boring, so Adrian has pretty much left those behind already. He’s now reading Maximus ring from the fantasy series Legenden om Ă–rnfolket (“The legend of the Eagle People”), which has got some proper adventure in it.
  • Talking. Especially at meal times. He can spend an hour “eating” dinner. Everybody else is long since done, we’ve cleaned up most of the kitchen, and he’s still at it.

Worst things ever:

  • That there are no fun, cheap Lego sets to be found in the stores. The ones he likes are in the 1000+ krona range, which, I tell him, are OK for birthdays and Christmas but not for just buying.
  • Having to shower. And then, once he’s actually in the shower, he can stay there for ages, playing with a wet washcloth and talking to himself.
  • That he never gets any interesting letters or magazines like the rest of the family. But he’s not particularly interested in any of the magazines Ingrid gets. It’s the concept of getting mail that’s enticing.


When Adrian was in the shower today, he shouted to me – “won’t you take any pictures today?”

Any activity instantly becomes more interesting when he gets an audience.


She’s growing up. Have I mentioned that yet? Topics like deodorants are coming up at home, and Ingrid’s class have had their first sex education lessons at school.

Best right now:

  • That the dentist’s appointment she had been dreading for many weeks is now behind her
  • Planning for and thinking about the ski trip we’ll be making in just a week
  • All the non-academic subjects at school, especially crafts (both wood and textile) but also art, music and sports. They’re doing viking-themed crafts at school now, ranging form casting tin to carving in wood and crocheting a coin purse.
  • Melodifestivalen and Sweden’s youngest master chef on TV
  • Sims 4
  • Zoomer the robot dog that she bought for her own money after saving for months
  • The bean bag she got for Christmas


Doing a lot of:

  • Dancing – street dance on Tuesdays and disco on Thursdays. The disco class is level 3, which is both faster and more complicated than the beginner and advanced beginner she’s done before, so it’s a proper challenging workout.
  • Reading jokes and puns from magazines etc out loud, and coming up with her own puns
  • Drawing cute things in the Draw So Cute style. Half the fridge door is populated by things with spookily large black eyes.
  • Thinking about cavities in her teeth, and eating less frequently to avoid these

Worst:

  • Being forced to do chores such as picking up her stuff, putting away her laundry, unpacking her sports bag etc




The dance studio at Brommaplan has no wifi, so Adrian had to come up with an alternative activity while Ingrid is dancing. The place also has no sofas, and no comfortable chairs and tables – I don’t know what they expect parents to do. Fiddle with their phones, I guess, which is what most people do nowadays to make time pass.

Anyway, the one thing they have is a handful of foam squares with interlocking edges. They’re meant to be used as a kind of play mat, I believe, but with careful assembly they could also be coaxed into upright structures.


Adrian bought Qixels for his allowance some weeks ago. Now he wanted more, so all of his savings (plus some extra from me) went towards 3D Qixels and a device for building 3D models.


Ingrid suddenly discovered she has almost no jeans to wear, so we went shopping.

Gone are the days of colourful dresses. It’s all jeans this winter for her. Light coloured, skinny, stretch jeans, with none of that pre-worn hole fashion.


I was struck by a sudden urge to knit something. Preferably something quick and easy that can give rewarding results in not much time. Fraying embroidery on a sofa cushion gave me the answer: I’ll knit a new cushion cover.

(The knitting was half a day of relaxing “work”. Actually attaching it to the cushion turned into several evenings of frustrating fiddly sewing of tight corners, which cancelled out most of the relaxing effect of the first part of the job. I want to make a second, matching cushion, but first I’ll have to think of a better plan for the assembly.)


A fruit and a comic book: perfect afternoon relaxation.


Every time I tell Adrian that he needs to take a shower, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. “Do I have to? But I don’t want to! Can you sit near the bathroom so I have some company?”

And as soon as he is in the shower, it’s like a switch is thrown. A trickle of warm water and a washcloth and his own company keep him entertained for a long time. He sits on the heated floor and plays and just sort of talks to himself. Not an awful lot of actual showering goes on in there, I suspect, but he does get some water on all body parts, and the bottom gets a nice long soaking.