Ingrid spends a lot of time with friends. She stays at school (or after school care, rather) as long as possible, getting home at five. Then she somehow fills that endless hour until dinner with Kalle Anka and Adrian’s company. After dinner she goes straight to her room for Minecraft and Skype with her friends.

She loves her new room. Just around Christmas her new loft bed arrived. We added a desk chair and a few lamps from IKEA, and she is very happy with the result. And of course her new laptop added the final touch.

Now that she spends more time there, Adrian sometimes feels lonely in the living room and goes upstairs to hang out with her. So while the room barely got used when it was the kids’ room, now that it is Ingrid’s room, both kids spend more time there.

All this Minecrafting means that Ingrid spends a lot of time sitting in the sofa or behind her desk. She is getting way too little exercise in my opinion. They only get one hour per week of gym class at school which is definitely not enough for a kid her age. She couldn’t really come up with any sports she wanted to do, but dance seemed at least kind of fun, so she’s now signed up for a weekly dance class. I’m thinking of taking her along to Friskis & Svettis on weekends as well.

Those sessions might not be super exciting in and of themselves, but the fact that she would be attending adult workout sessions might tip the scale. She likes that grown-up feeling and has been talking quite a lot about feeling “older” recently. She’s picking clothes and hairdos that look “less childish”, for example.

Ingrid got a chance to feel quite grown-up when she cooked dinner the other day. She’s helped me with dinner on a few occasions before. Those potato gratins for example… Both kids love potato gratin but I’m often not so excited when they ask for it on a weekday night, because of all the time-consuming peeling and chopping. Ingrid helps out so she can get one of her favourite foods. She also likes flipping pancakes.

This time is different. We redistributed some chores here at home and one of her new duties is to cook dinner once a week, on Thursdays. This Thursday’s meal was corn fritters. It’s not just for fun any more. It’s a responsibility, which makes her feel grown and important.

She hasn’t made anything like corn fritters before and the recipe was in an English-language cookbook as well, so she needed a fair bit of guiding and hand-holding, but she did all the actual work.

A totally unrelated sign of growing up: she no longer chooses animate movies ahead of “real” ones. That used to be a strong criterion for her; non-animated movies just weren’t any fun. When it was her turn to pick a movie for Friday night, she chose Night at the museum (with Diary of a wimpy kid as the runner-up).

And a third one: she has started to read a newspaper. Dagens Nyheter, the leading Swedish daily paper, publishes a weekly newspaper for kids, DN Junior. Ingrid found one somewhere and immediately said it was a lot more interesting than Kamratposten (a kids’ lifestyle magazine) because it had actual news in it.

The best and most important thing that happened this month was this weekend’s laser tag game. Ingrid had a very small birthday party, a sleepover with just a few friends. She wanted a big one as well where she could invite all the girls in her class, but we said that one party was enough. So we agreed on a compromise – she wouldn’t have a second party, but she would get to invite all the girls for a game of laser tag. Christmas messed up our planning so the event didn’t happen until now.

Favourite book: Harry Potter. No, she hasn’t suddenly started reading real books – she still only reads comic books. But Eric reads it for her at night and she loves it.

For her birthday, Ingrid wanted to play laser tag with all the girls in her class. For various reasons including Christmas, the event got delayed, but today it finally happened.

I was too tired to attend my workout session today and I miss it. I’ve only been doing it for two months (less, really, because of the Christmas break) and already it’s a habit and I’m hooked.

It took me a few tries to find a session that really works for me. What I found is cirkelfys – “functional circuit training” with a focus on strength and technique but also a fair amount of balance, flexibility, general fitness etc. The exercises include everything from pushups and burpees to deadlifts and kettlebell swings. I like the high intensity, the variety, and the fact that I pick my own weights and set my own pace.

It’s been years since I last did any kind of sports, apart from everyday exercise such as cycling and walking (not to forget shoveling snow!). I’m neither in great shape nor particularly out of shape. So I’m neither the strongest nor the weakest in the group. Which doesn’t say much because of course the group is self-selecting; the most out-of-shape people don’t go to the gym at all, and the ones in best shape do more intensive workouts.

But the group workout does give me a picture of my relative strengths and weaknesses. I notice which exercises I do with more or less ease than the people next to me. Many of the exercises use weights, and there’s a set of weights laid out for us to choose from. By now I know where to go straight for the lowest weight (because there is no chance that I’d manage to do the exercise properly with a heavier one) and where to aim higher.

I’ve got muscles for walking around and carrying things, but not for lifting, and especially not for lifting anything above my head. I have strong legs and a strong core, but puny arms and shoulders. Sit-ups and burpees and squats: bring them on! But I really with struggle pushups, barbell row and barbell clean.

We redistributed the kids’ chores. Ingrid used to lay the table for all shared meals. Now that Adrian is old enough to help out as well, he takes over that responsibility. Ingrid cooks dinner once a week instead.

Ingrid is happier about her responsibility than Adrian is about his. He’s never had any real chores, so it will take some getting used to. Ingrid on the other hand helped me make a list of possible tasks, then analysed the list and picked one that suited her best. It happens at predictable times and can be planned in advance (unlike for example taking out the garbage), does not happen during her screen time, makes her feel grown up, and has the potential of being fun.

Today: sweetcorn fritters.

I saw Star Wars yesterday. Summary verdict: solid but unexciting. Oh, there’s loads of superficial excitement, sword fights and crazy flying, but it is all rather traditional and predictable.

The entire movie is a kid’s dream of adventure. Leave your dull planet, meet awesome people, fly to strange places, be a hero, fight the bad guys, save the galaxy!

Dreams are by their nature unrealistic, and so is the movie. It’s kind of interesting to pick out the particular kinds of unrealism in that movie, because they all serve to reinforce that dream.

Unrealism #1: Skill is already in you. You don’t need to practise, train, or learn anything. All you need is will. You may be a great pilot – you just don’t know it yet because you’ve never gotten a chance to try. And if the Force is strong in you, you also don’t need to practise sword fighting, or anything else.

Unrealism #2: It’s a small universe. The relevant parts of the galaxy are few and small, and all the right people hang out at the same few places. Fly to one small bar in one small corner of one small planet of one small star system – out of the billions of star systems in the entire galaxy, and you’re bound to run into a bunch of friends and acquaintances. What are the odds of that happening in even one normal-sized city, let alone an entire galaxy?

Or possibly the entire galaxy is really, really sparsely populated. The entire rebellion fighting force is a few hundred men, after all, and the First Order’s forces on Starkiller are no more than a few thousand.

Unrealism #3: Systems are fragile. There are no fail-safes, no safety valves, no redundancy. Yank out a single piece and the entire system will collapse. Threaten the right person and you can shut down the entire planet’s defences. Shoot the right chunk of unprotected machinery and everything will explode.

All of these unrealisms help support the idea that a brave youngster who is fighting for the right cause can find a few friends and, together with them, bring down the forces of evil and change the world.

Eric and Adrian, both reading.

I walked Ingrid to her scout meeting. Their ordinary meetings are on Tuesday evenings, but this weekend they’re having a sleepover in their “base” or whatever scouts have.

The fresh snow makes the kids want to do all kinds of things with it but the snow is too cold and does not stick together at all. Ingrid’s attempts at snowballs disintegrated before they left her hand.

(Spånga scouts are housed in a lovely building that used to be a church in a previous life.)

The one meal that the (a) loves and (b) can cook almost on his own.