This month’s big thing: Ingrid has bought herself an iPhone. Yes, she had an iPad, but you can’t take a tablet to school, and besides, “all her friends have a smartphone”. Since she has both a fully functioning phone already, in addition to the already mentioned iPad (which is hers de facto if not de jure) we had no intention of buying yet another gadget for her. So she decided to buy it herself.

She researched the prices of second hand iPhones on Tradera (Sweden’s eBay), counted the money she had, did some maths and realized that it could take months to save enough. Therefore she asked if she could do any extra chores for extra money. We agreed on 10 kr for emptying the dishwasher and 20 kr for hanging up one load of laundry. She did both a few times, enough to double her weekly allowance, and soon had enough to start bidding on Tradera. Yesterday she proudly won an iPhone 4S for 465 kr.

Other stuff:
One of the first apps in her new phone will be Snapchat. “Everybody is using it.”

We’ve been watching “Sweden’s Master Chef” together in the evenings, on Ingrid’s request. She doesn’t enjoy it quite as much as “Sweden’s Youngest Master Chef” but still.

At school they have been working on learning their multiplication tables all the way up to 100. I’ve been drilling her when we’re waiting for something (such as waiting for Adrian to eat up so the kids can have dessert).

She was more bothered by me being away for a week than I would have expected, and more so than Adrian was. She craves predictability and routine in certain key parts of her life. There must be activity and novelty, but of a predictable kind: a new movie for each Friday night, for example. She called or SMS:ed me good night every night while I was away.