I go to the gym twice a week.

Thursdays is cirkelfys, circuit training, with Lasse. Lasse’s cirkelfys class was the first one I tried, and I often think about how lucky that was, because it’s still the class I enjoy the most. Lasse is tough and demanding and makes me achieve more than I think I can, but he does it with good humour and I’ve never seen him push anyone too far. I schedule my Thursdays to make sure I can attend this class.

I haven’t yet found another class that can compare. I tried early-morning cirkelfys but concluded after a while that my body simply does not function effectively too early in the morning. I tended to just get dizzy and couldn’t do the exercises properly. So I gave up on that. Now I alternate weekly between a barbell class and a kettlebell class.

The barbell class is kind of weird because you’re supposed to do it in time with music. Lifting weights at someone else’s pace is distinctly odd. But for most exercises, the pace is slower than I would normally do, which is a good thing. Just takes some getting used to.

The kettlebell class is a tough one. In cirkelfys I feel like I do pretty well. Maybe I don’t pick the heaviest weights for all exercises, but I do for some, and in general I just feel like I’m keeping up. In the kettlebell class, by contrast, I barely manage to finish each section, and towards the end I definitely don’t manage, and afterwards I feel like a limp rag. On the plus side, it’s challenging, but at the same time it can also be a bit demoralising. Which probably means it’s really just right.

My favourite (and only) silk scarf.

Helium balloons at a birthday party.

People have birthday parties. People who have “round number” birthdays tend to have especially large or elaborate parties. I will turn 40 this summer and I feel no need whatsoever to have a party. So if you don’t get invited, you shouldn’t feel left out.

My birthdays are fundamentally uninteresting to me to begin with. And having a birthday party does not appeal to me the least. First there would be all this arranging and preparing, and then all these people, and there more of them I invite the less I have time to speak to them. No, not for me.

I wouldn’t turn down a cake, though.

Spring is here and I’m going through the kids’ winter outdoor clothes to wash them and put them away.

This is what came out of the left pocket of Adrian’s snowsuit. Apparently the left pocket is the “treasure” pocket; the right one is for mittens.

One rubber band.
One broken star-shaped LED light.
One screw.
One piece of webbing.
One reddish stone.
Seven white stones, some with a bit of sparkle.
Eleven shards of colourful plastic.

He gave me permission to throw most of it in the trash, except for the white stones, which went into the container of “somewhat pretty stones” in the hall. Where he will probably never look at them again, until I try to empty it.

Making faces at the camera

Life is good for Adrian right now. He is mostly happy, and as silly and talkative as only a six-year-old can be. The only things that can bring him down are hunger and tiredness.

He is very sociable and enjoys being with people. Where Ingrid needs other people’s company, Adrian truly enjoys it. When we go to a family event of any kind, he talks in advance of how great it will be to meet them, and meets them with hugs. farfar is his particular favourite.

My brother is currently staying with us for a few days, and even though they don’t know each other well at all, and my brother is quite reserved, Adrian already has him playing Skylanders and building with Geomag.

Building toys of almost any kind are his favourites. Skylanders is a great combination of (a) cool things you can collect and (b) a co-operative game with (c) lots of fighting and not-too-scary monsters.

He eats like a horse. Quite often his portion is the largest one around our dinner table. And then it takes him forever to finish it, because he gets distracted and starts talking and forgets about eating. We’ve now generally given up on waiting for him to finish – we leave the table and start putting away the food and dishes while he is still eating. It’s the least frustrating solution for everybody involved.

As a result of all that eating, he’s grown about 10 cm since summer: I recall measuring him at about 110 cm back then, and he’s about 120 now. Although I think his appetite may be waning a bit now – several times last week he wasn’t able to finish his food, so perhaps this growth spurt is coming to an end.

He’s growing, but he’s still a little kid at heart. He still enjoys the childish stuff, like hugging the ski resort’s mascot, and he still loves it when I carry him in my arms up the stairs to the bedroom in the evening, and down again in the morning.

• Reading: Bamse, and Maximus Ring. Plus he’s started several other books (fantasy and supernatural thrillers) that all look very exciting, but not gotten very far.
• Bedtime stories: Winnie the Pooh with Eric, and Rasmus and the Tramp with me.
• Watching: Ninjago.
• Shoe size: 32. (We just bought new shoes last week.)
• Favourite item of clothing: a wooly Gryffindor hat.

This was an exhausting week at work. We had several workshops/meetings lasting over half a day, where the tone got more confrontational and less collaborative than I am used to. In order to recover I used up some of my flex hours to take a day off and go walking instead. There’s nothing like 7 hours outdoors on my own to restore my mental energy levels.

It was a beautiful, warm day, with blue skies and balmy winds. The lakes I passed were still covered in ice and so were parts of the path, but the brooks were full of snow melt and the hazelnut bushes were in bloom – the first plants to do so.

While Ingrid has her dance class, Adrian and I hang around and wait. Adrian usually with his iPad; me either with a book or (recently more often) catching up with work. Kindahls, where she dances on Thursdays, has a comfy if worn sofa, plenty of chairs and decent wifi. They even sell snacks. Danshuset at Brommaplan, where she is on Tuesdays, is pretty bare and uncomfortable in comparison – I need to use my phone as a hotspot if I want to be able to work. I’m secretly pleased that Ingrid enjoys disco more and is unlikely to continue with street dance on Tuesdays, even though one of her best friends is in the same group.

Ingrid is on a self-imposed entertainment fast for Lent, abstaining from YouTube and gaming. For a while she filled the extra time with tidying and organising her room, but then she sort of ran out of energy, and now she just reads more Kalle Anka. Occasionally she draws.

She just doesn’t seem interested in doing anything else at all. The Zoomer dog she bought after having saved for so long is languishing on a shelf, after just a few hours of play. So do her books.

When I buy a book for her, or even when she chooses a book, she reads a bit and then abandons it. And when school forces her to read that same book a few months later, it’s “the best book ever!” Crocheting for crafts class at school is great fun. And as soon as that project is finished, she puts away the yarn and the hook and never picks them up again.

She says she wants a pet, like a cat or a dog. Partly to cuddle with. But partly I think she needs someone to give her an impulse to do something, and she’s hoping that a cat or a dog would do that – would be a playmate.

She also wants to be a little kid again. I suspect she’s finding growing up somewhat stressful, and wishes for a simpler life, with fewer expectations and responsibilities. Perhaps she does so little because she doesn’t have the mental energy to do more.

Miscellaneous fact: She dreams incredibly fantastical, detailed dreams that she then recounts for us in the morning. I can’t remember any in detail but they generally seem to involve adventures such as hikes.

We went shopping for new shoes for the kids.

Adrian chose shoes in the coolest, brightest colours, with blinking lights in the soles.

Ingrid chose black with some white details.