The toilet roll figure on the left was a hero, and the one on the right was a monster of some sort. There was also a cave, and a temple, and a treasure and a treasure map involved. And fighting, plenty of fighting. The hero got the treasure in the end.

We have a bunch of Lego fridge magnets. Actually we have a whole lot of fridge magnets in general, and our fridge and freezer are constantly covered in a variety of artwork, school schedules, postcards, Christmas cards, theatre tickets and other odds and ends.

But the Lego magnets have gotten a special role. I often use them as visual reminders of tasks that need doing the same day. When the task needs doing, I move a Lego guy from the fridge to the kitchen table as a friendly, colourful reminder. We walk past there so many times during the day that we’re bound to notice it several times.

There’s a Santa figure that symbolizes ordering groceries online. There’s a bearded guy that sometimes stands for haircuts but sometimes also for homework (bearded = wise = learning). There’s a shark and a manta ray that remind the kids that it’s bathing day. Etc.

Adrian also likes playing with them and experimenting with the magnets. He likes the way they sometimes attract and sometimes repel each other. Here he’s using the bearded guy to push the manta ray guy around.

We went skating. Ingrid sped around effortlessly; Adrian had forgotten much of his skating skills and tottered around, holding on to my hand.

I’m a bit disappointed that the large bandy field is always booked by clubs and tournaments, and ordinary folks have to make do with the crowded small ice rink. But even that is quite a luxury, when I think about it – there aren’t many artificially frozen ice rinks in Stockholm, and we’re lucky to live so close to one.

The school week ends with an Estonian lesson for both Ingrid and Adrian. (It’s just them and one more kid, so it’s almost like a private lesson.) They sometimes grumble about having to do it, but I keep insisting. Currently they don’t seem to mind it too much. Still, they’re happy when the lesson ends, and the school day and school week with it, and they can go home and look forward to movie night.

Usually they walk home together after the lesson, because it’s the one day when they both finish at the same time. The lesson ends at four, which is late enough so there is no point in going to after school care (for Adrian) or The Club (for Ingrid) but nevertheless so early that I usually cannot be there in time to pick them up. Today was an exception since I was working from home.

Ingrid had a dentist’s checkup today. She had a cavity last time, and the time before, so she was really dreading this visit.

She brushes her teeth twice a day; she never drinks soda; she has a single sweet thing once a day after dinner. She’s just had bad luck with her teeth. Unfortunately I am pretty sure I know where she got her weak teeth from. Me. I’ve always had weak teeth, and cavities all the time despite taking good care of my teeth. My mum has even worse teeth, again despite taking very diligent care of them.

I think I finally beat the cavities with fluoride mouth wash, which I discovered about ten years ago. Since then I’ve hardly had any problems at all.

Ingrid was also advised to start using mouth wash, and it seems to be working for her as well. In any case, she had no cavities this time, which we were both very pleased about.

(She didn’t want me to take any photos of the dentist visit, so here she is walking across the schoolyard, back to her classes.)

Trying on new skates.

Adrian still loves reading Bamse. Every morning, as soon as he is dressed and has come downstairs, he grabs a binder of old issues of Bamse comics and sets it on the kitchen table, before he goes looking for breakfast. Like a morning paper. In the evenings he’s been reading LasseMaja books (detective stories).

He enjoys watching Ingrid play Overwatch, and plays a bit himself. His fine motor skills and reaction speed are nowhere near Ingrid’s, so he stays in the training arena and skirmish mode or whatever it’s called, rather than playing against other human players. The best part is opening loot boxes, though.

Legos are, amazingly, losing their charm. It’s been a while since he built with them, or even spoke longingly of getting new models. Recently he’s been building with Plus Plus instead.

He likes comfy, soft hoodies and knitted sweaters. All other clothes are simply something to wear and he just grabs one from his chest of drawers, but the hoodies are important.

He has his winter hairdo, which simply means no haircuts, because it’s warmer this way. His hair passed a phase when it looked simply overgrown, and is now more wild, which actually looks kind of better to me. Or maybe I’m just getting used to it.

He has dry, rough skin during the cold, dry season and I put on lotion on his arms etc every other evening. The arms are easy, actually, but he also needs lotion on the backs of his thighs, and around his stomach and waist – sensitive areas where he is both a bit ticklish and really feels the coldness of my hands. It always leads to a lot of wriggling and squealing laughter.

Eric reading for Ingrid. I believe they’re on Harry Potter book 4 or 5.

That cardigan I started some years ago? It failed. Despite my calculations and gauge swatches, it came out too small so I ripped it all up when I was well over halfway. Then I was so disappointed and annoyed with the whole project that I put it away for a long time. Now I feel up to a new attempt.

Since the swatches didn’t help me get the sizing right, I simply made three starts this time, varying some parameter each time.

The first one is the same size as my first attempt, and with the same needle size, but I tried to knit more loosely.
The second one is the next size up, keeping the same needle size and yarn tension. (Can’t be 100% sure about the tension but I think I kind of remember.)
The third one is the same size and same yarn tension, but with thicker needles.

And to complicate things, I’ve switched the type of needle I use, because I discovered that I like stainless steel much better than aluminium.

I’m not sure if this helped at all. They all feel roughly the same size, except the one that I thought would be smallest (small size, small needles, looser knitting) is a bit larger than the others. But it’s very hard to measure large, curved, floppy things, and also hard try on a small piece of a cardigan that barely covers my shoulders. None of them feels too small, at least.

It may be that I can pick any one of these three and keep going and it’ll be fine. Or maybe it’s not possible to judge the size this early in the project and the result will turn out too small or too large anyway. I have no idea where this will end up.

I guess I’ll pick one and keep going. And if this attempt also goes wrong, then I might simply give up on this project.

• I keep being amazed by her English skills. She has reached the stage where she – like myself – sometimes uses English words when speaking to us because there are concepts that she only has English words for, from books or videos or whatever.
• Knitting, lots of knitting. Easy patterns in thick, colourful yarn, for cool results fast.
• Overwatch. She’s found an Overwatch friend that she plays together with, almost daily. He is of unknown age, nationality and name, but none of that matters when they can have fun together.
• Warriors. I kind of forced her to start reading daily, when I thought there was too much Overwatch going on and too little of other activities, and she was happy to rediscover how much she enjoyed this series.
• She tends towards worrying and anxiety, and craves predictability. She likes planning, and doing things the same way, in the same order, at the same time. If we want to play board games all together in the evening (which means she can’t play Overwatch) she wants to know this in the morning at least, and ideally the day before.

Winning is important to her. She takes games very seriously. Even with social games and board games it’s all about winning for her (whereas for Adrian, for example, the social aspect – doing something together – is much more important). It’s a good thing she’s a strong tactical thinker; she would be a very sore loser. She likes arguing and “winning” arguments, and it takes a lot for her to admit that she might be wrong, or just to let it go.

When she and Adrian have, say, an imaginary battle with imaginary laser guns, she always has an argument for why Adrian cannot hit her. She won’t concede a single hit, ever. Adrian “hits” her in the head – “But I had a shield!” Adrian hits the shield – “But it regenerates!” Adrian hits her from behind – “But I jumped away!” Adrian jumps after her – “But I teleported away!” and so on. There is always another “but” until Adrian gives up. It never occurs to her that getting hit might open new possibilities in the game (for a dramatic death, say) – it’s all about winning. Or perhaps simply about not losing.

In some ways she is so unlike me that she feels like an alien being, and other times I see myself in her so clearly. That way she forgot how much she enjoyed reading because she hadn’t done it for a while is so familiar I even blogged about it. That was ten years ago but I still fall into the same trap occasionally.