For Ingrid this month has generally been calm and pleasant, much like last month, with none of the drama and moodiness that we had a while back.

She herself has commented on several occasions how she is being helpful and co-operative and doing what needs to be done. When we’re in a hurry in the morning she co-operates by being quick to get dressed and pack her bag. When Adrian is anxious to get home in the afternoon, she does the same. I think maybe she’s picked up on how stressed I am at those times, and does her best to help. Which is news in itself, because in the past she has been quite insensitive to other people’s moods, and what kind of behaviour is suitable (and conducive to pleasant family interactions) in what situations.

At other times she’s still pretty blind to others’ feelings.

Some weeks ago we had a few occasions when she, for some inscrutable reason, had decided that she wanted to be very angry, or perhaps that she wanted to make us very angry. She would start off by yelling at us, saying no, banging doors and other things. When we tried to defuse the situation she’d do everything to make it worse. When we tried to get away from it (when the yelling gave me a headache) she would follow and stand right next to me and keep on yelling.

Finally when we were really riled up and wanted nothing more to do with her, she was done and stopped. And… wanted me to read her a story. What with the headache and the mood I was in by that time, I really wasn’t interested in any cuddling or fairy tales. And each time Ingrid was honestly surprised and could not understand why. She seemed to expect us to mirror her feelings. She’s done being angry – we should be done being angry, too, naturally.

While we’re on the topic of emotional maturity, one interesting thought pattern I’ve noticed is a tendency to look for causes and reasons where there is just chance, for retrofitting explanations, for seeing agency where there is none. In particular, blaming accidents on others, and taking credit for fortunate events. “It was your fault that I fell, you shouldn’t have put the [whatever] here” when running and stumbling over something. “I left this sandwich yesterday so that we could take it with us today” when really she just didn’t want to finish it yesterday (and had at that time no idea that we’d be going out today).

She still reads a lot of Bamse. We bought more from our neighbourhood charity shop, so she can now supplement her weekly Bamse with old issues that she can buy from us at cost (2 kronor) with her pocket money. For a while she was devouring one a day. Now she’s started reading while eating, to the point where she forgets to eat and in effect goes hungry. I now only allow this during the afternoon snack, because otherwise the reading was beginning to disrupt everybody’s meals. She’s also started eating breakfast in her room, “as a picknick” she says, and I suspect she does this to be able to read again, but I haven’t gone in there to inspect.

Favourite new skill: she’s learning to light a candle with a match, on her initiative. I don’t trust her to do it on her own yet because I’m pretty sure that if something went awry – say she flame gets too close to her finger – she’d panic and drop the match rather than blow it out. But with me right next to her she manages it well.

Another skill she is learning (slowly) is putting herself to bed without us to keep her company. She’s decided that she wants to learn to do it, and has even cut out seven gold stars for herself from yellow paper. Two of them are already up on the fridge. In fact the idea was hers initially but it arose “backwards”. She said she wanted to do something difficult for which she could get gold stars and then a treat of some kind. I guess someone at preschool was doing something like that (because it’s not how we normally do things at home). So the stars came first, and tying them to going to bed on her own came second.

She has also been practising cycling on her new bike. (Cycling is her preferred way of getting around, especially to and from preschool.) We bought a new, larger one for her this autumn (when we ran across a good deal) but it’s been too large for her until now. It’s got 16″ wheels, compared to the 12″ wheels of the old one, so quite a bit larger. With the old one she could put both feet on the ground, and with the new one she can reach it with the toes of one foot, at most. But she gave it a go, at first with me supporting her while she got started, and then on her own. Getting on and stopping are a bit hard and take all her concentration, and I have to take care to not disturb her by talking to her at those times, but once she’s up and running it works very well.

Other favourite pastimes: standing up on the sledge while I pull it. (Yes, we actually had some snow on the ground during the first week of this month.) Standing up on it backwards. Jumping off and then back on while the sledge is moving.

She’s taken up jigsaw puzzles again, occasionally, and listening to audiobooks.

She’s far less obsessed with sweets and sweet food than she used to be. Most evenings she doesn’t even mention sweets any more, and she doesn’t spend all weekend talking about her lördagsgodis and the Sunday ice cream.

Favourite movies: The brothers Lionheart and Monsters, Inc.