Lots of stuff going on in Adrian’s head, as usual.

He’s in a phase of potty talk right now. Lots of talking and joking about pee and poo and farting. Du är en bajskorv! “You’re a poop turd!” Bajspappa! Bajsgröt! Kiss-soppa! Bara de som är bajskorvar får komma på mitt kalas! – “Only those who are poop turds can come to my party!” All that with lots of giggling and squealing with laughter.

He’s already thinking of his next birthday party and whom he will invite. This year’s party must have made a deep impression. Since the birthday party he’s also been talking about going home to a friend to play with them, or inviting them here. We’ve had two play dates already and he’s often asking for more. Hopefully we’ll have time for some play dates during the holidays.

Speaking of poop humour, he is also quite interested in who has a willy and who doesn’t. At first he was surprised that I didn’t have one, but now he understands that boys and daddies have willies while girls and mums don’t. But mums have boobs, and girls grow up to be mums and then they get boobs.

It’s interesting to hear him talk about categories of people: boys/girls, moms/dads, children/adults. Babies, for example, are separate from children. At preschool he and his friends play “mommy daddy child and baby”. “Adults”, vuxnar, doesn’t include me: “adults” means “grown-ups except mommy and daddy and grandma”, i.e. “other people”. Also he doesn’t (didn’t?) see himself as a child, because “he is Adrian”. And Ingrid is not a child, Ingrid is a sister.

He’s been asking a lot of “why” recently. Sometimes it’s just a generic expression of frustration, sometimes simply a habit, but other times he seems to really want to know. “What do you think” is often a good response in the first two cases. But some questions are harder. “Why is it Christmas? Why is there a tree here? Why is it raining? Why am I called Adrian?”

He makes up stories about random stuff and then tells them to us as if they were the truth. He can tell a story about the day when we were in the forest picking strawberries and blueberries and raspberries, and there was also a horse, and also grandma was there, and then we went swimming. None of which has happened. But he tells it with such fervour, such engagement, that it becomes the truth for him.

Several times he’s told me that he will get a dog soon. “A little dog, a cute dog.” I think he imagines something roughly the size of a big rat, that would fit in his lap.

He knows most letters now and only occasionally asks about some rarer ones. For most of them he can come up with words as well. He especially likes to link letters to people: A is for Adrian of course, E is for Eric and Ebbe and Elin, I is for Ingrid, etc.

He has also learned some numbers. It’s confusing when numbers look so similar to letters! We only started talking about numbers when he pointed at a 4 and said it was an A, and a 1 was an I. I explained that those were numbers, and he seems to have grasped that. With all the Advent calendars the topic comes up quite regularly. Counting is hit and miss. Up to three or maybe four is no problem; then he gets impatient. “One, two, three, four, sixseveneightnine!”

He is often surprisingly reasonable and can be persuaded to do things that he initially doesn’t want to. Such as picking up after himself (together with me or Ingrid), or eating cooked food. With food and especially vegetables, his first reaction is always to refuse categorically, to push the bowl away, to shout NO. Coaxing and cajoling does not work, but simple quiet insistence often does. And when I make dessert contingent on at least taking one bite of the food I cooked, he does it, and actually seems to sort of like it (or at least not mind).

He is learning to butter his own sandwiches. When he eats a piece of bread he often wants to leave the crust and only eat the soft bits.

Things Adrian likes:

• Trains. Both real ones and toy ones. Playing that we are a train, me walking behind him, holding on to his shoulders, and we both go “choo choo choo” and then he goes “tooot!”
• Flashlights.
• Small things. His favourite things from the Advent calendar have been small doodads, about the size of half his fist: a little dinosaur, a smurf, a Littlest Pet Shop figure (“a petshops”). He likes to just hold them, carries them around with him, takes them to bed with him, pretends they’re other things. The other day the dinosaur was a camera.
• Joining in when we play board games. He doesn’t understand the game, and spends more half the time climbing around and doing other stuff. But he very much wants to be part of the game, to take his turn, to throw the dice and move his game piece. “Is it my turn now?”
• Tree branches and sticks. (Flashback…) These are especially fun while we’re out and about, in the buggy or on the bike. He waves them around and pokes at things with them and hits traffic sign posts so they go ding! and drags them in the dust. He refuses to throw them away and leaves them on the porch but then forgets about them and doesn’t notice or miss them when they disappear.
• Favourite movies: Despicable Me 2, the Disney Silly Symphony titled Funny little bunnies. Various renditions of The wheels on the bus on YouTube, and YouTube clips where some random Aussie guy opens Kinder Surprise eggs.

Things Adrian does not like:

• Rain. It hits his face and he hates the feeling. Wind and snow are almost as bad.
• Waking up in the morning. He has difficulty falling asleep in the evening and then he’s tired in the morning. I think we will try to do away with the daily naps soon.