We spent the first third of this month in Estonia. The trip made a huge difference in Adrian’s ability and willingness to speak Estonian. He now actually spontaneously adresses me in Estonian, while before the trip he would rather be silent than answer in Estonian when I spoke to him.

A less appealing habit that he picked up in Estonia was asking “why do I have to do X”. Once – truly, just once – I jokingly asked, “why do we have to eat so many times every day, can’t we just stop eating?” because I was tired of all the cooking and washing up I had to do. He picked up that pattern and then used it a lot. Except he wasn’t quite able to pick up the part about it being a joke and sounded whiny instead. He also got into the habit of looking for someone to blame. Whenever he found something that wasn’t the way he wanted, he would ask “who put this here”, “who did this”. I do feel like the whining is abating a bit now and he is less negative in his speech.

He is obsessed with Lego. He rarely uses any other toys. He often asks me if and when we can buy more Legos. Thursdays are good days because then Ingrid’s Kalle Anka magazine arrives in the mail, and sometimes there’s a little Lego set included, which Ingrid lets him have. On his birthday wish list there is really one thing only: a giant Lego Chima set (which I’ve ordered already just to be sure that we get one!)

Oh, actually, there is one thing better than Legos: watching Lego themed Youtube clips on the iPad, especially videos of someone building Lego Chima or Lego Ninjago sets.