Ready for lunch on the deck, equipped with swim goggles (don’t ask) and a battery-operated fan for cooling his mouth (don’t ask).

We bought another pool ring today and it was an instant hit. Mostly the kids use the floating toys for crashing into each other, pulling each other down into the water, climbing on the same toy so they both fall off, and other ways of getting both themselves and everything else exceedingly wet. (Which has on occasion had unfortunate side effects on the laundry drying on the rack next to the pool. Less than ideal positioning, perhaps, but there just isn’t that much space in the flat, sunny part of the garden.)

We filled the pool today. The kids couldn’t wait until it was full and jumped in as soon as the water reached knee height. Wild splashing and horseplay off and on all day. Water, pool toys, wet swimming clothes and towels everywhere.

Midsummer’s Eve. Cloudy, chilly, and with rain showers, so we will skip the traditional celebrations. Not that we’re really particularly interested in them, anyway. But it would have been nice to be outside at least…

But we still get the good Midsummer meals. Potato salad, devilled eggs, herring, home made ice cream and raspberry cheesecake.

So, yeah, there was a leaving preschool party last week, but that didn’t actually mean that preschool was over. It just… peters out. Preschool is open during the first few weeks of summer as well (and even in the middle of summer vacations, the area’s preschools coordinate so that one is open all throughout summer). The number of kids attending just gradually drops off as their parents’ vacations start.

Today was Adrian’s last day. With no particular ceremony or anything special, we packed up the extra clothes and rubber boots, added the day’s artwork, and went home.

Adrian had drawn cards for a few of his best friends and his favourite teachers. Two of the kids had already left so he couldn’t hand over the cards in person, and had to write his message on the envelope instead. “FRÅN ADRIAN JAG KOMER SAKNA DEJ” – “from Adrian, I will miss you”.

Adrian’s favourite flower right now is meadow clover (skogsklöver). He picks them along the roadside on the way home from preschool. He asked if we could plant some in our garden.

Today I learned that the red clover that I thought was rödklöver is actually skogsklöver. Different leaf shape etc.

Adrian produces a lot of crumbs when he eats, especially with crackers. He nibbles instead of biting, breaks his cracker into pieces that he then fits together again, taps it against the table (because it’s a boat/a mountain/a something) and so on.

On this very rainy Saturday, we drove to the recycling station to get rid of stuff that has accumulated over recent months. Adrian thinks the recycling station is fun but loud. He likes throwing stuff into the giant containers. (Today we threw out a bagful of old unusable textiles, some broken lightbulbs, various broken or unwanted electronics including two old cable modems and one ten-year-old computer, one frying pan, one radiator, and probably other stuff that I’ve already forgotten.)

The end of Adrian’s preschool years is drawing close. They had their end-of-term celebrations already. And we’ve also already been to a first introductory meeting at school, where Adrian met his teacher and half the kids in his class, and saw the classroom they will be in. He seemed neither particularly excited nor nervous about it. But then he’s been to and from that school so many times with me to pick up Ingrid that it must all be quite familiar to him by now.

This month’s new skill: cycling. He’s been half-heartedly trying to learn it for a while, and managed just fine with the balance and cycling downhill, but as soon as the ground was flat to uphill, it was too hard. He’s no stranger to walking and running, but maybe his cycling muscles are weak, or maybe he just hasn’t really found them yet. Still, one day something clicked, and he even cycled to and from preschool several times.

He started with the smallest bike we have, the one that Ingrid learned to cycle on, but it’s already too small for him. The next one is just right in size but feels tall to him, so he is slightly nervous on it and doesn’t feel comfortable using it very much. We’ve started looking for a “co-pilot” like thing that we can attach to one of our own bikes, which would both allow us to go on longer bike trips, and hopefully get him used to sitting on a taller bike as well.

Meanwhile, he seems to quite like walking. He often joins me when I want to go out geocaching, and while we don’t cover huge amounts of ground, we can easily walk for two hours without him complaining.

Twice now he has also walked with Ingrid to the supermarket in “downtown” Spånga. Ingrid asks for extra chores to earn money; Adrian likes being outside; both enjoy the other’s company: win-win for everybody.

Adrian enjoys the idea of a weekly allowance but is not quite old enough to save up money like Ingrid does. As soon as he has enough for a small Lego set, he buys one. He has now also learned about the concept of internet shopping: he used to think that you could just order things but now understands that “ordering” is just like buying and also requires money. He likes receiving parcels in the post so his latest Lego purchase was an online one.

Online shopping is great maths and reading practice, by the way. With a bit of concentration, he can spell out most words of up to around 6 or 8 letters, and of course recognizing the Lego logo is no effort. Prices are clearly listed and he can compare them to the amount of money he has. I do rather wish that Toys’R’Us online shop didn’t use the misleading 90-cent pricing model: a Lego kit costing 120 kr is listed as 119:90 even though it’s been almost 25 years since the 10-öre coins were phased out.

Legos are the best toys still – not only because of all the endless building opportunities, but also because of the clear good guys vs bad guys setup. Almost all movies that Adrian likes to watch also have that good vs evil conflict: Lego Ninjago, Transformers, Star Wars…

He talks all the time. There is so much going on in his head and it all has to be shared with someone. Quite often he starts talking to me before he has quite figured out what he wants to tell me, and sentences start over and transmogrify into something else, and a minute later I am very lost and have no idea wha the is talking about, and have to ask him to start over. The next attempt usually makes much more sense.

He also eats a lot: always more than Ingrid, and some days more than Eric or I. He also eats a much more varied diet than he used to. He no longer routinely says no to new foods and tries almost everything I serve, without any need for prompting even. And then he is surprised that things he previously believed to be gross turn out to taste just fine. He has even eaten mashed potatoes! He hasn’t learned to like any sandwich toppings yet – his sandwiches still consist of bread and butter only.

Preschool pickup on a rainy, muddy day.

The nursery/preschool has two buildings and two yards. The larger building houses all the younger age groups. It has a large yard, with grass, trees and bushes, hills and such. The smaller building is for the oldest kids only. Its yard is basically a flat field of gravel enclosed in chainlink fence, with some play structures here and there. It’s dusty in warm weather and muddy when wet. There is barely any shade. It used to have a few trees but for some reason even those few were removed recently. Luckily sometimes the older kids get to play in the large yard.

I have generally been really happy with this preschool for Ingrid and Adrian but the yard is a disgrace. The staff tell me that the kids don’t mind. And I’m sure the kids are OK with it – just like inner city kids are “fine” with only playing in narrow asphalted courtyards, because that is what they’ve always had. But that does not mean it is good for them.