Every other Tuesday we get a delivery of vegetables from Ekolådan. When we got home today, there were no vegetables, and the empty box that we’d left outside for the delivery van to pick up was still there, as empty as it was in the morning.

I try empty the fridge of fresh vegetables ahead of the delivery as much as possible, so that I can use the veggies from the box when they are at their freshest and finest. When the box did not turn up, that plan failed. But luckily “empty” doesn’t mean “totally empty” – we still had some carrots and onions and a few other long-lasting veggies at home, and there are of course also canned and frozen vegetables to fall back on.

Finally the box turned up just as I was in the middle of cooking dinner. Our ordinary driver had fallen ill and the temp driver was not at all familiar with the route, which is why he arrived so late.

Adrian and I played with Geomag.

I got the Geomag as a Christmas gift many years ago. Now it’s a toy that the whole family enjoys. When we play with it together, we often run out of pieces before we feel that we’re done with our constructions, so now we have bought even more pieces so we can build even bigger things.

Today’s Geomag construction started out as two space ships that had antennas so they could talk to each other. Then we added a “wire” between them for even better communication. Then that wire needed supports. Then I think the space ships became houses and we built an extra free-standing basement. Next we added remote controlled claws on long arms that we could use to catch bad guys, and more supports for the arms. And finally a Lego Spiderman came to operate one of the arms, and caught a Lego bad guy and put it in the basement which was now a prison, while a Lego king made himself at home in the largest part.

Adrian asked for another plush fleecy monster from our monster sewing book (Sy monster). Rufus, Rufus Junior, Dinah and Quincy (of whom I have no photos) will soon be joined by Leo.

When I started working on Leo yesterday, Adrian joined me and also sewed a bit: little pieces of red polar fleece that he stitched together with green thread into a spiky jumble. Today he was more interested in cutting the fleece into shapes that he then cut into smaller shapes and then into even smaller shapes.

Still in Adrian’s life:
Legos.
Ninjas and pistols and lasers and rocket engines and police and superheroes all the way.
Tired afternoons.

New in Adrian’s life:
He’s drawing now! Even though he drew a human figure at his four-year checkup, he only drew shapeless squiggles otherwise. But now suddenly he is drawing human figures, pirates and rocket ships. Most pictures contain the four of us, with body, two to four limbs and recognizably human faces. Sometimes he draws fingers or hair for some of us as well – or muscles for Eric.

Favourite colours: Green and blue, and “fire colours” (red, orange and yellow).

Favourite clothes: Anything thick, soft and with pockets. Anything superhero-themed: he is very fond of his new Batman and Spiderman fleeces (which are surprisingly stylish actually).

Favourite thing to put in pockets: Chestnuts.

Not favourite clothes: socks.

Favourite foods: Apart from the usual (starches of all kinds, and broccoli) he loves smoothies. He’s kind of picky about fruit he will eat (mostly grapes and apple slices) but if I make a smoothie I can put all sorts of goodies in there and he’ll gobble it up.

Favourite books: Teedu ja Peedu imelikud masinad, a book with funny drawings of funny made-up machines, such as “the puddle digger”, “the morning routine automator” and “the helmet bicycle”.

Favourite words that are just insanely funny: põrnitsema and nämmutama.

Favourite TV show: Sveriges yngsta mästerkock, “Swedish youngest master chef”, which is a cooking game show for kids. First I watched the entire season with both kids, and now I’m re-watching the entire thing with Adrian.

Favourite music: Popular by Eric Saade, a Melodifestivalen song from a few years back. Other Melodifestivalen songs and Hits for Kids type of CDs.

When we listen to radio in the car, he asks for “rockier” music. One day he fell asleep in the car listening to Rammstein on Bandit radio.

Adrian and I went for a forest walk and some geocaching, him in his brand new snowsuit. He got bored a long while before I wanted to go home. Unsatisfying for both of us.

Another Saturday, another shopping trip. Even though this autumn has been incredibly warm, sooner or later winter will come and Adrian will need a snowsuit. He’s past the age when he could inherit all of Ingrid’s clothes and gladly wear anything that had “glad colours” – now he definitely has his own taste and it does not include a liking for pink or violet.

We took the train to town, bought a snowsuit and then had lunch at McDonalds. This is us waiting for the train that will take us back home. He didn’t like the noisy trains.

A birthday starts with the family singing Ja må hon leva, followed by presents, and then a birthday breakfast.

Normally some/much/all of this would happen with the birthday child still in bed, but since the birthday child is still sleeping in the tent, that was just not going to happen this time.

By the way, Adrian only understood today how birthdays actually work, when I explained it for him. He asked me what time of the year he was born, and when his 6th birthday will be, even though he knows very well that his 5th birthday was in autumn – because he hadn’t connected “birthday” to “birth”.

Adrian is at home with a bad cough. We’re playing Carcassonne, 5-year-style: no markers, no scoring, just taking turns to build a pretty map – and with the occasional incursion by Lego ninjas.