He loves the breads that Eric bakes – all the different kinds. And now he also loves cucumber (which he refused to even try a year ago).

I went to Skansen today with the kids, while Eric was away in Prague with work. You’d think that a place like that would offer a multitude of photo opportunities – all these activities, ice creams, pancake lunch, fairground rides etc. But it really isn’t. It’s all so crowded, I’m busy and distracted, Adrian mostly won’t step more than a meter away from me, Ingrid mostly wants to go off on her own and look at stuff in the shops… So even after a full day at Skansen, the day’s photo is of Adrian and Legos.

Visited the Millesgården sculpture garden with Adrian and my mum. I actually went there primarily for an exhibition of flower paintings they had in their exhibition hall, because it’s about to end soon, but the exhibition didn’t really impress. The paintings were supposed to be complemented by texts that describe the flowers from a gardener’s perspective, which sounded really interesting to me, but there was very little of that. So we spent most of our time outside in the sculpture park.

They had a “sculpture hunt” for the kids: a set of drawings of sculptures from the park, but with one or more pieces missing, that the kids had to find and complete. This was good entertainment for Adrian. I’m very sure that without it he would quickly have bored of all that walking around and looking at sculptures. Now he actually had a reason to look at them!

He also loved testing the water in all the fountains. Actually so did I after a while – the day was very hot! – but I just splashed the water on my head and didn’t climb in with him.

There was one thing that really disappointed at Millesgården and it was their café. They had the most outrageously overpriced lunch that I can remember eating. This little sandwich with three pieces of herring and three small potato halves cost 95 kronor. And the edges of the bread were so dry and hard that I am not even sure how fresh it was.

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.

Artwork by Adrian. His description, as far as I can recall it:

This is a rope between two mountains. You cycle on the rope between the mountain tops. The rope is tied with strong knots so it won’t come loose.

You have to be careful not to fall off, because the orange thing below the rope is lava. And underneath the lava, if you fall past the lava, you end up in green slime [mostly hidden behind the masking tape] and you don’t want that.

So it’s quite dangerous and only for adults, kids can’t do this.

The opportunities to photograph Lego building in this house are endless.

In theory, in his mind, Adrian wants to play with his friends.

In practise, when the friend is actually here, Adrian mostly yells at her. They tried some games and activities but all fizzled out or ended in shouting. The one that lasted a bit longer with a bit more success was building Legos side by side. But not for long.