We had an incredibly hot day. 28 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, and no movement in the air. I couldn’t spend more than three minutes outside without feeling overheated and dizzy. So we mostly stayed at home today. I sewed a bit, did some laundry. We actually took the car to the supermarket because I didn’t think I could walk there and back and carry the food as well.

Here’s Adrian cooling down in the evening.

Total concentration.

Adrian plays with Legos all the time. Currently his favourites are the Lego Creator sets (aimed at 6 to 12 year olds) where you can use the same blocks to make multiple models. For example the “Red creatures” set allows you to make a spider, a snake or a scorpion. He likes building the models, then playing with them, but also building other little random things. These sets have lots of fiddly pieces: oddly shaped pieces or jointed ones, and details such as teeth and claws, which seem to inspire him.

Self-portrait with silly boy

Adrian climbing into bed. You can also see the reverse side of the dinosaur bed curtain, with one corner tucked up so I can read a bedtime story for him.

On our way home from the playground and its paddling pool.

Adrian and I went out geocaching in Järvafältet (between Tensta and Husby). We found two caches, one of them in the middle of a cow pasture. We also found a lot of cowpats.

I have been lax about taking notes this month so I don’t really have much to new to say.

Adrian is still in an angry phase. Inflexible, unwilling to compromise, belligerent. Om jag inte vill så måste jag inte. – “if I don’t want to then I don’t have to”.

But angry is not the same as unkind. He is kind as well, he just… really doesn’t want to do things that he doesn’t want to do. Such as washing his hands. Or going to bed at night.

At the same time he is kind and friendly and cuddly. He gives me big hugs and wet kisses every morning, and tells me that I look pretty (more often than anyone else in my life actually). He likes sitting in my lap and cuddling up close to me.

He is curious and observant, more so than Ingrid has ever been. I suppose that Adrian is really just what a normal kid is like at his age, whereas Ingrid is almost actively incurious – zones out and sometimes simply asks me to stop talking when I answer a question of hers in more detail than she wanted.

He looks at the things we pass on our way home. He notices that a birch tree has white bark that he can pull off, and knows that the tree with the yellow flowers is called golden rain. He notices teeny-tiny red mites on the sewer hole cover, and firebugs on the kerbstone, and the way the cracks in the road surface make it look like a computer keyboard.

He likes soft clothes and pyjamas. The fleecy ones are too warm at this time of the year, but thin, soft cotton pyjamas are the best. Especially if they have dinosaurs on them. Or sharks. He also likes Lightning McQueen, minions (from Despicable me) and Star Wars designs but if I have to buy clothes with big loud designs on them then I definitely choose dinosaurs ahead of Star Wars.

His knees are almost permanently covered in scabs and/or plasters. He runs and he climbs all the time.

It is now officially summer: the pool at our playground was filled with water this week. Cold water.

The first day that really felt like summer. We had an afternoon snack out in the garden, Adrian and I, with fresh strawberries. Ingrid was away playing with some friend, as she is more and more likely to do after school.