I am tired, and especially tired of organising and managing things for other people, including my kids. But a birthday is a birthday, so I dredge up some energy and do my best to make it a fun day for Adrian. I don’t think he’ll remember it as his best birthday ever.

Writing birthday invites.

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”.

Today we had the kids’ birthday party with all family and relatives. I have been more or less unwell for over a week now so I didn’t have a lot of energy and basically forgot about my camera, so I only have this one photo… Ingrid loves looking at photos of past birthdays and Christmases so I will have to make it up next year.

Adrian and I made kladdkaka for his birthday. It’s a kind of Swedish chocolate mud cake and it’s his favourite kind of cake.

The very last and final birthday party for this season: Ingrid’s and Adrian’s combined celebration with the extended families (grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins). Almost like Christmas, in fact, with lots of people and lots of gifts, and slightly too much cake – but with Halloween-themed decorations instead of a tree.

We crafted invitation cards for Ingrid’s upcoming Halloween-themed birthday party. Ingrid drew monsters and skeletons and gravestones on hers. My designs were more abstract.

Adrian’s birthday party. I had bought balloons for decoration. Adrian loved them so we blew up a lot more than planned, in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colours. The kids played with them, and finally popped them all with the bamboo skewers we had used for lunch.

Within a month we have both Adrian’s and Ingrid’s birthday to celebrate, and Adrian’s friend Hanna has her birthday two days before Adrian.

So we have within the space of about 5 weeks:

• Hanna’s birthday party
• Adrian’s actual birthday
• Adrian’s birthday party
• A gathering for the extended family for both kids
• Ingrid’s actual birthday
• Ingrid’s birthday party

We celebrated Adrian’s birthday early in the morning before school with a little cake and candles and singing the birthday song.

We hadn’t actually intended to have much of a party for him, thinking him too young, but Adrian had very definite wishes about which friends he wanted to invite, so we had a party anyway. Adrian asked for a strawberry cake, so we had both that and some cookies, and chocolate sprinkles on top.

Ingrid’s head has been full of birthday thoughts since early September. She makes lists, and plans, and draws and writes invitations. She considers types of cakes (Swiss roll? or waffles with ice cream?) and whom to invite and what games to play.

(In Sweden it is traditional for everybody to stand up while singing Ja må hon leva, while the person whose birthday it is remains seated. Kids stand on their chairs.)