We celebrated Adrian’s birthday today.

Well, it wasn’t that much of a celebration really… he does like to have people around him but an actual birthday party with the whole extended family would be too much for him. And perhaps for the family, too, considering that they’d be invited back here for a second party a month from now. So we saved the partying for Ingrid’s birthday and just had some cake today, and invited my mum.

Except that we ate the cake after Adrian went to bed (which he did early because he had slept badly both last night and today during the day). And my mum mostly played with and read for Ingrid rather than Adrian, since Ingrid appreciates her company a lot more.

So really Adrian just had an ordinary Sunday, and the rest of us shamelessly used his birthday as an excuse to have fun. But I don’t think he minded.

Tuesday: Emajõe beach.

Wednesday: debilitating humid heat again. We fled to my father in the countryside and I spent most of the day sitting and sweating and gasping for air. Celebrated my birthday; everyone except me ate cake. They tell me it was good. I ate a handful biscuits.

Among my presents were two lovely necklaces that are almost complete opposites of one another: one pendant in the shape of a 3D-printed tangled geometrical ball structure, and one necklace that Ingrid had made out of wooden beads. She made it some months ago for the fun of making it, and now decided to give it to me. It is not quite my usual style but it is certainly colourful and happy.

Today: Elistvere loomapark, a small zoo with animals native to Estonia.

We had an afternoon gathering today for our extended family in Sweden. (This means half a dozen Berghedens, their kids and significant others, and my mum, since my brother rarely attends such things.) This was sort of a delayed birthday party for Eric, but also a reverse birthday party for the guests since many of them have birthdays in March and April, and we haven’t seen them since. Once Eric had gone through the list, it turned out that only one guest did NOT have a birthday in spring, and for two significant others we weren’t quite sure, so we found small gifts for them as well. (Later we found out that both of the unknowns also had birthdays within a month from now.)

With preparations and cleaning up this really took up all our day. Eric baked bread and two cakes. We cleaned the clutter out of the living room and vacuumed the ground floor, and brought out the garden furniture. Once the guests were here we realized the weather had turned so warm that we could sit outside – yay! – so we moved the party to our small patio. The three kids chose to sit in the sofa in the dim living room and play various electronic games instead.

We also got our strongest guests to help us with moving Ingrid’s fort. It is HEAVY. Our garden is slowly coalescing into “rooms” that each have a function and a certain character – perhaps not so visibly yet but in my mind. The part where the fort used to sit is turning into a kitchen garden, with raised beds for our strawberries etc, and soon a clothes airer. We moved it closer to the swing and the deck-to-be, so that part of the garden will become a “room” for playing and lounging.

We celebrated Ingrid’s birthday this Sunday. Unfortunately she was slightly off-colour and the large crowd (9 guests) was a bit too much for her. But she really enjoyed opening her presents, and playing with her two cousins, whom she doesn’t meet very often. She liked her cards, too, especially since several of them had photos of herself on them.

(Ingrid’s quite fascinated with photos: every time I try to take a photo of her she runs to me and wants to look at it on the camera screen. Often she does this before I’ve even had time to take the picture, which makes it quite hard to get any photos at all…) I didn’t have the time to take any photos of the birthday party myself, so I’m hoping the guests will send me theirs. Hint, hint…

We had two yellow candles for her, and spoke about how she’s now two years old. I don’t think she understands what a year is, but she understood that the number two has something to do with her now. Whenever we run across a “two” somewhere in a story or a book, she pauses, and very proudly tells me “kaks aastat!”