So we spent a week on Tenerife, with sun, splashing and relaxation.

Adrian and Ingrid are still young enough that we wanted a hotel with enough activities that we could just stay in when we wanted an easy day. So we stayed at one of those family resorts with a large pool area including a kids’ pool, and a children’s club with a variety of activities. This was just right for Ingrid who loved every minute of it, and did everything from children’s water aerobics to a Halloween “ghost hunt” (complete with candy).

The hotel was in Las Americas, which turned out to be a really good area for us. Very close to decent beaches, and with lots of good restaurants. Our favourite restaurants: Monkey Bravo (Italian, very uneven service but excellent food) and Thai Botanico.

We spent a few days just around Las Americas – at the beach, at a mini golf course, just walking around – but also went on three trips.

One day we went to Aqualand, a nearby water park. This again was paradise for Ingrid. She’s old enough to wander around inside the park on her own: she can find her way around (and back) without getting lost, judge which slides are appropriate for her, make friends with other kids (with or without a common language). And she’s a good enough swimmer that I am comfortable with her being unsupervised in even the deepest children’s pools (but not yet in pools where the water is above her head).

We’d read mixed reviews about Aqualand (that it was dilapidated, and bad service, and bad food, and having to pay extra for all sorts of things). So maybe it wasn’t all brand new and shiny, but it was fun, and in totally decent enough shape – and we brought our own food so we avoided their expensive crappy offering.


Another day we went to Loro Parque, an animal park. (They also served crappy lunches, almost inedible.) It was sort of like Kolmården, but denser, smaller and more “managed”. The animal exhibits were so-so and the enclosures were all so small that I felt sorry for all of the birds and animals. Kolmården really beats them on every front except one: Loro Parque had excellent animal shows. We saw dolphins, sea lions, and orcas, and they also had a parrot show. The shows were impressive, and (unlike at Kolmården) they ran lots of times throughout the day so it was easy to get a seat without any advance booking.

Finally we also took a trip to Mount Teide, the world’s 3rd tallest volcano. Volcanos are pretty darn cool things, even when dormant. Lava fields are a bizarre sight: this wide expanse of fresh black rock that nothing grows on, rock that looks all hostile and “hellish” even hundreds of years later – right there for me to touch. This was a place that I really would have preferred to visit with fewer crowds and more time, and without kids who think a volcano is kind of cool but then feel done with it after 5 minutes (“been there, done that”) and thereafter keep asking “can we go back now”.

As I said, Ingrid loved the whole experience, and it was a welcome week of rest for Eric and myself. Adrian on the other hand would have been happier at home, I suspect. He didn’t really complain but you could see he wasn’t comfortable with the whole thing. He likes playing in water but hates splashing, so he didn’t enjoy the pool or Aqualand, and the waves in the sea were also more scary than fun. And the house was wrong, the bed was wrong, the meatballs were wrong… the poor boy effectively lived on bread and french fries and fruit and nuts all week.

On top of the world

Back to school. Ingrid chose the location. First she posed, then she did a song and dance number.

This month has been packed with news and newness.

First and foremost, this was “back to school” month. Ingrid went from grade 0 to grade 1, from Kindergarten to “real school”. She was very excited about this, and still is. New school building, new teacher, new classroom, new routines, new just about everything.

In grade 0 the kids had no fixed places; now Ingrid has her own seat and desk. In grade 0 there were communal boxes with pencils and crafts materials; now she has her own pencils and crayons and glue stick, as well as writing books and a reading book.

Her schedule is mostly filled with Swedish, i.e. reading and writing. There’s also maths, as well as “social studies” and “nature studies”, and even a bit of English. The class teacher is in charge of all of this.

The kids also have a music lesson once a week, and gym class twice a week, with specialist teachers. Twice a week they go to the school library where they can borrow books to read in the afternoons.

School work ends at one o’clock and after that it’s after school care: playing with her friends, reading, doing crafts projects etc.

This year the grade 0 kids are in the same building as grade 1, so several of Ingrid’s friends from preschool (about half a year younger than her) have “caught up” with her, including her very best friend Elin.

Ingrid has rediscovered beading and regularly brings home beaded circles and hearts decorated in geometrical patterns. Then she hides them somewhere in the house and prepares a treasure hunt for me, with drawn clues leading me to the final treasure. Her sketches of the hiding places are often really carefully observed. Last time, for example, four of the hiding places were in different lamps, and each one was clearly distinguishable: my desk lamp, a reading lamp by the sofa, the lamp over the kitchen table, and the ceiling lamp in the hallway.

Also new for this month is a new bicycle for Ingrid. She could still use the old one, but because it was relatively small, she couldn’t go particularly fast on it, and not particularly far either. When we were going somewhere together by bike, I sometimes had trouble keeping my balance because I had to cycle so very slowly.

On her new bike she can keep up much better, so the bikes are our main mode of daily transportation. We cycle to and from school, to friends’ birthday parties, to playgrounds…

Every other Sunday we cycle to a beaver scout meeting. Eric was a boy scout when he was a kid, and scouting seemed like the kind of thing that Ingrid might enjoy as well, so we’re giving it a try. She’s enjoyed the first two meetings and is looking forward to the hike next weekend.

The one activity to which Ingrid has not tried cycling is swim school. It’s on Friday evenings, quite late, and I suspect she might not have any strength left for the trip back home afterwards.

Favourite books: Bamse and Kalle Anka, and the Daisy Meadows’ fairy books.

Favourite on-screen entertainment: kids’ programmes on SVT Play, especially Världens bästa fritids but also Vampyrskolan, Max och Ruby etc.

Favourite toys: Lego. Yes, Ingrid has actually been playing with toys recently! She has been making little cars and houses, and then playing with them. Sometimes she ties the cars together with pieces of string and makes a train out of them. Often the cars are flying cars. Sometimes the cars live in the house. I bought a box full of doors and windows for her, and I think we also need more wheels, and more figures who can live in those houses and fly around in the cars.

We’ve been in Estonia for nearly two weeks and I have barely said a word about it on the blog. It’s all been too intense, the days too full of action, the mind too full of impressions.

Attractions, sights and outings follow each other in an unceasing flow. We have been to museums, science centres, playgrounds both indoors and outdoors, taken a boat trip and a horseback ride, and more.

Ingrid swallows it all and asks for more; Adrian has found it a bit overwhelming at times, and would probably have preferred some calmer days. But it is easier to plan a day with lots of activity and take him aside for some quiet time, than to plan a quiet day and then try to add extra activities for Ingrid.

Most of these activities we’ve done together with my childhood friends and their children. Me, Ingrid and Adrian have really enjoyed catching up with our Estonian friends, and Adrian pretty much adopted my friends Rahel and Marju as extra moms. Eric has bravely kept us company all the way, but he can probably imagine better ways to spend two weeks of his summer… Planning ahead for our next trip, I think I will try to manage both kids on my own.

Both Ingrid’s and Adrian’s ability to speak Estonian has improved hugely. Adrian said almost nothing at all in Estonian during the first days. Yesterday and today he was playing freely with the other kids and talking to the adults, and using words and grammar that I have never heard him use before.

A few highlights:

Tartu adventure park/seikluspark. Ingrid completed the two kids’ tracks twice and found them rather too easy, so we went on to the first two “real” tracks. These were really meant for people over 140cm (and Ingrid is probably not even 120cm) but with me there to help her move her carabiners, she managed both. Then we did the 300m zipline ride, side by side. Adrian sat on the ground and made silly faces. (We’ve been to a similar park in Otepää twice before during our previous trips, and I could have sworn I’ve blogged about it, but couldn’t find any post about it.)

Vudila, an outdoor playland with all sorts of activities. A pool area with water slides, go-karts and mini ATVs, trampolines and bouncy castles, etc etc. More than enough to fill a day, and good fun in all ways, but the food was really disappointing.

Ice age centre, a science centre about ice ages. Interesting for adults but too serious for the kids, who had much more fun at the beach next to the museum.

Old favourites revisited: Road museum, Hansapäevad, Tartu Toy Museum with its playroom, Ahhaa science centre.

Picnic, strawberries, dancing around the maypole, and a train ride with Lennakatten, a museum train near Uppsala.

We’re well into April and it still doesn’t look like spring outside. Half the garden is covered in snow, and today we had three dense showers of snow (and one of hail).

This weekend we decided to make spring nevertheless. We hung up Ingrid’s swing. Eric put up a nesting box. I planted pansies, labeled as “frost tolerant” at the garden centre so I hope they survive. Eric swapped tyres on the car, from winter to summer tyres. Adrian and I took our first bike ride. (Ingrid has bravely been cycling for several weeks already.)

I found one crocus blossom, two snowdrops, and a dozen scillas in the sunniest corner of the garden.

Today Eric and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary with half a child-free day, just the two of us – our first since Adrian was born. We went to Råkultur for a fancy sushi lunch, and then to Fotografiska.

Cool dude… except for the breadcrumbs on his face

For today Eric had wished for a visit to Aqualand for his birthday. This morning it was windy and there was a haze of cloud, so we hesitated for a while. But we know that Ingrid won’t be cold almost regardless of the weather, and neither will Eric, and the rest of us can just wrap up in fleece jumpers and stay out of the water, so we went after all.

On the plus side: off season and a coolish day, meant no crowds. There were no queues and no shortage of sunbeds. On the minus side: it was a bit chilly when a cloud passed in front of the sun, and the water wasn’t very warm either.

Ingrid stayed in the children’s area all day. Running up the stairs and down the slides she had no time to feel cold; me and my mum standing in the pool spotting Ingrid were shivering at times. Ingrid was cautious and didn’t want to go on any slides at all at first. Then she tried one and found it OK. Then she tried another one that she loved and stayed there for a long time. Finally in the afternoon she tried a third one that was even better. She kept going down the slides until closing time, pausing only for lunch and toilet breaks.

I got three rides, and Eric also got a handful. The swimming pool we usually visit at home has some slides as well, but nothing this large, and they have none with floaters. Slides with floaters are a bit odd: there is water in the slides to make the floaters slide, and a bit of splashing when you land, but really you don’t come into contact with much water at all. So they’re more like a special kind of amusement park rides. Fun, though.

Adrian was unhappy most of the time, like much of the time here. We’ve tried sling and pushchair, lying down and sitting up, less clothes, more clothes, other clothes, cooler days and warmer days, quiet places and places with people to look at – and none of it has made any real difference. Today my mum suggested that we try Ingrid’s sunglasses on him – perhaps the bright light was bothering him. And indeed he seemed much happier afterwards. It may have been a coincidence but maybe not.

Today we all managed to eat dinner together, almost – we sat outside, and as soon as we’d ordered I went for a walk with Adrian. I came back in when the food arrived, gave him a few pieces of bread to munch on, and managed to eat most of my food before he tired. I went back to the hotel to put him to bed while the others continued.

Adrian’s second tooth appeared. Already he has figured out what to do with them and is using them to gnaw on breadsticks; when he lets go of one you can clearly see which side has been down towards the teeth.