We spent Sunday afternoon at Oliver’s three-year birthday party, out in the countryside. Ingrid met mosquitoes for the first time in memory, as well as stinging nettles, and was not happy about either experience. She also fell face first onto the arm of a wooden chair while climbing on it, hard enough for a big bruise. I think the other guests will remember her as “that kid who was screaming all the time”. Ingrid, on the other hand, will probably have more positive memories. She might remember the singing potty, or the digging in the dirt, or the book about Little Red Riding Hood with all the movable parts, or all the incessant snacking.

(By the way, she’s gotten used to mosquitoes by now and swats them away with barely a comment.)

Monday we were my father’s country house and it did not go too well, so we’ve been in Tartu since then. Unfortunately this has coincided with a heat wave, and Tartu lacks Stockholm’s wading pools, so I’ve really struggled to come up with things to do. We’ve ended up spending a lot of time with Rahel and Katariina, mostly on various playgrounds and at their place. Katariina is just that little bit ahead of Ingrid (in age and in development) that Ingrid is really interested in anything Katariina does, and likes to follow her around and copy her actions.

Something I forgot to mention in my monthly post: my losing battle to keep Ingrid’s Estonian skills alive. The better she becomes at Swedish (and she is speaking very well now), the bigger the gap between the two languages, and the more likely she is to choose Swedish.

As the dialogue example shows, even when I speak Estonian to her, she often responds in Swedish. I used to prompt her for the Estonian equivalent, but I keep forgetting – after all I understand Swedish so well that it’s hard for me to ignore and pretend to not understand it. The best I manage is to respond with the Estonian version of what she just said.

She rarely uses an Estonian pattern in Swedish, but when she does speak Estonian she often slips into a Swedish pattern. “Emme mul on vaja üks lusikas” (Mummy I need a spoon) instead of “Emme mul on lusikat vaja”. And I think I can detect a hint of Swedish sound and melody when she speaks Estonian – she is developing a foreign accent.

I hope our upcoming 15-day visit to Estonia is enough to stem the tide for a short while.

While we lived in London, I’ve tried to go to Estonia once every year. It’s naturally become a summer trip, since that’s when most people have vacation, and that’s when the weather is best. This year the timing of the trip was pretty much decided by Ingrid’s nursery start. Eric started working August 1st, and Ingrid didn’t get a nursery place until August 21st, so my vacation had to fill the gap in between.

I usually visit those of my family who live in Estonia, plus a few childhood friends, and do some sightseeing and shopping. All that was still part of the trip, but one important aspect has been added, and will remain a priority in the future: getting some Estonian practice for Ingrid.

Part of the plan was to buy a lot of children’s books in Estonian. Partly because of this plan to fill my bag with lots of heavy books I decided to go by ferry rather than by plane, which I’ve normally done. (There was also the fact that flying is such a hassle nowadays, plus I had the pushchair to consider. I could probably take it on a plane, but not be sure what state it would be in when I get it back.) The ferry trip was a big success. They had a nice play room, with a ball pit, a small slide, toys, crayons, and most importantly, other children. Ingrid was perfectly happy to spend most of the evening there, and most of the morning as well. She also liked the ferry itself: the long carpeted corridors were great for running, and there were lots of lifts and staircases and windows. And the sea was interesting, too: we had a window in our cabin, and she would sit there and look at the sea, and point out the smaller boats we passed.

Initially I thought we would spend a lot of time in my father’s summer cottage. But (a) the weather was bad, and (b) it turned out that Ingrid did not like the countryside. She would not go more than 10 steps from my side, and was happiest when we went indoors and read a book. The only outdoor activities she accepted were playing in the sandbox (with me by her side), playing ball with me, or eating strawberries in the forest. When it was late afternoon and time to take the car back to town, she suddenly perked up and ran to the car, even though she isn’t fond of car seats at all! Too much greenery? Too wide open? Too few people? Whatever it was, it meant that we spent more days in Tartu than I would have done myself. I guess 18 months of London life have made a city child out of her.

It appears that long-time city living has affected me as well. I seem to have become sensitive to mosquito bites. Mosquitoes are part of a normal Estonian summer: every child and every adult is familiar with the itchy red spots that their bites cause. But whereas the mosquito bites I remember from my childhood were half an inch across, mine now grew and grew until each one was a palm-sized swelling, red and painful like a bad bruise.

Our days in Tartu (and later in Tallinn) were not that dissimilar from our days in Stockholm. We spent a lot of time on playgrounds, and made occasional trips to child-friendly attractions, such as the toy museum (which has a great play room) and the animal park in Elistvere, and a swimming pool in Tallinn. Unlike in Stockholm, Ingrid had other children for company: three of my childhood friends have children of roughly the same age, and Ingrid had a great time with them. Looking at them they didn’t seem to be playing together. Sometimes they followed each other (if one went to the swing, the other one followed), sometimes they played side by side, and other times they just happened to play in the same room. But somehow it still made a great difference. Just moments after leaving them, Ingrid would already say “varsti tagasi” (“soon back” – meaning she wanted to meet them again soon).

The book-buying aspect of the trip went well, too. I came home with almost 20 children’s books of various kinds. A few are for slightly older children and won’t see much use this year. Some are already in use. Others I’m saving for later so she can get a new book every few weeks. Among them were a few of my first books: small cardboard books with simple texts in block letters. One of them is the first book I remember reading myself, on my own.

Thanks to a tip from Liina, we went to the children’s song and dance session at London’s Estonian House. We met a bunch of Estonian mums with their children, and sang children’s songs, and I met the cranky monkeys who were quite uncranky in real life. In fact Ingrid was more cranky because she was really tired, but she enjoyed being there nevertheless and liked seeing the other children. I think we’ll be doing this again next time (in a month’s time).

We’re back home today.

Two things I learned from this vacation:

• I watch too much TV and spend too much time on the Internet. Cutting both radically over 10 days felt good. I can think of better ways to spend my time. I don’t understand how people who actually own a TV get anything done at all.
• Vacationing / travelling with a baby is not exactly a carefree activity, but it can be relaxing if you realise and accept one ground rule: thou shall focus on being a parent and taking care of the baby, and thou shall have no other ambitions. This way both are happy and relaxed, and even though you have no ambitions you will still get a little done here and there.

Well, it took me a bit more than a day to get back to a computer, but here I am now.

We spent Saturday and Sunday in Kaunispe, doing the sort of things that one tends to do in the country: walks in the woods, playing and swimming at the beach (cold!), lazing around under the apple tree, eating gooseberries from the bush. Plus, of course, the sort of things that one tends to do with a small baby: feeding, cleaning, washing and putting to bed.

Monday morning we started back towards Tartu, and most of the rest of the day was spent driving.

Tuesday (today) I made a brief shopping expedition in the morning (children’s books and DVDs). Then during the day I met my three oldest friends, whom I have known since I was about 3 years old. We all lived in the same block of flats, played together a lot and went to the same school as well.

Two of these friends now have children who are a few months older than Ingrid. I met them for the first time today. I had seen photos of both babies before, so even though I hadn’t actually met them they felt very familiar to me. It was interesting to see how much difference just a few months can make – although if I think back to what Ingrid was like a few months ago, it really was very different from her current self.

Tomorrow I will spend more time with the same friends. Thursday, on to Tallinn to meet another old friend, and Friday back home.

Saaremaa, middle of the night. And I’m typing on some sort of laptop Mac thingy which is turning out to be surprisingly difficult. Things keep happening on the screen even when I don’t think I have touched anything special.

Monday we got up at 4 and flew to Tallinn and then drove to Tartu. An uneventful flight and an uneventful drive as well.

Tuesday morning we (my father and his wife and myself with Ingrid) drove to my father’s summer house in Kapsta. The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday, plus half of Thursday, we spent hanging around the garden.

Ingrid got a sandbox and a little wading pool, plus a large expanse of grass to explore, and an assortment of plastic and rubber toys to play with, as well as new interesting things such as a little wooden stool (which could be banged against the floor), a dustpan and brush (which could also be banged against the floor with far more interesting outcomes than the ones at home).

Thursday around midday we drove towards Saaremaa, stopping in Pärnu for the night. The weather was really warm so we went to the beach in Vana-Pärnu: Ingrid’s first encounter with the sea. She wasn’t much interested in the water, but the heavy dark muddy sand was great fun.

Friday we continued to Saaremaa, to visit a bunch of relatives in Kaunispe, and that’s where I am now, being attacked by vicious midges.

To be continued tomorrow because it is bedtime now.

Once a year, my news filter for ‘Estonia’ inevitably brings up the annual wife-carrying championship in Sonkajärvi, which Estonians have won every single year since 1998. Two Estonian brothers have dominated the championship since 2000 and one of them holds the record: 55.5 seconds. The track is 253.5 metres of sand, grass and asphalt, and with two dry obstacles and one water obstacle.

This year I found a video of the competition (via AOL Fanhouse):

I was impressed by the effort some of the contestants were putting in. Both the runners and the women they were carrying were clearly taking this pretty seriously. These were athletic guys running hard, and women holding on hard, not beer-bellied men having a bit of fun (although there were some of those, too, given that first prize is the woman’s weight in beer).

Those of you living in Estonia are probably all too aware of the situation around the Bronze Soldier. Those outside Estonia may well have missed it.

The Bronze Soldier is a monument, located in central Tallinn, to honour the Soviet soldiers who died in WW2. While the Russians think of the Soviet Army as liberating Estonia from the Nazis, Estonians cannot ignore the 50 years of occupation that followed. The statue had therefore become a magnet for both Estonian and Russian nationalist youth, so the government decided that the statue as well as the dozen-or-so soldiers buried underneath it should be moved to a less central location (a war cemetery).

The decision did not go down well with the Russians in Estonia or with Russian officials. The former have now spent two nights rioting – 1 killed, 150 injured, 800 arrested, numerous shops looted. The latter are threatening to sever diplomatic relations.

You can read more in most international news sources (Google News search). Eesti Päevaleht offers a concise summary in English.

I can understand the upset feelings, to some extent. But I cannot understand how the rioters or the Russian government can hope to achieve anything positive through their actions. Looting a Hugo Boss shop and liquor shops? Powerful political statement, that.

By the way, Itching for Eestimaa is a good place for commentary on Estonia and Estonian events.

I’m an avid reader of blogs and online news sources, especially now that I’m at home almost all day. I’ve found good sources for general news, Swedish news, tech news, quirky stuff, thoughtful essays, book reviews and parenting hacks – you name it.

What I don’t have is good online reading material in Estonian. I’ve been reading EPL mostly out of desperation, but the site is really annoying, with bad layout, slow loading times, and excessive auto-refreshes.

If anyone out there could point me towards a good Estonian news source and/or a well-written blog in Estonian, I’d be most happy.