We went skating. Ingrid sped around effortlessly; Adrian had forgotten much of his skating skills and tottered around, holding on to my hand.

I’m a bit disappointed that the large bandy field is always booked by clubs and tournaments, and ordinary folks have to make do with the crowded small ice rink. But even that is quite a luxury, when I think about it – there aren’t many artificially frozen ice rinks in Stockholm, and we’re lucky to live so close to one.

The school week ends with an Estonian lesson for both Ingrid and Adrian. (It’s just them and one more kid, so it’s almost like a private lesson.) They sometimes grumble about having to do it, but I keep insisting. Currently they don’t seem to mind it too much. Still, they’re happy when the lesson ends, and the school day and school week with it, and they can go home and look forward to movie night.

Usually they walk home together after the lesson, because it’s the one day when they both finish at the same time. The lesson ends at four, which is late enough so there is no point in going to after school care (for Adrian) or The Club (for Ingrid) but nevertheless so early that I usually cannot be there in time to pick them up. Today was an exception since I was working from home.

Ingrid had a dentist’s checkup today. She had a cavity last time, and the time before, so she was really dreading this visit.

She brushes her teeth twice a day; she never drinks soda; she has a single sweet thing once a day after dinner. She’s just had bad luck with her teeth. Unfortunately I am pretty sure I know where she got her weak teeth from. Me. I’ve always had weak teeth, and cavities all the time despite taking good care of my teeth. My mum has even worse teeth, again despite taking very diligent care of them.

I think I finally beat the cavities with fluoride mouth wash, which I discovered about ten years ago. Since then I’ve hardly had any problems at all.

Ingrid was also advised to start using mouth wash, and it seems to be working for her as well. In any case, she had no cavities this time, which we were both very pleased about.

(She didn’t want me to take any photos of the dentist visit, so here she is walking across the schoolyard, back to her classes.)

Trying on new skates.

• I keep being amazed by her English skills. She has reached the stage where she – like myself – sometimes uses English words when speaking to us because there are concepts that she only has English words for, from books or videos or whatever.
• Knitting, lots of knitting. Easy patterns in thick, colourful yarn, for cool results fast.
• Overwatch. She’s found an Overwatch friend that she plays together with, almost daily. He is of unknown age, nationality and name, but none of that matters when they can have fun together.
• Warriors. I kind of forced her to start reading daily, when I thought there was too much Overwatch going on and too little of other activities, and she was happy to rediscover how much she enjoyed this series.
• She tends towards worrying and anxiety, and craves predictability. She likes planning, and doing things the same way, in the same order, at the same time. If we want to play board games all together in the evening (which means she can’t play Overwatch) she wants to know this in the morning at least, and ideally the day before.

Winning is important to her. She takes games very seriously. Even with social games and board games it’s all about winning for her (whereas for Adrian, for example, the social aspect – doing something together – is much more important). It’s a good thing she’s a strong tactical thinker; she would be a very sore loser. She likes arguing and “winning” arguments, and it takes a lot for her to admit that she might be wrong, or just to let it go.

When she and Adrian have, say, an imaginary battle with imaginary laser guns, she always has an argument for why Adrian cannot hit her. She won’t concede a single hit, ever. Adrian “hits” her in the head – “But I had a shield!” Adrian hits the shield – “But it regenerates!” Adrian hits her from behind – “But I jumped away!” Adrian jumps after her – “But I teleported away!” and so on. There is always another “but” until Adrian gives up. It never occurs to her that getting hit might open new possibilities in the game (for a dramatic death, say) – it’s all about winning. Or perhaps simply about not losing.

In some ways she is so unlike me that she feels like an alien being, and other times I see myself in her so clearly. That way she forgot how much she enjoyed reading because she hadn’t done it for a while is so familiar I even blogged about it. That was ten years ago but I still fall into the same trap occasionally.

Ingrid was painting some crafts project, with a newspaper to protect the table from paint. The newspaper was way too black-and-white for her taste and she touched up many photos with bright purple paint. The secretary general of NATO got a purple hat and a moustache. A pretty blonde woman got purple hair. They both looked much better afterwards.

More colour to the people!

Ingrid finished the scarf she was knitting and immediately wanted to knit some more. So now she has advanced to mittens.

I introduced her to knitting a year or two ago but she never got beyond the basics and didn’t really get hooked. Now she is definitely hooked, already thinking of what she could knit after the mittens are done.

I remember knitting lots at when I was about the same age as she is now. Mostly mittens and socks of leftover yarns. I might still have a pair of those socks somewhere.

Ingrid has found an online friend with whom she plays Overwatch. They seem to have a lot of fun. It’s as much about talking about what they’re doing, what others are doing, what they could be doing – all with a lot of drama and theatrics – as it is about actually playing the game.

I was supposed to take this week off, but the project I am working on has a very tight deadline and the only other developer working on it will be away on vacation for a week very soon, so I need to get caught up fast.

The kids were supposed to stay at home with Eric, but he also had a meeting to attend in the office this morning, so they came with me.

It was supposed to be a short and easy day – a quick train ride there, half a day of work, train back home. But there were massive disruptions in train traffic so instead of the usual 40 minutes it took us an hour and a half to get to the office. Wait for the train, give up, catch a bus, and then two subway lines.

The kids were pretty tired before we even got to the office.