Ingrid made a Totoro hoodie. It came out really nice. (I helped a bit with machine sewing the large white parts onto the hoodie, and making openings for pockets.) It is now her favourite.

We bought another pool ring today and it was an instant hit. Mostly the kids use the floating toys for crashing into each other, pulling each other down into the water, climbing on the same toy so they both fall off, and other ways of getting both themselves and everything else exceedingly wet. (Which has on occasion had unfortunate side effects on the laundry drying on the rack next to the pool. Less than ideal positioning, perhaps, but there just isn’t that much space in the flat, sunny part of the garden.)

We filled the pool today. The kids couldn’t wait until it was full and jumped in as soon as the water reached knee height. Wild splashing and horseplay off and on all day. Water, pool toys, wet swimming clothes and towels everywhere.

Thinking most about: summer break! Ingrid has been counting days since mid-May. She’s tired of schoolwork. Now summer is here, she has noticed that it also means that she will need to fill her days herself.

Her current plan is to mostly fill them with sewing and similar crafts projects. She’s like me, though, and doesn’t like making things that are of no use: many crafts projects for kids are about making doodads and pretty things that become clutter very soon after they are done. Now she’s made a jar for memories, hung colourfully painted clothes pins on a piece of string for hanging up notes, made a fake cactus of stones, and some more.

I believe she also thinks quite a lot about growing, or rather, not growing. She’s shortest in her class and while it doesn’t exactly bother her, it’s something she cannot help noticing.

Another thing that occupies her mind is earning money. She has her sights set on a robot dog (a Zuppie) and now wants to save up enough money to buy one before we go on vacation. We haven’t been able to come up with many chores that are large enough to be worth paying for, that she can do on her own. She can’t exactly mow the lawn yet… There’s emptying the dishwasher (10 kr), emptying the washing machine and hanging up laundry (20 kr), grocery shopping (15 kr) or picking killer slugs (1 kr/minute).

Favourite app: Either This or That or What if or some competitor to those. Or maybe several of these. The app asks weird questions like “would you rather have chocolate that tastes like snot or snot that tastes like chocolate” or “what if you had a magic carpet but could never get off it”.

The app isn’t exactly meant for kids, so a few sex-themed questions have popped up. Ingrid has asked about the meaning of those, and appeared to conclude that sex seems rather icky. She asked if we do it, and her reaction was “ewww”. She was also rather disgusted when she saw a crude penis that some neighbourhood kid had chalked in the street. Still so much an innocent child.

Ingrid is also rather innocent compared to some of her classmates when it comes to swearing. Some of them have “swear bans” at home and some sort of punishments for swearing. In our house it’s never an issue. Eric and I never swear, and Ingrid doesn’t, either. She doesn’t like to hear swearing, and even mildly dirty words bother her.

It’s important to her that people should not say mean things to each other. I happened to mention a newspaper article where Zlatan was criticized, and Ingrid’s opinion was that newspapers shouldn’t be allowed to print criticism of someone unless that person allows it. I tried to briefly explain the concept of freedom of speech, the relativity of opinions about what’s right and wrong, but she didn’t really buy it.

Saying mean things is not OK but at the same time Ingrid has no compunctions about using a mean, condescending tone of voice, or phrasing that not-so-subtly indicates criticism, especially towards Adrian.

Favourite song: Galantis – No Money.

Favourite late night snack: Kellogg’s Special K with red berries, with milk. Also, egg in a hole, which she makes herself.

Ingrid and I celebrated summer break by bowling at O’Leary’s and conveyor belt sushi at Zan. For some reason O’Leary’s thought it would be good to have disco lighting in the bowling alley. Pointless and distracting. Well, at least there was no loud music.

We played three series. I won the first one, then Ingrid beat me, and we finished the third one with exactly the same score. (She with gutter guards, me without.)

Ingrid ran the Stockholm mini marathon today, 2310m.

At first she was trying to swing high enough to touch the cherry branches with her toes. I don’t think she succeeded.

Then she turned the swing into a carousel thing, twisting the ropes as high as possible and then letting it twirl down. This is nothing new, she’s done it before. What I only realized now is that every year she grows a little bit taller, which allows her to twist the swing a few more turns, and get a little bit more speed out of it. By now it’s really fast.

Ingrid and four of her friends made a cake for a cake contest at school. The design was an overload of cute: a panda, a rainbow and flowers.

To me the whole project seemed to mostly consist of loud arguments, but they seemed to enjoy it. Afterwards the kitchen looked like a tornado had torn through it. Every time they needed a bowl or a spoon, they took a new one. Cleaning up as you go was not a part of their process.

The kids and I took the bus to Vällingby after school to get vaccinated against TBE. (The third shot for Ingrid and me, the first for Adrian.) Both kids were surprised when the injection turned out to not hurt at all, and for the first time ever Ingrid is not anxious about her next injection.

I’ve seen information campaigns about TBE for years but somehow it never seemed very urgent. The risk seemed small and remote. After Ingrid’s experience with Lyme disease, getting us vaccinated felt a lot more urgent and important.