I remember my own cuticles looking just as ragged when I was Ingrid’s age. And I have distinct memories of being told to not grip the pencil so hard.

The helpful advice made no difference, so I don’t try to pass it on. But years did: I no longer have a death grip on my pens.

My fingers and nails on the other hand honestly do not look much better now – I keep my nails short and neatly cut, but my cuticles are not pretty and during the gardening season there is often dirt under my fingernails that I just cannot get out.

This month’s big thing: Ingrid has bought herself an iPhone. Yes, she had an iPad, but you can’t take a tablet to school, and besides, “all her friends have a smartphone”. Since she has both a fully functioning phone already, in addition to the already mentioned iPad (which is hers de facto if not de jure) we had no intention of buying yet another gadget for her. So she decided to buy it herself.

She researched the prices of second hand iPhones on Tradera (Sweden’s eBay), counted the money she had, did some maths and realized that it could take months to save enough. Therefore she asked if she could do any extra chores for extra money. We agreed on 10 kr for emptying the dishwasher and 20 kr for hanging up one load of laundry. She did both a few times, enough to double her weekly allowance, and soon had enough to start bidding on Tradera. Yesterday she proudly won an iPhone 4S for 465 kr.

Other stuff:
One of the first apps in her new phone will be Snapchat. “Everybody is using it.”

We’ve been watching “Sweden’s Master Chef” together in the evenings, on Ingrid’s request. She doesn’t enjoy it quite as much as “Sweden’s Youngest Master Chef” but still.

At school they have been working on learning their multiplication tables all the way up to 100. I’ve been drilling her when we’re waiting for something (such as waiting for Adrian to eat up so the kids can have dessert).

She was more bothered by me being away for a week than I would have expected, and more so than Adrian was. She craves predictability and routine in certain key parts of her life. There must be activity and novelty, but of a predictable kind: a new movie for each Friday night, for example. She called or SMS:ed me good night every night while I was away.

After Christmas, Easter, a disco, some birthday parties, and other already-forgotten events, Ingrid’s stash of candy is overflowing. Whenever she sets out to eat one, she pours them all out on the table and then picks among them to find one she wants.

Enough is enough! Now she has them all sorted into little boxes, by type: chocolatey candy, marshmallowy candy, sour candy, and I forgot whatever else.

Påskgubbe and påskkärringar, about to fly off to Blåkulla.

Sports is taking up more space in Ingrid’s life again. After she quit riding in autumn, she wasn’t getting much exercise apart from sports class at school. Now she does disco dancing on Wednesdays and swims with me on Sundays, and tells me she wants to add another sport.

Perhaps it is a virtuous spiral – doing sports again reminds her how good it can feel, gives her more energy, etc. Or perhaps it’s partly due to me setting a good example by exercising regularly again.

She really enjoys the dancing. It suits her so well: there’s pop music, there’s dancing, there is a group of other kids – and there’s no competitive pressure. She practices at home between classes and talks excitedly about the end of term show they are already planning.

Swimming with me is not quite as much fun as disco but still good. She is taking it more and more seriously, setting goals for herself to swim this many lengths in the time we have.

Sports is one of her favourite subjects at school as well. Really she enjoys them all, but the best ones are sports, arts and woodworking. Theatre or film-making would come out tops if it was a subject.

She talks about making Youtube videos, mostly inspired by the Minecraft videos she watches, and is experimenting a bit with making movies on the Ipad.

Favourite reading materials: Kalle Anka of course; Svenska Dagbladet Junior (a newspaper for kids); Diary of a wimpy kid, fantasy-themed books.

Random stuff:
She doesn’t think she will have any kids, because they take too much time.
She forgets to brush her hair and is careless when she does brush, so every few days I grab her and brush out big tangles. She cares about what she wears but not so much about how she looks.
She organized the apps on her Ipad in colour order; then reorganized them alphabetically.
She has been fasting from sugary snacks during Lent. It’s not so difficult day-to-day but temptations such as cafés (or waffle houses on the ski slopes) make it hard, and she is counting down days to the end of the fast.