We thought we’d take a quiet day after yesterday’s activities, so we mainly stayed at the hotel. Adrian and I took a long nap; in the afternoon Eric and I took a walk (leaving Ingrid and my mum at the hotel pool) and had ice cream.

We had a really nice dinner at Restaurant Rustico, the first meal here that I really enjoyed. This was clearly a restaurant aimed at people who want to enjoy fine dining: they had no children’s menu, nor highchairs. We didn’t let that hinder us, because the place looked so nice and the menu options sounded delicious. They were as delicious as they sounded. (John Dory baked in a sheet of parchment, with fennel, orange peel, and herbs – juicy, flavourful, beautifully presented.) The atmosphere was quiet and the service attentive and personal. I wish we had tried this place earlier.

Adrian learned to roll over from his back to his front and can reproduce this trick at will. He has also started pushing strongly enough with his arms to move backward. I guess we can no longer just leave him on a bed unguarded. He also managed to back himself into a corner where he got stuck and very upset.

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.

This morning we went to see the famous Maspalomas sand dunes. Since Ingrid generally refuses to walk any longer stretches, we did it on camelback. We sat in metal seats hung over the hump of the camel, one person on each side. (If the number of customers was odd, the odd man out was balanced by ballast, sacks of sand hanging off the other seat.) At first the rocking felt somewhat odd but when the camels settled into their slow and steady pace, it was pretty comfortable.

The dunes (the part we saw) had more plant life than I’d expected: enough bushes and shrubs of various sorts that you couldn’t see far across the dunes, even from atop a camel.

We also saw a baby camel, resting in the paddock behind the house, just 2 days old. All skin and bones. And lying down, not like lambs or foals who are up on their feet straight away. Then again, adult camels also lie down, unlike adult horses.

After lunch we tried out the beach. It wasn’t particularly swimmer-friendly: strong waves made it hard to get into the water without getting swept off your feet while still in knee-deep water. Much of the beach was covered with round rocks (ranging from roughly fist-sized to four times that) and some were strewn on the sandy sea bottom as well, which made walking even harder. The rocks made a continuous clattering & rumbling sound as they were rolled about by the waves. Ingrid, Eric and my mum spent a while splashing and dodging waves while I sat in the shade with Adrian.

On the way back we had ice cream and then I took a nap with Adrian.

For dinner we went to the Chinese place next to the hotel, Bamboo Garden. The food was lousy (flavourless veggies and meat, too-salty dough for the deep-fried stuff) and we’re not going back there.

Adrian has been generally unhappy these last few days. He’s not the most contented baby normally, either, but it’s even worse now. He takes lousy short naps, no matter whether it’s in the pram or in a sling. He is least unhappy when someone carries him around, but not very happy then either. Perhaps it’s a good thing he is too young to remember this – I don’t think he would have very happy memories of this trip.

Ingrid was very keen to go bathing in the pools so we spent most of the day at the hotel. First we tried the “beach” but that pool was unheated and the area around it quite windy, so we all got cold. When I was standing in the shade (to keep Adrian out of the sun) it was so chilly that I used a bath towel as a blanket to keep me warm. We then moved on to the shallow children’s pool, which was much more pleasant: heated and also protected from the wind on three sides. There were inflatable pool toys as well as plastic buckets lying around, so Ingrid loved it.

We had a late lunch, well later than planned: first we wandered around looking for the entrance to the restaurant where we had planned to eat. The hotel is really two hotels in one, and they share a common outdoors area, but indoors facilities can only be reached via the right building. When we finally reached the restaurant (in the “other” hotel) we found out it only served an expensive buffet (mainly aimed at guests on full board) and the restaurant that served a la carte lunches was far away at the other end of the area.

In the afternoon we went for a walk again. Ingrid was happy to walk as long as there were edges, ledges and walls to walk on, or shops to look at, or rocks to climb over. As soon as we ran out of those, her legs “got tired”. And when we found a ledge again, the legs were magically untired again. This time we walked through a few small shopping malls to see what was on offer. (Nothing of interest, really, but we did buy an inflatable pool toy for Ingrid, as well as postcards.)

For dinner we tried an Italian restaurant just across the street from the hotel. Reasonably good food, but too few staff so service was very slow. Because lunch was late, so was dinner. Adrian was so tired that Eric had to skip dinner and go back to the room to put him to bed. Ingrid, too, collapsed as soon as we got back.

Today we flew to Maspalomas in Gran Canaria for a week-long vacation. Not the destination we’d choose if it was just Eric and me, but right now a week’s rest some place warm will be just fine. In order to make this a vacation rather than an exercise in patience and child management, we brought my mum with us. She gets a free trip, we get company and another pair of hands. The adults outnumber the kids, which makes life significantly nicer for all those involved.

Now we’re all tired after a long day of travelling. The flight left at 7.30 and since we didn’t want to have to hurry at the airport, we aimed to be there two hours before, which meant getting up at 3.45. Everything went smoothly, although Adrian was pretty bored during the flight, and it was hard to get him to go to sleep. Though it could have been much worse, I suspect our fellow travellers were not too happy about having us on board.

Tabaiba Princess, the hotel we’re staying at, is large and really nice, inside and outside. It’s almost a resort rather than just a hotel, with lots of palm trees and several large pools and even an artificial beach. The only thing it lacks is wifi in the rooms. There is a wifi hotspot in the lobby but even that costs money.

We haven’t really had time to explore it all yet; that’s one thing we plan to do tomorrow.

After an afternoon snack at a bar by the “beach”, we went for a walk to the real beach. It’s about one and a half kilometers from the hotel, a pleasant walk along a palm-lined road next to a canal (dry at this time of the year). Where the canal meets the beach there’s a small freshwater lake or lagoon, with coots and moorhens and a lot of fish. Turning west/right at that point, we walked on towards the lighthouse and then back to the hotel. To the east/right, we could see the Maspalomas sand dunes, which we will definitely visit another day.

Preparing for our upcoming vacation, we went shopping for beachwear: a new swimsuit for Ingrid, plus a pair of flip flops that happened to be on sale for 10 kr, and a bikini for me.

On our way home we splurged on a large juice from the Squeezed Up juice bar.

Adrian has learned to sit up without support in just the last two or three days. Four days ago he’d fold over and fall to one side, now he remains sitting. And he likes it.

Ingrid is definitely getting bored with being at home with me. I’m hearing frequent complaints about how she has nothing to do, how her legs are tired, how boring it is to go the supermarket.

Almost finished Adrian’s new hat yesterday but then I ran out of yarn, with about 100 stitches to go… I will have to buy another skein so I can finish it.

Yesterday something went wrong with one of the wheels on the pushchair. First it was a bit hard to push and then one wheel stopped turning altogether. When I inspected it today I found what seemed to be a ball from the bearing, stuck between the wheel and its bracket, so I guess we will have to get the wheel replaced. Bother. I made do with just the slings today, but it’s not something I want to do for many days, as long as he refuses to sleep in a back carry.

My new theory about Adrian’s tummy troubles is that perhaps he’s allergic to shellfish, too, in which case it would be the prawns in sushi that cause trouble. I’m now considering taking him to a specialist to get some more clarity about this. As long as it was just cow’s milk, it was easy, but now it’s beginning to get complicated.

Yesterday was a routine Wednesday with playgroup for Adrian. A friend of Ingrid’s came home with us in the afternoon; the house looked like a battlefield afterwards.

Today we went to town to buy a birthday present for my mum, and managed to get a whole bunch of other small errands done, too: everything from an oven mitt to a princess tiara. (Whenever Ingrid has a friend over, the dress-up clothes come out, especially the princess-ish stuff. We had two tiaras but one broke, and there’s often friction about who gets to wear the remaining one. So now we have to again.)

We had what I thought was a super-safe lunch, sharing one tempura dish and one small sushi. I skipped both the tempura sauce and the soy sauce for sushi. (I believe Adrian is sensitive to soy protein and not just milk – I forgot to mention this in the 5-month post.) And STILL Adrian spent an hour screaming later in the afternoon, the worst such episode in many weeks. Main learning point for me: do not mix two foods when eating out, because now I don’t know whether it was the sushi (something in those fake “crab” sticks?) or the tempura.

Went to Ingrid’s dance-and-play group only to find out it’s not on this week because of school holidays. She was disappointed but the leisurely trip back home (with Adrian asleep all the time, exhausted from his earlier screaming) almost made up for it, with jumping over puddles, poking holes in snow banks with a forked branch, etc.

The broccoli, thoroughly demolished

Spent almost an hour in the morning walking back and forth in the living room and kitchen while Adrian slept an unquiet sleep in the sling, reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. During his next nap (walking again but this time with the pushchair) I called the guys at work, for the first time in several weeks. I kind of miss it but it feels very distant, almost unreal.

Today’s meals for Adrian: pear and broccoli. Both made a good and proper mess. He attacked the broccoli with great intensity, as if that was what he’d been waiting for all his life. I do think I actually saw him swallow some of it, too.

Adrian and I slept horribly; don’t know what it was but it felt like I spent all night patting him and popping in the dummy. No long awake periods, not much crying or screaming, but not much proper sleep either. We took a very long nap in the morning.

Adrian got to try his first piece of solids: a chunk of crust from home-made bread. He put it in his mouth, probably expecting it to be like any other toy, and was all googly-eyed when he found out it had FLAVOUR. It was a bit too soft and crumbly for his rough grip, though – I will need to come up with more squeeze-resistant food for him. Apple, perhaps.

Went to the library with Ingrid in the afternoon.