![](\"\/helen\/blog\/images\/Ingrid_with_bike.jpg\")
\nIngrid is so busy thinking about all the birthdays. First there’s Adrian’s actual birthday, which she has taken really seriously. She made a plush little monster for him, and saved up pocket money for many weeks to buy him presents. (A toy mobile phone, like the one she has, and a Lego set.) And it was really important for her to help plan the day: waking Adrian with a birthday song in the morning, having presents for him, being extra nice to him etc.<\/p>\n
Then there’s Adrian’s birthday party with his friends, for which she helped craft invitations.<\/p>\n
Then there’s her own birthday party which we need to plan. She’s hesitating between a small party at home with her best friends, and a larger party somewhere else so she can invite all the girls in her class. It will have a Halloween theme because we’ll be away during the actual Halloween trick-and-treating, and she’s already got her costume chosen. <\/p>\n
And then finally both kids’ combined birthday party with all our extended family, where the main deal is all the presents she hopes to get.<\/p>\n
Ordinary life, by comparison, is rather boring. Ingrid is easily bored, wants lots of activity and has a hard time coming up with activity for herself. And most activities are only fun if someone joins her. Drawing, painting, crafts etc; building with Lego; playing with her doll and stuffed animals – all fun together with someone but not at all if she’s on her own.
\n![](\"\/helen\/blog\/images\/Ingrid_reading_0.jpg\")
\nOn her own she reads. She still likes books to have pictures so she devours comics of all kinds. We have a subscription for Kalle Anka<\/i> and she also gets one second-hand issue of Bamse<\/i> and one of Kalle Anka pocket<\/i> every week. She borrows comics books from the school library as well as Sp\u00e5nga library: Lou<\/i>, Kalle Anka<\/i> (again), Bamse<\/i> (again) etc. But also Diary of a wimpy kid<\/i> for example: it’s got enough drawings in it to keep Ingrid’s attention.<\/p>\n
As for actual books, Lasse Maja<\/i> is still her favourite by far. She has read other mysteries as well but those are the ones she returns to.<\/p>\n
She likes to order Adrian around. She tells him to go get stuff for her when she can’t be bothered to walk there. Usually Adrian is happy to help. Win-win. Sometimes he can’t find the thing she wants and needs more instructions and then the whole thing takes longer than it would have taken for her to do it herself, but of course that is not the point.<\/p>\n
Likewise she uses him as her mouthpiece when she wants my help but I’m in a different room. Adrian, g\u00e5 h\u00e4mta emme.<\/i> I dislike being “remote controlled” like that and tend to refuse as a matter of principle.<\/p>\n
Ingrid has started cycling to school in the morning together with her friend Majken and her parents. Again a win-win situation for all of us: the girls get company; Ingrid has a strong incentive to be ready on time (which she almost always is anyway); Adrian and Eric can get ready in peace at their own pace.<\/p>\n
She’s also started to walk to and from swim school and scout meetings on her own. (This term her swimming lessons are at Sp\u00e5ngabadet, very close to our home.)<\/p>\n
She likes having long hair but doesn’t see the point of brushing it properly, or of keeping it out of her face. I keep nagging her to get her hair out of her food, and put it up instead.
\n![](\"\/helen\/blog\/images\/Ingrid_95m.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ingrid is so busy thinking about all the birthdays. First there’s Adrian’s actual birthday, which she has taken really seriously. She made a plush little monster for him, and saved up pocket money for many weeks to buy him presents. (A toy mobile phone, like the one she has, and a Lego set.) And it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ingrid_johanna","category-monthly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5366"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5370,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5366\/revisions\/5370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}