{"id":6026,"date":"2015-02-18T22:04:53","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T21:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/?p=6026"},"modified":"2015-02-18T22:04:53","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T21:04:53","slug":"fifty-three_months-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/2015\/02\/18\/fifty-three_months-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifty-three months"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nAdrian is still doing perler beads. Beading is often what he says he was busy with, or just about to start, when I pick him up at preschool. Last weekend he did a fair bit of beading at home and I watched. He was impressively good at it. He reads patterns like a pro. “Three blue ones in this row, and then in the next row there is one extra on each side. And I will need five pink ones and then four more.”<\/p>\n

Often he wants to his beading projects to be surprises. We’re not allowed to see them, and then he gives them to one of us as a gift. Sometimes he starts off by saying that it’s a gift for me, then changes his mind and says it’s for Eric instead, or vice versa. The main thing is that it must be a surprise and a gift.<\/p>\n

Just like Ingrid at that age, he is picking up simple maths in his daily life, for fun, with no real effort. We count things when an obvious opportunity arises, and add them up when that makes sense. First three grapes and then another twig with three more, that’s six grapes. And so on.<\/p>\n

Adrian can count to twenty but doesn’t know how to go on from there – but he can also count from one hundred to one hundred and twenty. He can count backwards from ten to zero, but only in Swedish.
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\nI often find him browsing Bamse<\/i> comics. He can’t read them yet but that doesn’t seem to bother him. Sometimes he asks me, What does it say here? when there is a sign or a letter or some other written object in Bamse – but not being able to read the speech bubbles don’t seem to bother him.<\/p>\n

He loves it when someone reads to him. His taste in books is surprisingly mature, as long as the book doesn’t use any complicated words. We can read chapter books for him, with few pictures (but more pictures is better). Currently, for example, Eric is reading Brandk\u00e5rsmysteriet<\/i> (a LasseMaja<\/i> mystery) for him at bedtime.<\/p>\n

He gets bedtime stories, like most kids, but in our house we also have a morning story. I began doing it this autumn because he was always so angry about being woken on weekday mornings. It was an instant hit, and by now it is a strong tradition that both kids enjoy. Because he can listen to chapter books, and Ingrid still enjoys books with lots of pictures, usually it isn’t hard to find books that suit both of them.<\/p>\n

Bottoms are still incredibly funny. We have a page-a-day art calendar in the kitchen, and one day’s image was Titian’s Venus and Adonis<\/i>. The ONLY thing that Adrian noticed with lots of giggles, from the other side of the kitchen, was rumpa!<\/i><\/p>\n

In my notes for this month I had noted down “anger” again but by now that has subsided again. The periods of barely-controlled anger come and go: times when he reacts to any opposition and any obstacle by yelling.<\/p>\n

Right now he is more likely to express himself with words – such as calling me dummaste mamman<\/i>, “stupidest mom”. When his anger subsides, he comes and looks at me with sorry eyes and says I am the kindest mom, the best mom, and we hug.
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\nRandom things:<\/p>\n