Life in Motala

We had a long fun midsummer weekend, though we didn’t do any of the traditional things - instead we showed off Motala’s fancy ice-cream place to visiting friends and played a lot of charades.

Dinghy sailing school for a whole week! Ingrid thought it was great fun. Here she is having a swim at the end of one day. The school is down in the bay by Råssnäsbadet. I was left alone with Lucky a lot which was good because then I had to concentrate on him. More about that later. MSS (Motala Segelsällskap) clubhouse is a great place for us to hang out - they even have a sauna we can use!

Down by the harbour there is an ice-cream café with a very un-Swedish menu. The ice-creams are huge, beautiful, full of little surprises with great names like Stockholm-Motala and GötaKanal. They cost a fortune but when you see the menu and all the fantastic creations, you just don’t care. Here is a cute ice-cream and candy creation they have for little kids, Skeppsmusen.

I think I am going to surprise Ingrid today and say that we will go there this afternoon. Maybe this time I will try one of the wackier ice-creams like the crazy looking licorice and lemon boat.

Here is a picture of me hallucinating entoptic patterns. To do the same all you have to do is lie down and press firmly on your closed eyelids. (If that doesn’t work, look into a light source for a moment and then press.) There are many different kinds of patterns. I see a checkerboard pattern that spirals into a white spot and it feels like I am "moving into the light". The bright circle of light gets larger and larger and I "fall in", then the pattern changes. If I open my eyes after seeing entoptic patterns for some time they are superimposed on reality around me. I see all sorts of cool things then.

Hallucination is one theory behind phenomena like seeing fairies or chrystal gazing. I am reading about it as a source of inspiration for cave art. On a slightly different topic - here you can see the effects of pesticide on children’s ability to draw

On Thursday I picked up Lucky and the past weekend has been intense but now we are starting to settle down. Ingrid is so happy about the dog and they are having so much fun playing around.

Ingrid didn’t want to go to school so we had a nice day at home and got the whole apartment cleaned up and everything washed. Then we went swimming down by the marina, together with a girl who lives next door. It was hot - over 25 C. After supper we bicycled down to town and saw the latest Indiana Jones movie. Lots of skulls and cobwebs and non-stop action. Ingrid thought it was great "They didn’t talk so much, they did stuff instead".

Attachment theory applies to dogs as well. Here is a picture of Lucky with his brothers and sisters. The puppies that are awake are watching for cues. I am looking forward to this interaction. I borrowed a few books about dog training and noticed that the language and concepts they use in these books is a lot different from what you find in a book about small children, even though what is going on is very similar. A human baby at around 18 months is about as smart as an average adult dog. After about 5 years a human child passes a chimpanzee. One of the very sad facts of modern life is that small children are often expected to have the same brain resources as adults and cope with concepts and situations way beyond their understanding. 

Back to Lucky, I notice that the average dog book has higher expectations on dogs than the average parenting book has on small children, despite the fact that they have the same ability to learn. This is an example of one of my major principles in parenting: most statements about what children are like that are made in modern societies are best ignored and when in doubt, do the opposite of what "everyone else" is doing.

Friday we went to Kolmården, Sweden’s biggest zoo together with Ingrid’s friend from school (he’s the one in the cool new sunglasses) and his mum, my new friend! She’s from Finland. Ingrid took this photo on the way home, when we stopped for a picnic supper. It was great day! I love the beginning of summer, the promise of things to come…

 Ingrid spent the rest of the weekend at her father’s place, then on Sunday evening we checked out the water next to the marina close to our apartment. 4 out of 5 points! That is our new go-for-a-swim-before-bed spot.