Big Sister In Training

Molli Malou loves her new room and it’s a pleasure to be able to photograph her in her room without being embarrassed about its appearance.

We’ve been raising Molli Malou to conclude her meals by saying, “Tak for mad. Må jeg gå fra bordet?” in Danish, or, in English, “Thanks for (breakfast/lunch/dinner). May I please be excused?” And for months she’s been very good about sticking to those lines.

Since we turned the pool on, though, she’s developed an antecedent. Before she thanks us for the meal and asks to be excused, she observes aloud to anyone listening, or confides to one of us in secret, that “maybe we could go down for a swim!”

We almost always do.

The water is warm, but there’s still always that first moment of shock…

(Yes, it’s still a mess down there. All the moving should be finished within about three weeks, though, and finally we’ll be able to dismantle all the piles of stuff we’ve got all over and distribute them where they belong.)

Anyway, the water doesn’t take long to get used to.

Molli Malou is becoming a fabulous swimmer. We’re not pushing anything on her, just letting her go at her own pace and try new things as they occur to her. This week she made her first attempt at swimming without her water wings and Trine and I freaked out as she, inevitably, doggy paddled frantically in place while sinking like a stone.

Trine managed to shoot out a maternal hand and yank Molli Malou back to the surface, and Molli Malou herself shot her own arms out and grabbed the side of the pool. We expected tears, horrors, the complete abandonment of all water sports for life.

Instead she gaped around, released a wild howl of laughter, and said, “Did you see? Did you see? I went under the water and you know what I opened my eyes! Under the water I opened my eyes and do you know what also I held my breath so I got no water in me!”

More wild laughter from her, laughter of relief from her parents.

We made the annual pilgrimage to Tivoli’s Halloween this past weekend. For days Molli Malou had been telling us how excited she was to ride “the bouncy ride” now that she was such a big girl. “I was scared when I was a little girl,” she confided to me, “because I was three. But now I am four, so I’m not scared any more, right Daddy?”

“Mm-hm,” I said.

Anyway, she’s still creeped out by clowns — even snooty Commeddia Dell’Arte clowns like Columbine.

And the haystack maze was as confusing as ever.

Mormor and Jørgen were with us to enjoy the unseasonably warm October afternoon amid the unusually thin crowd.

I’m not sure, but I think this was her first candy apple.

No hon, I don’t want a bite. You knock yourself out.

Mormor took her fishing for prizes. . .

Winner!

Tivoli in autumn:

We got to the bouncy ride around this point and Molli Malou made it very clear that she only wanted to look at it, not actually ride it. She wasn’t scared of it any more, but she just wanted to look, only look, not ride it.

Molli Malou riding alone on the airplane ride:

Molli Malou avoiding eye contact with Ray Bolger’s grandson.

Funny, it doesn’t seem that long ago Molli Malou and Liam were bouncing cluelessly around on the big air mattress as we scrambled around trying to protect them form being steamrolled by older kids or bouncing onto the hard earth.

Now we’ve got to keep an eye on her to prevent her steamrolling the clueless toddlers.

Mood change. God knows what brought it on, but I love the pictures.

Out on Rådhusplads there were a million white Lego pieces and the public was invited to contribute to building them up into something.

Molli Malou went at it gleefully.

Well, gleefully but with certain reservations.

I love putting Molli Malou to bed at night. There is nothing in my world as pure or innocent or angelic as Molli Malou settling into sleep. (Not for the next few months, anyway.) And I have very few pictures of those moments.

That’s it for the pics. There’s a lot of video backlogged — from the USA trip through the present — that I plan to throw together this weekend, if it’s the kind of cold rainy weekend I’m hoping for. Otherwise I’ll be staggering around the roof cleaning the gutters.

We’ve got her wearing pants again, finally. It came down to Trine letting her pick 4-5 pairs out at H&M and then telling her in no uncertain terms that at Børnehaven she would wear pants. Period. She’s allowed to change as soon as she gets home, and often wears dresses over her pants, but at least she’s wearing them again. (Adorably, but that goes without saying.)

Molli Malou is getting prepared for the arrival of her little sister. She has dubbed the little stuffed jaguar and Dolly her “babies,” and has dozens of elaborate rituals with them. She takes them for strolls around the house, puts them to bed, changes their diapers, cooks imaginary meals for them, feeds them (sometimes from her own breast, which is hilarious to watch — she jerks up her shirt and clamps the doll on a nipple and then just stands their impatiently for a few seconds before declaring, “OK, now the baby wants real food because you know what it has teef!”).

She talks a lot about what a great big sister she’s going to be, and is perpetually amused by all the things a baby cannot do. (You may remember her first reaction to the news of her imminent sisterhood was to march around moster Mette’s living room giddily telling us all the many things a baby cannot do.)

She is become almost unbearably sweet. This morning, for example, Trine awoke to Molli Malou poking her very gently. Trine opened her eyes and smiled at Molli Malou, who said only (in Danish), “I love you, mor.” She frequently compliments us on our clothing, our cooking, the execution of our chores.

“You made a really good fire, daddy!”

“Oh, man, you made a really good drawing, mor, I’m proud of you!”

“Wow, daddy, you look really nice in those clothes!”

It’s not that she’s a constant flatterer — she has no problem saying I’ve made a lousy fire, or that mor’s drawing stinks, or that either of us looks like hell — it’s just that for some reason I’m always more surprised by her positive feedback because I remember the joke about the kid who never talked until he was four, then suddenly announced that the oatmeal was cold.

After his parents regained their composure, they asked him why, if he could speak all along, he hadn’t uttered a word to them in the past.

“Everything was okay until now,” the kid says.

And I guess that’s what I’d gotten used to with Molli Malou: in happiness there were smiles and laughs, but her growing vocabulary was reserved for questions and expressions of dissatisfaction. And now suddenly she’s using her awesome power of words to compliment us on things I take for granted. So hopefully that makes me take less for granted!

Wait, wait, that’s way too rosy a picture of her I’ve just painted.

Her temper is still extremely volatile and she responds to anger or criticism by — and this is neither exaggeration nor overstatement — crossing her arms over her chest, pouting, and storming out of the room. She gets angry at us for being angry at her, sad at us for being upset with her.

She will not brook interruptions while she’s watching television or movies. Just the other night she went ballistic on me because I was making too much noise starting a fire while she was watching some children’s show or other. . . then stormed across the living room, picked up the remote, and cranked up the volume to about 11.

I didn’t even know she knew how to use the remote, though I myself had shown her how a dozen times.

Things like that are happening more and more often: new knowledge or behavior come bursting out in full flower, their origins a mystery to Trine and myself.

This morning, watching television, she observed a butterfly or bee or something.

“You know what they eat?” she asked Trine.

“What do they eat?” Trine asked.

“Nectar,” Molli Malou said offhandedly.

She hadn’t been asking: she’d been testing her own mother’s knowledge of butterflies (or bees or whatever– daddy’s not even sure he knows what eats nectar and doesn’t feel like googling).