Biker Chick

As promised, a whole new plethora dating from Big New Bike Day on April 1.

Here’s the bike, which I assembled during Molli Malou’s nap on Sunday. (She’d gone to the store with us to buy it, and knew it was a bike, but seemed to think we’d just gone out and bought her a big box with a picture of a bike on it. She was much more excited about the kiddie scissors we’d bought her.)

The video thing is really a conundrum. On the one hand, when special things happen of course I want the best possible video of it. I want superfine, high-res, 1280 x 960 at minimum. On the other hand, it’s unrealistic to think I’m going to have time to edit and compress videos the way I used to, in more leisurely times, so I want to grab video that’s compressed and can be shared right away, just as easily as my photos.

It’s going to be a struggle to find the right balance. I’m sure I will sometimes shoot gorgeous cinematic video that I regret not being able to share right away, and will sometimes shoot crappy little low-res stuff of moments that I wish I’d preserved forever in CinemaScopic glory. If you think I’m worrying too much, bear in mind that I’m not really explaining all this to you. I’m talking to Grown-Up Molli Malou here.

So, dear literate daughter of the future, here is some compressed home video of your waking up from a nap to your first real bike (7MB: if you can’t download it, just watch it stream).

Obviously we were almost immediately down in the yard, and Molli Malou gave Haddie the ride of her life.

She rode around the courtyard for a while, proud and happy and desperately wishing Smilla would come and ask to borrow her bike. (She never did.)

Mormor and Jørgen came by to enjoy the spectacle of Molli Malou goin’ mobile, and although she had already migrated to the swings by then, the minute she saw them in the courtyard she shouted (in Danish) “Look, Mormor! Look, Jørgen! Look here!” and she galloped maniacally across the yard to her bike, exploding with pride.

Soon she was back on the swings and took a liking to Jørgen’s cap.

I’ve given Molli Malou kind of a daredevil rep on this blog, but she does have her intellectual side…

Although I don’t know how intellectual you can be with a sut jammed in your mouth.

And yet, she’s definitely into the paper… Berlingske can’t say I’m not doing my part to boost circulation!

Speaking of intellectual behavior… for some reason, Molli Malou thinks the mesh windows of her princess palace are one-way only. In the photo below, she’s calling out to us, “Mor, daddy, where’s Molli Malou? You can’t find me!” And of course we reinforce that by pretending we can’t, so it’s really our fault.

But when this is the reward, would you do it any differently?

In Denmark, Easter weekend begins on Thursday and runs through Monday. We spent Thursday with Molli Malou’s Morfar. She was very shy upon our arrival just before lunchtime, but began to open up with Blackie.

I didn’t mention her pigtails, which are in Denmark called rattails.

God, I love the next shot.

So… she likes grapes…

And loves her Morfar…

..and his sandals. . .

They had some good long conversations over the course of the day.

Molli Malou got something caught in her teeth during or shortly after dinner, and it was driving her crazy.

So for once she actually asked to brush her teeth. Morfar offered to let her use his big grownup toothbrush, and his big grownup toothpaste, which Molli Malou usually considers “too spicy.”

And she did a pretty good job of brushing her teeth…

At the bidet.

Then it was time to say goodnight.

I might as well acknowledge that we got the first conscious, deliberate lie out of Molli Malou this morning (or yesterday… I forget). It was exactly as I’d predicted a few blog posts ago (go ahead, look it up!). I was in the bedroom on my computer and Trine was in the living room on her own. Molli Malou was just ambling around entertaining herself and singing in her imaginary language, something not quite Danish, not quite English, and not even really anything like Spanish. I heard her asking Trine, in Danish, for some tape to play with, and I heard Trine say no.

A moment later the little villain was before me in the bedroom, asking for some tape.

“Didn’t you just ask mor?” I asked.

She nodded.

“And what did mor say?”

“Mor said. . . Yes!”

“That’s interesting,” I said. “Maybe we should go ask mor what she said.”

“Mor said yes,” Molli Malou said, urgently and a little nervously.

I led her on a forced march into the living room.

“Molli Malou,” I said histrionically, to catch Trine’s attention and communicate a little of what was going on, “Molli Malou, when you asked mor if you could play with some tape, what did she say?”

“Said yes,” Molli Malou declared.

And Trine’s eyes took it from there.

We bought her madpakke—her lunchbox—today. She insisted on using it for lunch this afternoon.She seems to feel very grown up with it.

It’s been a very low-key holiday weekend, so there’s just not much more to report on. It just feels good to be blogging Molli Malou’s little life again!

Oh, last note: yes, if you noticed her hair looks a little different later in the week, that’s because she did get a little haircut. Tuesday afternoon, I think.