Whacking the Cat from the Barrel

First, an editorial note: I keep referring to Molli Malou as Molli. That’s an error. We’ve decided to stick with Molli Malou. Ignore the space between the names. Think of her as MolliMalou if you must. But henceforth she is Molli Malou. (Compound names like that are common in Denmark.) If I call her Molli in the blog by accident, kindly forgive me and overlook the error.

Recent Developments

It’s been another breakneck week for Molli Malou. Her fascination with the computer is becoming an obsession.

Additionally, she—oh, for God’s sake, who cares. She’s cute as hell. Want to see how cute? Feast your eyes:

Okay, now that the cute fix is taken care of, here’s more developmental news: Molli Malou is realling to the potty. She calls it the “tisse-pot,” which is literally only translatable as “piss-pot,” and whenever we undress her now she goes scrambling after it babbling, “tisse-pot! tisse-pot! tisse-pot!” Then she squats in it, grunts, asks for a book (I’m not kidding), stands up, squats again, convinces you she’s never going to do anything, then takes a few steps away and pees a little on the floor.

“Tisse-pot!” you roar at her.

Then she goes running back to the tisse-pot and squats down and unloads about deciliter or two. Honestly. At least, that’s been my experience twice in the past three days. Trine’s experiences may have varied. (I say that just to prevent her from reading this and saying, “You liar!”) Then she marches alongside me as I carry the pot to the toilet and dump the contents into the bowl, then says “Good girl!” and “Yay!” as I flush.

Seriously. Twice this has happened just as I’ve recorded it, once no more than two hours ago. The first time it happened was Friday, I think, and it was a little different as both Trine and I were there and we were both so flabbergasted that she’d actually used the thing we—well, we went nuts, and I ran for my camera in time for this priceless shot. (Oh, she’s going to grow up hating this blog!)

She’s also learned how to turn the television on and off, how to open, close, play, and stop the DVD and VHS players, and, most astonishingly to me, my camera. Here’s one of her recent efforts (I’m not pushing any buttons, but I am holding onto the camera to keep it on the table):

Fastelavn

I think I explained the tradition of Fastelavn on this blog last year, and even if I didn’t I think I did a pretty good job of it in the Almanac. Just Google “Fastelavn moron” or something and see what you find. (There are reasons why I’m not linking directly.)

Here’s Molli Malou doing some pre-cat-whacking warmups in her Tiger costume.

Before the cat can be beat off the barrel, it’s a tradition in our building to line all the kids up for a mug shot in case any of them subsequently puts the bat to bad use.

It was Molli Malou’s first time in a line-up; she was confused.

I mean, what were all these people doing in such weird clothes?

I’m guessing the clowns freaked her out:

Next step was to stand in line for a whack at the barrel. It was a long line.

I guess it was sort of a scary line.

But she got braver as she neared the front.

Just click here to watch or download a 4.75MB video of Molli Malou whacking that barrel in living color. She had the time of her life smacking that thing.

It was, as usual, the oldest boy on hand—a pirate—who finally splintered the barrel and sent the bags of candy flying.

And so he was crowned Cat King, and got to wear a crown and reign over the little breakfast off coffee, juice, buns, rolls, and cake.

(There’s also a Cat Queen, but I didn’t get any pictures of her.)

That’s all!