Summertime

For starters, we have been taking a lot more video, so it’s hard to give you a representative week’s worth of Molli without cobbling an edited production together. Here’s this week’s… start downloading now (about 9MB) and you should have it by the time you’re done reading.

The first few shots are playground shots from the Langelandsvej playground, located smack dab in the middle of our current and former apartments. I took Molli there one morning last week and she fell in love with the little playhouse. Some older boys were playing in it when we got there, which only heightened its appeal to her.

They didn’t want anything to do with her, but she eventually weaseled her way into their tolerance. I took this shot a little after the boys left with their vuggestue:

She doesn’t like older girls as much as older boys, but she likes to imitate them. So after a couple of afternoons of having watched 2- and 3-year-old girls playing on these “grown-up” swings, Molli was just desperate to give one a whirl. I was very, very nervous plopping her into this swing and letting go long enough to take this picture (and some video you’ll see in the movie), but the alternative was to put up with her incessant whining. I guess I’m easily blackmailed.

In the event, she swang just fine and didn’t even come close to slipping off.

The bubbles with Elizabeth were such a hit we had to get our own. I don’t suppose bubble pictures require much narrative.

Saturday night we had dinner with the friends who sold us this apartment and now live further out from the city in a house with a yard. Their own daughter, Luna (whose old room is now Molli’s, although the shadows of block letters still say “Luna” on the door), had a tent set up in the back yard. Molli liked going in and out of the tent (as you can see in the movie). Here she is inside the tent:

And here’s our little watermelon girl coming out:

She’s become really affectionate with dolls and stuffed animals of a certain size lately. She latched right on to one of Luna’s and ran riot with it Saturday night:

Saturday had been warm; Sunday was actually hot. Trine put Molli into her lightest summery outfit and decided it was time to try getting her into some matching shoes. She wasn’t very graceful in them, but she did manage to walk a few circuits of the apartment.

Toward late afternoon John called and asked if we wanted to go catch the pig races. I thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t: this weekend they held pig races at Tivoli. Three races were held each day. The last race of the weekend was scheduled for 4pm Sunday. We were sure we could make it in time.

Not one of us did. But here’s the race course at about 4:06 pm:

The pigs, fresh from their race, were relaxing in a little hut just past the finish line. We tried to give Molli a glimpse of them. This isn’t a very good picture, but it’s a good example of yet another new behavior: look what Molli’s doing!

Often when she points she says, “di” or “deh,” either of which could conceivably be interpreted as “that” (in English) or “det” (in Danish).

After the disappointment of the pig race we brought the kids over to the outdoor theatre for an adventure with Harlequin, Pierrot, Columbine, and the other usual idiots. Molli and Liam were both enchanted for about ten or fifteen minutes, but eventually the plot became too complicated.

Equally fascinating were the pigs, whom we encountered again later at the other side of the park. They were in a fenced-off little sty over in the hanging gardens by the playground. Molli loved them.

And at the playground itself, I lowered her onto the trampoline expecting her to more or less sit there and bounce in place as she has in the past, or at most to try standing, fail, and resume bouncing on her bum. Instead she hopped right to her feet and bounded off into the middle of the trampoline, surrounded by dozens of much older children hopping in every direction, doing backflips and somersaults and random leaps. Watching Molli was like trying to watch one little kernel of popcorn in an active popper. Plenty of this scene in the movie, but here’s one shot from a less hectic moment:

Molli’s been approved for her vuggestue (daycare) and begins on September 1 at Troldehøj—the one we requested originally but had given up on getting in. She’ll be in seven hours a day, Monday through Friday. Mormor brought her by the place today and said Molli loved it.

That’s all for now… enjoy the video!