Creeping Toward Crawling (etc)

It’s August, and today marks the end of my week of vacation. There’s been a lot of silence from me lately because the week before my vacation was spent in hectic preparation for our first real party, a joint housewarming and “navngivning” (name-giving) party for Maddie.

Speaking of whom… for some reason I think I like whatever it is she’s expressing here:

Molli Malou and Mille next door are still best friends, but they’ve become a trio now with Sophie (three syllables in Danish, so not quite like her cousin’s name–in English it would be Sophia) from three doors down.

A couple of days before the party, we had a magnificent summer sunshower that led to a spectacular rainbow that rocked Molli’s world:

Maddie’s world is rocked by her new-found ability to slide herself around on the floor with always surprising effects:

And the sisters continue to bond:

So… we’re up to the party now. We’d invited pretty much everyone we knew, and in the end we had a little over forty guests. The house had never seen such liveliness during our occupation, and it was a joy to see how easily we could accommodate so many friends. We’d heated the pool for the occassion.

And here’s the guest of honor in her Mormor’s arms:

Random shots just to give a sense of the party. . .

Molli Malou bonded especially with her “cousin” Elisabeth — the daughter of her mother’s cousin David. They were good at egging each other on. Elisabeth persuaded Molli Malou that she was a fool to waste her time climbing our little apple tree when we had such giant walnut trees so nearby…

The sun finally set and Molli Malou settled into her princess palace with Nikolai & Linda’s girls… boys were not allowed inside, so this was the best shot I could get:

Was it a good party, Molli Malou?

We’ll take that as a yes.

Maddie woke up the next morning as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

But the pool was so very warm we thought she might like a dip, and indeed she did:

She is so on the brink of crawling… the video to be posted later this weekend has more evidence, but here’s a preview:

It’s hard to get a picture with both girls looking at the camera, so I take what I can get:

And lo and behold: an actual picture of me with both girls!

Molli Malou had been very curious about boats ever since I started sailing the Tuesday races, and I finally found a novel way to start teaching her the fundamentals of boating.

(Yeah, they’re cute, but wait until you see the video!)

Meanwhile, back to Maddie and… sitting up at the table with us to take her meals!

…from her big sister!

On Thursday I took Molli Malou to Tivoli. All summer I’ve been telling her I’d buy her a big balloon “next time,” and I figured it was about time to give her the payoff. She was ecstatic. Until it got a little windy on the walk home from the train station and she got scared the wind would carry her balloon away…

And that evening we gave Maddie a little swing.

And that’s it… until the video.

Which will come soon.

Really.