It’s Been a While

Things have been busy and we haven’t been at our best. We’ll leave it at that.

First, at some point last week I managed to get a picture of Molli Malou going down her beloved slide at Vuggestue. Some day I’ll actually get film of it, but it’s kind of hard when I’m the one setting her up at the top. (She still doesn’t have the sense to turn herself around to go feet first on her belly. She wants to do some kind of crazy leaping kamikaze suicide somersault dive or something, and it takes a certain amount of physical persuasion to convince her otherwise.)

She’s still struggling with the living room couches. The big leather couch is the most appealing to her. I don’t think it’s the black leather that gets her going… it’s just that we plop her down on the white linen sofa-bed-divan thing to change her all the time, and she’s been scooting off it by herself for months, so (a) it doesn’t represent much of a challenge to her, and (b) it doesn’t have very positive associations. The big leather couch, though–hey! That’s a grown up place! She never gets to sit up there unless it’s in one of our laps.

Just look at her determination:

Anyway, if you downloaded the last video (still available as of today) you saw her try and fail to mount the couch: that video was from this same session.

Here’s why we don’t let her stay up once she gets up:

You know how leather couches can be annoying the way they stick to exposed skin? The same phenomenon enables Molli Malou to climb the couch without a problem when she’s running around nude or in a diaper. She’s like the Incredible Spider Girl.

She’s also beginning to exude more curiosity to the camera… and sometimes hostility.

I remember when Molli’s cousins were this age (more or less) and we’d be visiting and their mom and dad would take them off into another room at the end of the day to get them ready for bed, and then these adorable little munchkins would come padding out in their pajams to say goodnight (or at least “guh-guh”), and I could never get over how painfully and adorably beautiful and innocent they were. And it just kills me that all of you in the states aren’t getting these same moments with Molli, whose adorability at bedtime is apparently in a direct, inverse proportion to her hellaciousness during the day that led up to it. Looking at these “end of day” pictures, can’t you just smell her?

On October 5, Molli had her second-to-last swim class of this session. The teacher brought a camera. On October 12 Molli had her last class. The teacher brought the pictures. I’ve scanned them. These are all underwater pictures and I present them without further ado…

Hey, Molli Malou—you graduated Level 1 of the Dolphin Swim Test! How do you feel about that?

(And no, I have no idea why her hair looks orange under water.)

In terms of recent developments, Molli Malou’s getting better at stairs, is beginning to kiss on command, is lifting and moving objects of larger and larger size around the apartment, is beginning to get fifteen seconds of separation anxiety when we drop her off at Vuggestue, is still nowhere near being able to say mor or daddy, is getting pissed when we try to feed her before allowing her to try to feed herself, is playing more roughly with the cats and beginning to irritate them, and knows the word “hot,” uses it correctly, and likes to put her hand near hot things and say “hot” and then “ow!”

With a little prompting, if you ask her “Who’s Molli Malou?” (or “Hvem er Molli Malou?”) she’ll thump her chest proudly without saying anything.

Her best friend at Vuggestue is Anna Lina, the daughter of Trine’s good friend. We’re all doing everything we can to encourage their friendship. Anna Lina is in a very kissy phase herself, and earlier this week or late last week I asked Anna Lina to kiss Molli. Molli Malou seemed to understand as well: the girls kissed each other on the lips! It was adorable. Anna Lina calls Molli Malou something like “Muh-Moo,” or maybe “Moo-moe.” It varies, but it’s clearly two m-sounds with nearly appropriate vowel sounds.

Besides “hot,” “cat,” and “haps,” the other big vocabulary addition has been “more/mere” (mere is Danish for more). She’s still working out the kinks, but it’s definitely distinct from her “muh-muh-muh” sound for mad (food or meal) and her mum-mum-mum-mum sound for mor (or mom or mum or whatever). And there’s no doubt at all about her intention: she reaches out for more of whatever it is she wants and says, “mmmoe-meeya” or something like that. You could hypothesize that she’s saying both more and mere. I just did. Trine’s not sure she agrees.

She’s initiating a lot of peek-a-boo games, and especially likes to squat behind the coffee table and the pop up all at once. We overreact, of course, and she giggles and does it again. And again. And again. And on and on and on.

She’s become extremely interested in dish-washers.

She’s also becoming profoundly manipulative with her crying fits, and we’re trying to nip them. Usually she’ll turn off the waterworks after about thirty seconds (or less) if you just ignore her, but sometimes she’ll persist for a few minutes. Yesterday she wigged out on the playground in the courtyard because we took a bike helmet away from her. She screamed bloody murder for five full minutes. Could not be distracted. Would not be. So we let her scream until she got bored and decided to wander over to the cellar staircase.

But it’s only particular things at particular moments that she insists on having in this way. Today in the courtyard two older boys were playing in the playhouse. (“It’s a ship!” one of them confided in me, “And no girls allowed!”) Molli was playing with—or alongside—an older girl who didn’t like the prohibition. She wrangled her way in eventually. The boys taunted Molli (and me, and a handful of mothers) that none of us could come in. Molli didn’t seem to care. She just waddled over to a nearby tricycle and began honking its horn. I, on the other hand, squatted in front of the playhouse door and said they weren’t allowed out. Then I did a villainous “bwa-ha-haaa!” laugh. The reaction was predictable.

I need to scale down my expectations for irony appreciation from the under-three set.

And I need to go to bed.