Shrek Plus

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks for us with Trine back in school and things accellerating for me at work, so there haven’t been many special moments to send me rushing for the camera.

Not that there always has to be a reason to rush for the camera. Sometimes Molli Malou just looks so damn cute I have to take a picture.

But last weekend there was a big event: Shrek was making a personal appearance at the Lyngby mall. Molli Malou was beside herself with excitement.

The open area in the middle of the arcade had been completely transformed into a promotional wonderland of Shrek material. You could play Shrek: the Videogame on Playstations provided in cooperation with Sony, you could play Shrek the Computer Game on computers provided in cooperation with Hewlett Packard, there were play areas for coloring in pictures of Shrek and, a little incongruously, for making bead bracelets and necklaces. There were posters and banners and cutouts all over, all of them reminding you of the importance of not missing out on the new Shrek movie (“tickets are on sale at the box office now!”). The centerpiece of the shmaltzy Shrekorama was a platform with a slightly tattered green easy chair on it, and a fairy castle backdrop behind it. This was where Shrek would appear and greet the children at 14:00.

A promotional guy would take a picture of each child with Shrek and print it on the photoprinter provided in cooperation with Hewlett Packard (“feel free to take a brochure…”), and these pictures were given to the children for free.

The promotional guy told us the line would be hellacious. He told us to arrive no later than 13:45 if we wanted a good spot in line. So we wandered off, got sandwiches and drinks at the grocery store, and returned to eat them in line. We were actually the first ones to queue up. The line filled out pretty impressively behind us. Molli Malou was very excited to be the first in line.

And suddenly—look, over there, who’s that massive green ogre wading through the throngs of adoring kids and harried parents?

It’s Shrek!

Molli Malou was a little shy in the great ogre’s presence.

She later told me, “He can’t talk here. He can only talk on television. Here he just smiles.” I was glad he was mute: if he’d started feigning a Scottish brogue in Danish I think it would have thrown Molli Malou for a loop because she’s only seen the original Michael Myers-voiced Shrek.

The photo op was very brief.

The further she got from Shrek, the more she adored him.

We were very, very grateful to have been first in line.

Last Sunday was also the second of our fantasy football drafts, and Molli Malou helped us get in the spirit of things for the 12th annual AFL draft. (She now calls Uncle Gene, who renamed his storied franchise to “The Monkey’s Uncles” this season, “Monkey Uncle!”)

Trine broke out the face paint one night earlier this week and turned Molli Malou into a “half-cat, half-tiger.”

And here’s the place where Molli Malou is spending about half an hour per day these days: with Oline.