Okay, technically it’s not summer yet, but it was about 28 and sunny all day here and Molli Malou and I had a very adventurous day. We began at the zoo.
As usual, we began with the polar bears, but the one was just bobbing lazily in the water and when the other came to join it (I don’t know their genders) they had a little spat that Molli Malou didn’t enjoy.
We proceeded directly to the ape house.
We were the only ones in the joint for quite a while. It was by now very hot outside and surprisingly cool among the primates, so I was happy to sit on a bench while Molli Malou played with the little chimp. I think the chimp Mom was as pleased as I was to let the kids entertain each other. Molli Malou would knock on the glass, the chimp kid would knock or kick back, Molli Malou would shriek with glee and run in circles, the chimp kid would roll around and make chimp noises, and then they’d both calm down and repeat the process. They cycled through it many times, although I only got a half-assed video of one episode in its entirety.
Eventually other families wandered in and Molli Malou’s monopoly on the chimp’s attention was diluted.
Molli Malou wanted to see the butterflies but for some reason refused to enter the tropical little sanctuary where they live. I think it may have been a temeperature thing, although she was a good fifteen feet from the door (which I was holding open), and therefore still comfortably cooled by the primate house climate, at the point when she suddenly froze in her tracks and decided to make it an issue.
So we went out and she raced giddily down to the penguin exhibit.
Oh, how she loves the penguins!
(I know, I know: monkeys and penguins, how original! I think it’s be fun to have a daughter who always wanted to go straight to the anteater or stare at the flamingos for hours on end.)
But it’s not about the animals, it’s about her enjoyment of them. And there’s plenty of that!
We were then on our way to the children’s zoo for a pony ride, which I had agreed she could have, when the face-painter caught her eye. That was that. She had to be a mouse, and was even willing to “trade” a facepainting for her pony ride. There was no line for the facepainting and I knew the pony ride would have a queue at least a mile long, so I caved right in.
The Making of Lillemus
The whole thing took five minutes, and I thought the woman did a great job. Molli Malou was not just compliant in getting some pictures of her mouse face, but she actually insisted on it, and even had to review the pictures to be sure they were good enough. These two passed muster.
By the time we got home to show Mor, the paint had faded somewhat, but Molli Malou was still enamoured of her mouse face.
“She’s such a pretty little mouse,” she would say of herself, in both languages. No one argued.
We had to wash her face for her nap so she wouldn’t soil all her linen, and she was surprisingly compliant with that, although she fell asleep murmuring about the pretty mouse being gone.
She had a three-hour nap. Trine and I napped for two of those hours. (I don’t think I mentioned that she was up until about eleven the night before and had awakened us early. In fact, she got out of bed in the morning, marched into our room, grabbed my glasses off my nightstand, handed them to me, turned around, marched back to the hallway, then turned and said, “Wake up and come in the living room, daddy. Now, please.”)
The three of us woke up from our naps around four, and we quickly rushed over to Mormor and Jørgen’s for an afternoon dip.
She’s phasing out of naps now, and her sleeping patterns are a little disrupted as a result. Plus we’re in that time of year where it never really gets dark out, which can’t help.
She’s promised to give up her dee-dee (her sut, or pacifier) after her third birthday, so sometime after she turns three we’ll finally make the pilgrimage to the Promise Tree in Frederiksberg Garden.
She has made no promises with respect to do-do, her comfort blankie.
She is now 94 cm and 12+ kg (about three feet tall and 27 pounds).
It is now ten past ten and Molli Malou has not slept a moment yet. Same as last night. Probably her nap was too long. But goddammit, the sun could help us out a little by going down at some point…
Lovely pictures and commentary. I hope to see ‘little mouse’ myself someday.