Three (etc)

Molli Malou’s third birthday is already old news, but here’s a lovely little video of her singing some of the birthday song to herself while we were out to dinner in Tivoli the evening of her actual birthday. It’s only a couple of megs (2.2MB), so if you click now it’ll download before you’re done reading this post.

A few days before her birthday we let Molli Malou open the birthday dress that Nana and Pop-Pop had sent her, in order that we might have time to wash it so she could wear it on the big day. The minute she saw it she flipped, first figuratively and then literally. She spent a good 15 minutes bouncing and dancing around the living room in her new dress and we pretty much had to pry her out of it to put her to bed that night.

Mormor was taking possession of her new summerhouse on July 1 and I was going to be in the UK for half that week, so Trine had already decided to keep Molli Malou out of kindergarten for the week. (We have to keep her out of school at least three full weeks at some point during the summer: one has to be chosen in advance, and two can be taken whenever.)

Anyway, since she wouldn’t be in kindergarten on her actual birthday they had her brithday party Friday.

Trine brought Molli Malou straight to Tivoli from kindergarten, and I rode my bike straight there from work.

First we ended up on the Chinese boats. The three of us rode together and Molli Malou was masterly at the helm.

She’s going back and forth on her fear factors: on this particular outing she decided she had to ride the Veteran Cars by herself, and should even stand in line by herself (well, just her and Haddie, anyway).

She’s very proud of riding by herself like the big girl that she is.

And she’s mastered this kind of regal wave to her loyal subjects.

But she was willing to make room in her car for her majesty’s special friend.

Her very special friend… Liam’s still not showing symptoms, but eventually we might be able to title this shot (taken just in time to miss their kiss) “A Pox on Liam” or “The Kiss of Pox.”

About half of Molli Malou’s family had chipped in on a new bed for Molli Malou’s birthday present. Since we knew she’d be heading up to the summerhouse the day after her birthday, we decided it would be best to spring the bed on her Saturday, so she’d have some time to enjoy it. Besides, we were excited about it and a little tired of all the boxes lying around the apartment, and we knew she was too clueless to really grasp the concept of her birthday anyway.

So late Saturday morning we told her to say goodbye to her old bed, the one she’d been sleeping in since she was about five months old.

It didn’t appear to be an especially mournful parting.

I spent about five or six hours putting that damn thing together. For a while the girls rested in the living room—as usual, one read while the other slept. Except it wasn’t the usual distribution of labor:

I got the bed together, but without its million accessories, just in time to show it to Molli Malou before she and Trine went off to visit Oldemor. Does the excitement show?

While they were out I put the finishing touches on and rearranged the room to make the most of the new bed, which is high enough to allow a little playspace underneath. Here’s a side view to try and convey what she’s got now:

The blackboard is also magnetic. You can see the bookshelf under the bed. There’s quite a lot of space under there, actually. We still have a long way to go, but all of it’ll be moot once we get the apartment next door (delayed but still a done deal) and can move all the shelving for our own crap out of her room.

We had to take the pictures down from beside her bed to prevent her from, I don’t know, tearing them down and eating them? Drawing on them? Anyway, she could live without Barney, Pierrot, and the polar bear from the zoo, but she was adamant about keeping her cousins where she could see them. So their new place of honor is flanking the M (that Molli Malou painted by herself, as she will happily inform anyone, even bugs) that’s mounted above her door.

Sunday we met John, Liam, and John’s mother Ann in Frederiksberg Garden for a boat ride. But we met three hours before the boat stand opened. So we wandered around the park for a while. The adults wandered: the kids ran amok. Seriously. These pictures were taken about 15 seconds apart:

Now we’re up to the big day. Trine and I set things up right.

And Molli Malou woke up just tremulous with the knowledge that the day was somehow special.

Trine gave her a lovely day at home while I was at work, then we all met at Tivoli… and this time the Fear Factor was set on low. So Molli Malou bravely rode the “bouncy ride,” and freaked out for the whole 60 seconds of the ride. I know it was 60 seconds because that’s the length of the 107MB video that makes my system crash every time I try to edit it. I will make it work eventually, because I have to. you have never seen such gleeful terror in your life. Anyway, the kicker is this shot, taken just after she got off the ride, while everyone within a hundred yard radius was trying to confirm their eardrums were still intact.

Next she ginned up her nerves for the “other bouncy ride,” with Daddy. Her nerves had lost some of their steel, though, so we weren’t allowed to go very high. We just sat there and spun around stupidly, Molli Malou kind of giddily excited and terrified as the world revolved below us at about two feet an hour.

Back to the Veteran Cars, though, and boy was she happy.

I mean, boy! was she happy!

Oh, come on, one more. It’s her third birthday, for God’s sake!

When it was time for dinner, Molli Malou knew just what wines to recommend.

The above picture was taken, by the way, within just a few minutes of the video that, if you began downloading it when I suggested you should, is probably cached on your hard drive and ready to run now.

Anyway, Molli Malou got through her fish and chips pretty quick, and I was first done with my ribs, so I took her out for a stroll to let the others eat in peace. One of our little activities was a review of the colorful ceramic creatures for sale on a tabletop display outside one of the many tchotchke shops. I decided to try and take some artsy fartsy pictures of them. Here’s one.

Note to self: do not take your eyes off a three-year old girl in the presence of ceramic tchotchkes.

I pretended to be very angry at Molli Malou for her wanton destruction, although of course I’m always secretly thrilled to see ceramic elephants bite the dust, so I told her we would have to go into the woman! at the counter! and pay! with money! for the bad, bad thing! that Molli Malou had done!

And of course Molli Malou was like, “Okay.”

So we went in to pay the woman for the broken elephant, and the woman wouldn’t hear of it. She waved us off.

“But we have to pay,” I said, holding out a 100-crown note. “Because we were bad.” The woman picked up on my vibe, pretended to accept the money, and let me keep it. Molli Malou was none the wiser. Which she wouldn’t have been anyway, so I don’t know what we gained from the episode.

Moving on.

After that incident, Molli Malou pointed the Balloon Ferris Wheel out to me. It was quite nearby. (Trine later told me she had observed it when they’d first come into the park and that Molli Malou had asked to ride it. Ferris-Wheel-Phobic Trine had said, “You can ride it with Daddy.”) Keep in mind, this is a girl who freaked out everyone within earshot (ie, within a 250 mile radius) just an hour earlier on a little bench that went about five feet up in the air and then came down again. The ferris wheel is probably a good 60-70 feet high, if not higher. No question the highest thing of any kind she’s ever been on. But she was adamant. So we got on line. And we got in our little Balloon gondola. And we began going round, all herky-jerky as the operator stopped for every gondola to let old customers out and take new ones in. The height had no effect on her. She loved it.

But once all the gondolas were filled with new customers, it started revolving in earnest. It swung as it rotated. Not so happy.

That’s about it for the birthday pics. Next thing you know I’m in Manchester. I know what big soccer fans you all are, so here’s the obligatory shot of the Trafford:

I spent my Manchester evenings with “Uncle” Uffe, who was kind enough to take this shot of me standing beside the Miraculous Postbox of Manchester, which survived the IRA bombing that leveled most of downtown Manchester in the late nineties.

Uffe and Kim also treated me to a ride on the Manchester Eye, which is just like London Eye except, you know… Manchester.

And I should note that the building it’s up against in that picture is mostly occupied by Manchester’s biggest Marks & Spencer store. It means nothing to me, but something from childhood tugs at me and tells me that means something to my own mother. Not M&S Manchester, but M&S as a kind of institution. Whenever my own maternal grandparents came to visit from London (when they lived in London), my mother was always keenest on the stuff from M&S, just as when they visited Palm Springs she was always keenest on those square lollilops from See’s Candy.

Again: moving on.

This is looking down on Manchester from the ferris wheel.

The course I was taking was down at the Quays (rhymes with fleas in British, so ought to be spelled Keys) was held in a building directly across from the Lowry, which is a kind of architectural object of interest.

Next thing you know, I’m flying home. Why don’t I take more pictures from airplane windows?

As you already know, I got home, slept, and shot straight up to the summerhouse. Not long after my arrival Trine, Molli Malou and I took a trip to the beach. The wind did a nice job of concealing the pox.

And sad to say, most of the shots for the next several days artfully avoid our primary subject’s face.

We let her take most of the pictures.

And the last pic of the bunch is actually a temporal flashback. It’s Molli Malou having her first outdoor shower up at the new summerhouse, at the very apex of her chicken pox.

Title it, “Unhappiness.”