Little drummer boy

Giffer is coming

I have to admit that I actually don't like other people's kids (OPKs) very much. With a few exceptions, of course. This was not the case before I had my own children. Before I became a mother, I was happy to babysit and play with little kids and generally thought they were ok most of the time....

But then I had my own, and other children just seemed to pale into insignificance compared to the shining light and radiance and pure special snowflake-ness of my own offspring. To be brutally honest, OPKs annoy me, sometimes disturb me and usually tire me out (still with those exceptions - if you are reading this and I know your children, I obviously am talking about other-other people's kids, ok?). I think it is because you can't quite treat them in the same way as your own children - you have to be nice.

Um, that didn't come out right!

Anyway, I think before I am lynched for being mean about children 10 days before Christmas, I'll just say that the reason for this long pre-amble is to warn that the rest of this post is about my super special snowflake and his words. And although to me this is the most interesting and cute thing in the universe, I can totally get that it is just not so much to most other people.

(I amuse myself here because I am writing as though I have a readership of more than 2. And one of those is Grandma and I know she'll be interested. But, anyway!)

Here are some of the delicious things that Samuel is saying these days. He talks All.The.Time. A very loud running commentary about everything in his world as he sees it.

He says Giffer instead of Christmas - so he talks about the Giffer Man coming and Giffer Trees and Giffer lights.

He says Uncle Mushroom instead of Uncle Matthew.

He says Side Up Down instead of upside down.

He calls his sister Nanna Nessa instead of Anna Vanessa.

Grapes are Googlie goos

Olives are Ollies

Yoghurt is Ogg-Oh

And on and on. He is putting words together (Sam sit down there; Look mummy - man! Big Man! Funny!) and will confidently switch from English to Danish to talk to people he knows speak Danish. He will say "Se Farmor, hund!" and then turn to me and say "Look Mummy, dog!" He can name blue and green.
And he is just funny. He'll do a fake fall and then lie on the floor and say "Oh No! Fall Down! Sammy sad!" In the morning he'll say "Good......Morning Mummy" And he will often un-prompted thank you if you give him something, although he always says the Danish tak rather than thank you.

Anna showed him that when she pushed her tummy button she turned into a train with Whoo! whoo! sounds and train movements. He fully expects everybody's navel to have this same special skill.

It's all so innocent and brilliant to witness.

Wrapping up

Apparently "writing is the new praying". If this is true then "Bless me Father, for I have sinned - it's been a very long time since I wrote anything."

The "little and often" approach is obviously not my strength and certainly cannot be applied to my blogging skills. The "a lot and often" method, however, can definitely be applied to my shopping behaviour in December.

We have been busy:

• All 4 of us have celebrated a birthday in the last 7 days (we needed 90 candles on cakes). This is not the best planning - Aksel and I have a birthday on the same day and we have children with exactly 6 years and 4 hours between them - at least they get their own day, but one after the other....


• Anna had a party with all her class here - a cinema party no less. We had 18 eight year olds in the living room - 16 of them boys. Yes, it took me a while to recover and No, we are not doing it again next year.


• I baked bread rolls for Sam's birthday treat at nursery - they are not allowed cakes there. This did not faze Samuel at all - he was getting lots of cake at home. This is what he has said pretty much every day in December: Birthday mummy? Cake mummy? Candles? Hurrah! Sam too!


• We've been to England - the birthday party with my 11 year old niece was excellent. The surprise 40th birthday party for an old university friend of Aksel's? Not so much. (I really don't get surprise birthday parties - don't do one for me, ok? I'd rather be prepared. Plus, I don't like socially awkward situations and combining my in-laws and my crazy aunt with the friends I haven't seen for 5 years is not the best evening that I have in mind.)

I found my Christmas spirit too, along with the box of decorations. These two also helped:

Cleaning up

I've been back from London for ages but had lots of catching up to do - sleep, work, costumes for Christmas performances, more work, laundry, cleaning.

Cleaning is a bit of an emotional topic.

Although Aksel would quite like to be transported back to the 1960s Mad Men style home, where I fixed him a drink the moment he came home from work and his most taxing domestic duty might be to change a fuse, he actually does not believe it is all my responsibility to clean and is fairly willing to do his share.

The problem is that we just don't agree on when things need cleaning and on the level of dirt that is acceptable before a mop needs to be picked up.

A quick quiz of my girlfriends and I understand that this is a normal phenomenon. Apparently, men are just able to live with a lot more dirt and mess than women. Except for one of my friends who is married to an anal type, bordering on OCD. She moans about her husband's need to clean each individual tile to perfection in the bathroom, while I am actually wondering if I could borrow him for a while.

And while my girlfriends are sympathising with me and agreeing, they don't seem to have messy homes. How do they do it? If I am at someone's house and it is really clean and tidy, I admire their home and organizational skills. I wonder if they were rushing around to clean before I arrived or whether it always looks like this. And if I am in a slightly less clean, bit untidy house I will secretly feel a bit relieved and pleased. The thing is, although I like to think that I am not judging people by the tidiness of their house, I think that people are definitely judging me by the tidiness of mine.

A former colleague once admitted to me she used the Black-Plastic-Bin-Bag-Method to clean up. This is a mad dash round the house with a sack 15 minutes before guests are about to arrive.
I don't do this, but I am a big fan of the closely related Boot-of-the-Car-Method. This is used when you are trying to sell your house and have people coming round to see it Any. Minute. Now. You need to disappear the laundry basket, the mountain of toys in the living room, the pile of coats and boots in the porch and any other evidence that your home might lack storage space or the extra bedroom your potential buyers are looking for.

I know other people who have perfected the Little-and-Often-Method. This is probably my parents and other sensible people. Their homes always look ok and they are never worried to welcome unexpected guests. The mess never gets the better of them and they are basically on top of it. I wish I was in this category. Why I didn't inherit some proper cleaning gene I don't know.

But I think I am, unfortunately, in the All-or-Nothing-Method, which is just such a shame. I don't do anything unless I can do it properly, so I don't even start the cleaning unless I can complete the entire blitz of the vacuuming, mopping, dusting, re-arranging, re-cycling, polishing, and sanitizing in one go. And as I rarely (never) have 10 hours of uninterrupted time that I need to devote to cleaning, you can imagine how often this happens. My home looks extremely brilliant and clean and wonderful for about 1 hour every two months and then slowly declines into disarray until I am stepping over piles of stuff and eventually, after much huffing and puffing, the whole process starts again.

I would like to be the sort of domestic whirlwind that can transform the post-weekend debris and chaos into a hygienic and tidy place to be with just a few swiffs of the swiffer in the available 20 minutes. Because I do like Tidy. In fact, I thrive in Tidy and am a nicer person to be around. The mess is just stressful and annoying and makes me grumpy.

So this week I am changing my category. From now on I will be a Little-and-Often Goddess.

Failing that, I have a big pile of black bin bags.

It's all London baby!

I'm off to London tomorrow for Girls on tour 2. For details of GOT1, you can look here.

For some idea of what I'll be doing in London, you can look here (Gasp! I know! A guest blog post! Me! Feeling very honoured by the whole thing.)

In the meantime, I am busy packing and writing Aksel operating instructions for everything.

It is not easy but it is simple

Aksel and I used to comment on how easy Anna was as a baby and toddler. At the time, with nothing much to compare it to, we didn't fully appreciate the lack of tantrums. But we were rather smug and self-congratulatory about our great parenting skills.

This was until our son turned up and reminded us that nature might just play a bigger part than nurture and it's all just half-chance anyway.

Samuel really is a buddle of intense loving fury. He is at that stage where he literally thinks the world revolves around him. Right now everything in the universe is Mine! But I know that this is just "that phase" and it will pass. And besides being loving and consistent and trying to pre-empt obvious battles, there is really not much you can do to help your toddler acquire the life skills to function in the world. Or rather, you know the things you want them to learn (take turns, share, don't hit, say please, say thank you, say sorry, play nicely, don't throw that etc etc) and you can teach these things at appropriate intervals and hope for the best. It is not easy – but it is fairly uncomplicated.

The world of the nearly 8-year-old, on the other hand, I am finding much more complex. Right now with Anna we are navigating through topics such as racism, bullying, sex, war, poverty, death, disease and religion. And we are also trying to teach her about the ebb and flow of friendships, about taking responsibility, and about tidying up.

And as we find our way through these things, her shift in mood from elated to hysterical in 0.2 seconds has me floored.

I am finding this all so much more complicated than teaching an ego-centric toddler to share. The parenting “stuff” that worked wonderfully a couple of years ago just doesn’t seem to fit. So my once “easy” daughter is not so much these days and my “difficult” son is somehow much more straightforward. The things Samuel needs are easy and obvious to provide: Nappies, food, love.

Of course, food and love are just as important to Anna. And she’s really easy to love. But meeting her other needs – her need for independence and to make her own mistakes and for privacy or attention – these are harder to work out. Finding the right moment to offer a hug or a compliment and working out when to be stricter and which rules I’m going to insist on and where I’m going to draw the line can leave me spinning. And if I’m confused – imagine how she must be feeling.

We’d better hurry up and get it sorted out. It’s lucky we have a good few years before she is a teenager, because then, so I am told, you’d better know exactly what your boundaries and perspectives are.

Remember, remember

I have been told that it is November 5th and this means bonfire night, guy fawkes, gun powder, treason and plot. And most importantly fireworks. Sadly, we are not having any of these over here.

Fireworks are impossible to buy at this time of year - some sort of regulation thing. Which is kind of ironic when you see what the Danes are allowed to do with fireworks in their own back-garden on New Year's Eve. As far as I can tell, no regulations whatsoever. Until you have seen your neighbour cheerfully lug a great big Rocket and launcher past your garden fence and witnessed the bombardment of fire that is truly spectacular at midnight on 31st December, you won't really understand what I mean. Every year I think it is amazing that more homes aren't totally burnt down by slightly mis-directed rockets.

Anyway. I used to love November 5th as a child. I remember cold nights up the rec watching the village display and the guy burning on the fire. And baked potatoes eaten in the back garden with sparklers for company.

And I remember writing a song with a few other children and the music teacher at my junior school. It was part of a school competition to do with fire safety.

At this time of year (and around New Year's Eve, funnily enough) I can sometimes be heard singing it to my children:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The firework code:

Stand well back when you light your jumping jack!
Remember the firework code.

And if you have a dog or cat
Well just remember that
They should stay indoors!

And if you have a rocket
Don't put it in your pocket
Remember the firework code!

And on and on and on for several more verses I think. Luckily, I don't remember it all.

All the homes... No. 3

In my second and third year at university I rented a really dirty house in SE London with 4 others. The house had the type of grime that only years of non-cleaning and student neglect and apathy can inflict. I am sure I would be shocked to see the squalid conditions now, but I didn't mind so much then.

The "garden" was so overgrown that we literally could not open the backdoor. Until one day the landlord came round with a scythe and hacked away for a couple of hours - then we could sort of sit out there on nasty plastic chairs. But it also meant that the families of mice that had been previously making their nests in all that long grass were suddenly homeless. And they didn't waste any time calling squatter's rights in our kitchen. Maybe that's where my love of mice comes from. I remember having to stomp around loudly in the living room before entering the kitchen so that I would scare the little creatures away from the bread.

The house was very close to the train station and after a night out it took about 40 seconds to make it home in a quick sprint, dodging the drug pushers on the corner.

To start with, I shared with girlfriends who were all doing language degrees. This was a mistake as in my third year they all buggered off to Paris and Cologne and left me there all billy-no-mates to do my finals. My fellow psychology friend Rob moved in. He was really cool but brought along his neurotic, annoying Norwegian girlfriend and her (also Norwegian) friend (who turned out to be really nice and I still see in Copenhagen occasionally). We rented the final room to random-bloke-Paul, who liked to borrow my Calvin & Hobbes books, was an anarchist and sometimes received dodgy substances in the post (cleverly addressed to Mr M. Mouse, presumably to confuse the narcotics authorities).

I had one of the better rooms, downstairs with french doors (again). I remember sitting for many hours there, tapping away on my little Apple Macintosh that I got for my 21st birthday. It was an awful student house and a great couple of years.

In Bed and Happily Zombie Free

So, Halloween is coming...

The rather fantastic Nicola at micro-chasms wrote a post a while back about a game she played with her husband: Happy (and) in Bed?

The version that Aksel and I play is a bit more weird and has more elements of zombies, but essentially it is a similar idea. It started 12 years ago when we lived in Jutland. In the middle of nowhere. A little way down the road was a deserted (haunted), derelict (possessed) house.

On cold, stormy, very dark nights, while we lay all cosy in bed, we would ask each other: How much money would you need to.... and then the question would end with variations on the theme of getting up, (possibly) getting dressed, going to the creepy house and spending the night there (often in the basement), usually without a torch.

Although the question was obviously hypothetical, the rule is that you have to answer as though the money is on the table - yours for the taking.

Aksel is quite a lot cheaper than me and I definitely value my nightmare-free sleep more than him. He'd normally do it for 50,000 DKK whereas I would sometimes need that much just to get out of bed.

Years later, we moved to suburbia north of Copenhagen, in a cul-de-sac of tightly packed neighbours where everyone knew everyone else's business but pretended not to. The game changed a little.

There were no haunted houses in the vicinity. But if the Scandinavians actually used net curtains, they definitely would have been twitching. So the question was along the lines of How much money do you need to get out of bed right now, hop around naked to the neighbours and ask to borrow sugar? Extra money was awarded if you called upon the slightly freaky Ned Flanders-type family. Again, I valued my dignity and continued ability to live amongst these people slightly more than Aksel, who argued that they didn't speak to us anyway, so it wouldn't make much difference.

Since moving again this year, we are in the position to add the Zombie element to the question. There is a small building a little way down our street, full of nothing else but freezers, buzzing away. We think it is a left over from the days before folk had their own freezers, but a more plausible explanation is that it houses a dozen frozen zombies. All waiting to come and frighten us the day the power fails, eat our food (or us), and watch our telly.

Now Aksel, who has been known to read How to Survive a Zombie Attack guides, has got quite good at freaking himself out with this little story. And when the question comes up How much money do you need to go and spend the night in the zombie house... I am normally pretty willing to go for not so much, considering the inconvenience. Whereas on particularly dark nights Aksel can refuse all monetary compensation whatsoever.

Have you seen how fast those things can move? he asks.

The Nativity

There is a funfair squished into the centre of Copenhagen called the Tivoli. A mixture of fancy fountains and gardens and lights and roller coasters and restaurants and stalls. It is, with the exception of Bakken just up the road, the oldest amusement park in the world.

I'm hoping to go with the children soon as they do a really good Halloween.

We obviously went there, back in the 1970's, when I was on holiday with my parents.
After the summer holidays, back at school in England , my class was asked to respond to the inevitable "What did you do in your summer holidays?" question that the teacher always asks.
All the usual answers came up including beaches, icecream, watching TV, riding ponies and visiting grandparents. Until it got to my turn and I proudly told the teacher that my parents had taken me to The Nativity.

I remember her giving me a funny look and asking if I was sure.

(In hindsight the sub-text is clear -Sure that my parents had taken me to an account of the birth of Jesus? In July? In Denmark?)

Yes, I was sure!

And, I said (as if that wasn't enough weird already) we had also been to a beach where people were naked.

This was all probably quite shocking for a British infant school teacher to hear at that time. I'm sure she thought I had been to some naked religious festival, which was definitely not the done thing in my small village.

Anyway, the thing that I'm actually admitting here is that it was a very long time before I realised that I had got the name wrong and that the amusement park was not actually called The Nativity. I'm talking years and years. Long after I should have known better.

Good job he was easily impressed with my geography skills and could overlook the odd desire to visit a funfair where kids dressed up as shepherds by putting tea-towels on their heads.

(oh, and I might have got the name wrong for Tivoli, but I was right about the naked people.)

Kobberbryllup

Aksel and I celebrated our Kobberbryllup yesterday -which in Denmark is a sneaky way of getting in another wedding anniversary.

It is a celebration of the fact that you have been married for 12 and a half years. And that you are half way to the big 25 years - Silver Wedding Anniversary.

(The cynic in me suspects that perhaps this tradition exists because people don't necessarily expect to be with each other the full 25 years?)

Anyway... 12 and a half years ago, Aksel and I said that "we would" in the church in the village where I grew up (by the way, only the Americans say "I do" - Brits agree to our nuptials with a more willing "I will").

To celebrate this funny half-year anniversary, we had had rather ambitious dreams of weekends in Rome or Paris. In the end, partly due to our lack of organizational skill but mainly due to the lack of gazillions of kroner in the bank, we managed a full 24 hours without children, playing tourist in the lovely chic (and nearby) Copenhagen.

We ate cake at La Glace (where our Danish wedding cake originated from and just about made it to England in time for the wedding) and then we wandered and shopped around the city with no particular agenda or timeline. It was perfect. We ate dinner at the restaurant d'jour, MASH, and it was very good. Particularly the novel part where we got to complete whole sentences without being interrupted.

The night was spent in 5***** Hotel D'Angleterre, where just about any celebrity who has ever visited DK has also chosen to stay (as evidenced by the rather naff little name plaques "discreetly" placed by the lift). It was also pretty perfect. And the breakfast buffet this morning, eaten at a very civilized 10 o'clock, kept us going until 6 this evening.

All the homes I have lived in - No. 2

This was an all-girls halls of residence at university in London. I lived there in my first year. I was 18 and it was 1989.

I had a great room, with French doors opening out to the garden courtyard. My parents dropped me off, making sure I knew how to write a cheque so that I could pay the rent, before leaving me to it.

It was not my first choice of university or accommodation. But I grew to love being a student in London and found it easy to live there and make the city my home for the next three years. In terms of the halls, I was disappointed that I was going to be in an all-girls environment.... and although I made some good friends, I didn't really fit in with the girly cliques that quickly formed. I would have hated to go to an all-girls school!

But it proved not to be a problem in the end. We held great parties. The invitations went something like:

Party at halls of residence (the one where 117 women live). Plenty of alcohol. And vodka jelly.

Sounds classy eh?
At one of these parties, I met my future husband.

Cross

Sometimes I feel like I am being stretched so thin that I become see-through. And there is just not enough time in the day or enough of me to go around.

With my children it can feel like I am trying to pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time to meet their very different needs while trying to memorise the entire works of Shakespeare.

And this particular circus act has to sometimes cut corners. Doesn't everyone elses too? Apparently not.

Apparently homemade (organic, plucked from your own garden) food is better than stuff from a jar or a tin.

Yes, I know that. We all know that. Do you have to be so arrogant and superior about the fact that you never open a tin of soup for your children? Or make a quick spaghetti bolognese with sauce from a - shock, horror - jar?

Intentionally making other people feel like lesser parents or indeed people just because you have lots of time to stand in your kitchen stirring and chopping does not make me want to keep talking to you.

Copenhagen cool

Isn't it nice when parents cut out articles from newspapers for you? Even underlining the important bits. Because they know you don't have time to read the newspaper. I appreciate it, anyway.

My parents recently sent me a nice article about cycling (from the Guardian, I think?). The British journalist in this article has fun cycling round Copenhagen and is a bit in awe of the super gorgeous Danes on their bikes, enjoying their bike lanes. What he doesn't seem to realise is that this is not a new phenomenon and it is not in response to green politics in the last few years (although, of course, that has helped). Bicycling has always been a good way to transport yourself around Copenhagen.

And the Danes manage to do it in a totally un-nerdy way. If you are in doubt what the beautiful Danes on bikes look like you should take a look at this great blog: http://www.copenhagencyclechic.com/

It helps, of course, that the bicycle lanes are wide, clearly marked with a big picture of a bike and separated from the cars with a proper curb. And drivers are usually well trained in looking out for the bikes. You don't feel like you are taking your life in your hands in quite the same way as cycling in London used to make me* feel.

In other Copenhagen-in-the-spotlight news - The United Nations Climate Change conference is being hosted here in December. And about half of Copenhagen is getting shut down tomorrow when Barack Obama comes to visit for about 10 hours when he tries to get the 2016 Olympics hosted in Chicago. Even Oprah Winfrey is coming.

Exciting stuff.

If I could just figure out how to do the cycle chic, I might even start to feel a little bit at home.

*ok, if I am really honest I have to admit that it was Aksel that did the cycling in London. But he used to come back and give me dramatic accounts of near-misses and crazy British drivers and Why aren't we moving to Denmark already? tirades, that I feel justified in writing "me". And it sounds better doesn't it.

I blame my parents

When I first told my parents I had a Danish boyfriend, I think my mum was just relieved he wasn't Australian. Not that she has anything against Australian blokes. It is just that she didn't want me doing what she had done: moving half way around the world for love.

Denmark seemed pretty close in comparison to Australia. Unlike her own Australian family who very rarely could manage the long and expensive trip to England from Sydney, she knew she could hop on a plane and visit Copenhagen in a couple of hours.

And it wasn't as if my parents weren't familiar with the country. We went to Denmark a total of 3 (or maybe 4) times before I was 9 years old. It was the first experience for me of "going abroad". It was a bit of an unusual holiday destination for Brits in those days (maybe it still is?).

Here I am picking flowers with my sister at Kronborg (Hamlet's) castle in 1974.

And admiring the Little Mermaid. Look at those little legs!

Imagine what all those Scandinavian adventures did to my young impressionable self. I'm sure it had a big effect and is probably part of the reason I've ended up living here.

At least it is the reason that when I very first met Aksel in London, in my first year at university, and he said that he came from Copenhagen, I was able to reply,"Oooh, Denmark, I've been there!"

He was easily impressed. The girl he'd been chatting to before me had thought it was part of Stockholm.

Sleepovers part 2

We've been talking about it for a long time and Anna's first sleepover at our place this weekend was a big success. It contained all the essential ingredients: best little girl friend, lots of chocolate and sweets, dressing up, make-up "borrowed" from my make-up bag, films, Wii games, a very bubble-ly bath together that turned the bathroom into a water park, dancing around to the Hairspray soundtrack and staying up very late giggling.

I pretended not to notice the chocolates sneaked away to be eaten at "midnight". I was pretty easy going about the spilt chocolate milk. I kept my cool with the make-up incident. I happily mopped up the flood in the bathroom. And at 10 pm I said that they really should be going to sleep now. I left them whispering away, but when I checked 10 minutes later they were both asleep.

It brought back lots of memories of staying over at my friends' houses when I was Anna's age. I was always dreadful at going to sleep. And I really disliked being the only one left awake after everyone else succumbed to tiredness. I remember that hyped up and over-tired feeling and I still really dislike being the last one to bed.

Unfortunately, I was up in the night several times with Samuel, who has some virus that gave him 40 in fever. So I was less than pleased to be woken at 5.40 am on Sunday morning by loud giggling and banging coming from Anna's room. You'd think they would want to sleep late wouldn't you, like any other civilised person. We had to go in three times and threaten Anna with no sleepovers ever again (we are evil parents) unless they kept the noise down until 7 am.

Sadly, the best little girlfriend had some news. Her family is unexpectedly moving country in four weeks, so Anna was very sad about that. She has a couple of other friends who are also moving soon. The high turnover rate is the big disadvantage of an international school. We talk about it a lot. It is tough, especially now she is getting older and friendships are becoming much more important. We'll have to see how it goes, but none of us are convinced that a move to the Danish system is the easy answer.

Needless to say, everyone was very tired yesterday but we managed to grump and cranky ourselves through the afternoon without resorting to violence. We even got Anna's homework out the way with only a few tears (mine).

And it was not the best time to have to get through a trip to the out-of-hours doctor with Samuel, but the verdict was optimistic: non-specific-virus-not-serious-not-pig-flu.

Willy

With the number of words that Sam is saying gaining exponential speed, I have been taking another look at some of the resources out there for raising bilingual children. I recently found out that the way we communicate in our family has a name. It is called OPOL - or one parent, one language. Aksel and I both only speak our mother tongue to the children. And we expect them to use that language when they speak to us. This method works really well for us because we all speak and understand the "other" language. We don't need to use another method that involves a "round the dinner table language" that everyone understands. When we are all together, Anna simply switches from Danish to English, depending on who she is speaking to. It seems very natural for her to do this.

When she was little, I was quite concerned about her learning English properly. What if she doesn't talk to me in English? What if we never have that natural communication? What if my parents can't understand her? All my worries were totally unfounded and she was babbling away in both languages by 18 months. And by 2, she had pretty much sorted it out. Daddy spoke Danish, Mummy spoke English. That is just how her world is.

We are doing the same with Sam, this time without even really thinking about it. He already has lots of words in both languages and uses the Danish version (bil, tog, nøgle) with Daddy and the English version (car, train, keys) with me, already quite consistently.
It will be interesting to see what language Anna and Samuel use with each other as they get older. Right now, Anna mostly chats in English with him, but it is quite one-sided.
Sometimes Anna will say a few words in Danish to me to wind me up and to make fun. Lille mor she will say. Må jeg ikke nok, lille mor?* She knows this kind of expression makes my skin crawl ....and makes me laugh.

When Anna and I talk English to each other in Denmark, people sometimes assume that we can't understand Danish. We were in a lift together in a shopping centre the other day. Two boys got in with us. They were perhaps 11 or 12 years old. They noticed that we were speaking English and they giggled with each other about it. Then one of them suddenly said very loudly: Tissemand! It means a boy's willy. Not a really, really rude word. But probably also not something you would talk about in a lift with strangers. They obviously thought it was quite hilarious until they realised that we had understood exactly what it meant. He was quite embarrassed when I said in Danish something like: "Well, that's a rather strange thing to shout about in public!"

Afterwards, I was kicking myself for not coming up with a better line like: "Really? Where?" Or "What, is it not very big?" Although, the poor lad was probably traumatised enough by the situation, without any extra help from me.

*roughly translated it means in a very creepy and a little bit disturbing way "little mummy, please can I, little mummy?"

Clever title

Oh, it has been roughly 6 years since I last posted, but a lot has been going on, ok.

Three more members of this family (bringing the total to 100% in case you are not counting) have since had the sickness mentioned in the last post. Enough said about that.

We've also been able to:

• meet the teacher and get the new homework instructions, the swine flu instructions, the after-school activities sign up list, the school transportation permission slip, and a seemingly unending list of things we need to remember on any given school night
• ride ponies at the nursery party
• find the new gymnastics class (Anna took part in the class, my job was to get us all there, in one piece, without swearing too much). (I think I'd give myself a C minus, but A for effort.)
• fix the freezer (ongoing)
• do some work that actually pays (I had a meeting with a customer for a change; this required wardrobe overhaul and the work is also ongoing...)

And I've been rather stuck. Stuck with the same things on my To Do list. Stuck with the same concerns whirring round my head. Stuck with half-written blog posts. Stuck with all the repetitive things of everyday life that just have to be done.

None of it is very interesting. And it doesn't make for good writing.

I'm expecting that burst of energy and flash of inspiration any time now.

At 3 am this morning

Why, just moments after I have changed the sheets, nappy, pajamas, sleeping bag, cleaned up a particularly messy and surprising sickness incident, calmed the child down, gently sat and offered hugs and songs, eventually decided that it is over and so carefully placed the sleepy child back in the cot and gratefully got back into bed myself- does the puking begin again?

And why is it always at 3 am? All this fumbling around in the dark, trying to find towels and clean sheets and remember where the spare sleeping bag is. I can barely find the bathroom at this hour.

And how come the child is, after such a dreadful night, actually quite perky in the morning? -which is a lot more than can be said for his mother, who feels like her eyeballs have been wrung out.

But this day did help me to contribute to the Stuff I Like: My washing machine.

The one about the mouse

So, despite what I claimed in the one about the pigeon, it turns out that I am actually a bit freaked out by other uninvited live animals in my home.

The other night it was rainy and stormy outside, and feeling sorry for the cat, I tried to get him to come inside. I could just make him out, crouching near the kitchen door. I thought he was sheltering from the storm and was afraid to run in.

I called and made welcoming noises.

I was a bit surprised* when instead of my cat, a mouse ran in. And proceeded to sprint around the kitchen.

Followed by our cat.

I called** for some assistance and Aksel and my parents came (running) to see what was going on.

The mouse hid under the fridge and a fun hour was had (by Aksel and my dad) trying to coax it out. When they finally did get it out, it did a bit more dashing around before it headed out into the night again.

Typically, by this time the cat had totally lost interest and sort of wandered away in disgust, oblivious to all the fuss he caused.

I watched from a safe distance. Turns out I am a total girly when it comes to little brown mice running around the house.

(But I'm not a bit bothered by spiders. Honest.)

* totally freaked out

** screamed in horror

Lucky potato

In our house, people (usually Anna) are sometimes called lucky potatoes. It is a direct translation of the Danish saying "heldig kartoffel".
For example: Grandma and Granddad have been visiting. When they left, they very kindly put some Danish money in the children's money boxes. Granddad said to Anna that he unfortunately didn't have any more 20 kroner coins left. So she'll just have to have a 50 kroner note instead. Hence, Anna is a lucky potato.
(As an aside, we also talk about "sleeping like an onion". This is a bit more complicated. The Danish word for onion is løg. Pronounced sort of like loi. But when I was learning many, many years ago, I said log instead. And so, I also slept like an onion. It is not particularly funny or anything. But it stuck and we still say it occasionally.
I can also sometimes be heard referring to a heat-seeker, like some kind of essential military defence weapon. Something out of Terminator. This comes from the Danish helt sikker which means being completely sure about something. To my British ears, many years ago, it used to sound like Aksel was saying "heat seeker". It is also something that stuck, even though now I know better.)

Anyway. We are counting our blessings and remembering the stuff we like. The things that are good. In no particular order: It was lovely to have my mum and dad visiting and they got home safely (and quickly). My children are sleeping peacefully. We have gaz-illions of home-grown and picked blackberries waiting for a pie. And mum and dad helped make lots of blackberry jam while they were here. The summer isn't quite over yet. We have the two final episodes of Battlestar waiting to be watched. Anna thinks her new Grade 2 teacher is great. Sammy can say Air-Plane. And can tell us in two languages when his nappy needs changing. I am re-connecting with a few old friends. And I am planning a trip to London for Girls-on-tour-2 soon.

And...I found salt and vinegar crisps in Netto today, posh Kettle Chips and everything. We are lucky potatoes indeed.

All the homes I have lived in - no. 1

1967 with nothing but fields around (the tractor is especially for Samuel )

This was my childhood home in a small village. Middle England. I went to the local infant and junior school and then the nearby comprehensive. And some of my best friends lived on the same street as me, or just across the road. It was on the corner, and we had a cherry tree in the front garden that blossomed both white and pink. I lived there until I was 18 when I headed off to university, via Australia.

First extension 1975

My parents did two extensions to the house. First they extended the kitchen and added a living room and loo downstairs. And then in 1983, they added another bathroom and bedroom upstairs.

We had the same building firm do both extensions and my parents were friendly with the builder. A few years later, he was fixing something with the house and I happened to be racing around the neighbourhood dressed up as a French Tart. I was doing a treasure hunt to raise money for Children in Need as part of a school organized thing. We were in teams and had to collect as many of the fifty things on a list that we could get, within a certain time limit. The things included a quail's egg, a fresh strawberry (this was difficult to get then in February) and lots of other weird stuff that I've forgotton. We were up against, amongst others, the Vicars and Nuns team (the boys) and spent much of the race telling the people who had helped us to not help the nuns.

We must have dashed into my house at one point to get something, and the builders were there, but I don't really remember it. But he remembers it very clearly. And would, for years afterwards, mention it to my parents - about the time their daughter was running around dressed like a French Tart.

There are two cats buried in the garden there. And lots of good memories taken away from it. My parents sold it a few years ago to someone who apparently was very pleased that there would be room for his snakes.

If the shoe fits

We are in the warm up to starting back to school. The relaxed mornings of the summer holidays, when Anna can still be in her pjs at lunchtime, will be a thing of the past.

The normal school-morning routine goes something like this: I get up, ten minutes later than I planned. Samuel wakes up and Aksel and I take turns with him until we are both partly showered and dressed. Anna is normally reading and we both hassle her to get up, get dressed, eat something. It is a frenzy of breakfast, pack lunches, PE kits, homework, school bags and brushing teeth and hair until we are ready to leave, 10 minutes later than planned ( yes, I do see the obvious connection there, but no, I don't think I am getting up earlier anyway).

Samuel has recently added an interesting dimension to the mornings, which threatens to add another 5 minutes of panic and stress to my already unorganized and running late-ness. He likes to try shoes on. And walk in them. And leave them scattered all over the house. And the best shoes are not his own. So, just as we are about to get out the door, my already frazzled self, is quite annoyed to find I have 2 shoes that belong to me but no matching pairs in sight.

And the other two members of the family with feet that need shoeing before heading out the door are usually in the same predicament.

Samuel thinks it is very funny. But then he is the only one that can be carried to the car and dropped off at nursery with only odd socks on and no-one will mind at all - so shoes to him are just not that essential. Unless they are Daddy's and he has just spent 5 minutes putting them on.

Old and missing

My (very nice, young) physiotherapist had a busy holiday from work, he told me. Visiting friends and family all over the country with his girlfriend. Then a week in Norway. Then a 30th birthday to celebrate.

Oh, congratulations, I said.

No, not my birthday, a friend's. Actually, I have a few years yet before I reach 30, he said.

Oh, that must be nice, I said.

So, I am old. And people born in 1983 have driving licences, and careers, and maybe even mortgages.

Thank goodness Anna is home tomorrow. I am baking welcome home cakes and preparing favourite dinners for her to celebrate. It feels like she has been gone for months. And I think she has missed us just a bit too. Aksel and I agreed that we are not letting her do this again until she is 35 at least.

Samuel is still missing Anna. But he also missed his nap today. Anyone know what that was that all about? I got more and more cross while he chuckled and laughed and thought it was totally hilarious to Not Nap. I rely on that 1 hour and 10 minutes, you know. For important worky-type computer work. Not watching YouTube or reading blogs.

Cars, trains, boats and Sweden

Things learnt on the trip to Helsingborg today:

• Samuel absolutely loved the train.
• Samuel loved the boat too.
• We can pretty much make it from our house to a lovely cafe in Sweden in an hour.
• Stuff is cheaper in Sweden.
• Shopping with Samuel is still a pain - as helpful as that play table in the shop is while you are browsing, it is a complete operation to get him away from it when you need to leave. (Prying the tractor from his hands, lifting the screaming child up, and trying to exit with some dignity intact. He is really strong.)
• Although they understand my questions in Danish just fine, I cannot understand the Swedish replies. Must stop speaking Danish when I am in Sweden.
• Do not underestimate the value of surprise squirty water fountains near a cafe stop in the afternoon - Samuel enthralled = time to drink cafe latte.
• Having one child for a day trip out is easier than two. He was outnumbered.
• Having only Samuel with us made us feel like really old parents. We wanted to tell people "this is our second one, you know..."
• Helsingborg is a great city on a sunny day.
• Should have taken the camera.