three years in denmark: catching up

where did i leave off?

thursday

our first well-check appointment in denmark. this one for henry. we probably should have done one for william last year but i guess we weren't totally on top of things even a month and a half into our lives here. a well-check here compared to a well-check in the u.s. is a bit different, in that there were far fewer questions to answer here. no one wondering about our smoking or drinking habits, henry's sleeping and eating habits, whether he can pedal a tricycle or hold a pencil, and if we've got his car seat installed correctly and all the lead paint removed from our walls. i suppose that's because the kommune (the local government) sends someone to the home to check on his developmental status every year or so.

the doctor said william would probably develop chicken pox from 10-14 days after henry got it, if he is going to catch it. tomorrow will be day 14. perhaps he's not just making it up that he actually already had chicken pox... in utero-- his claim.

i kept henry home for the rest of the day, thinking we could have some nice on-one-one time together. before we left town we went to the train station and watched the trains go by for awhile-- his request. when it was time to go home for lunch though, he kicked and screamed (really, screamed, 'no mama!' over and over), wiggled out of his boots more than once, and generally was not happy that i took him away from the trains. he also missed his brother and was so upset to see william and greg leave that morning without him. i suppose to do these days home in the future, i'll see if william would like to join us.

that afternoon, after we picked william up from school, he led us home a tricky way which led us to some soccer fields where the guys ran around awhile until teams started showing up for practice. william was happy to watch them for a long time, but has not, so far, ever expressed interest in joining a soccer team here in denmark.

friday

in class we finished 'a royal affair.' i won't give away the ending if you're planning on watching it, but oh, i had to go home and google the story and all the characters (because the broad storyline is real) so i could find out more about them. i was a little bummed out to learn that one of only two official portraits of queen caroline mathilde, the main character, is hanging in frederiksborg castle, which we visited just a couple weeks ago. had i seen it then, i wouldn't have known it, or appreciated it. the other portrait is hanging in london though (she was english), which we will be visiting soonish (!), though whether caroline mathilde will get our attention, i cannot say.

later that night i caught a train to copenhagen with my editing/translating friend who has lived here for most of her adult years and we met the rest of her book club at the movies to see 'lincoln' (somehow my oscar movie wishes have been coming true). probably you've seen the movie and you know how wonderful it is (and if you haven't seen it-- my goodness, go see it if you can), so i'll just show you some pictures of the theater... my first movie theater experience in denmark...

the café/bar in the lobby-- something they are all equipped with here (as well as a small concession stand across the way). this lobby was too small to have much in the way of seating, but that is common too. probably the same in most european countries i would guess.

very crowded on a friday night. so this is what the danes do instead of sitting around tables in restaurants. though of course, this is copenhagen, and copenhagen is its own thing.

inside the theater...

it was small. one of the women ordered our tickets ahead of time, and, like an airplane, you get to pick your (well-marked) seats (though maybe this is the common way to do it in the u.s. now too? this is only the second time i've been in a theater since william was born). we were in row five, which put us in the second to last row! they told me this was one of the larger rooms too.

i'm in the third seat in. i think that guy down the row is in the second to last seat.

you can see how nice the seats are, and there was definitely no sticky soda pop under my shoes or gum on the chair. quite a pleasant experience. the entire theater filled up for this film. before it began there were between five and ten commercials. the commercials before a movie are quite big apparently, in this TV-commercial starved country, because they put a lot of money into them and in return, they are apparently well-made and enjoyed (and again, you can hardly get sick of commercials from TV here). it was difficult for me to rate them because i couldn't understand them well enough. there was only one, maybe two, previews. the first was played in between the commercials, so i wasn't entirely sure if it was technically considered a commercial.

after the movie we went to a wine bar across the street and ate bread and cheese and meat-- the very usual danish fare. when i got home late, both boys who'd been asleep, were both awake, with greg admirably holding down the fort.

saturday

last night, too, was a late night. we had a friend of mine from class and her husband over for dinner. it was quite a lot of fun, and there were no early bedtimes. earlier in the day william went to a classmate's birthday party and greg took henry to town to shop around for a new burley (as ours is determined to fall apart on us in every way possible). he wasn't successful at finding anything, but did get henry's hair cut. it was tending toward the scruffy side.

sunday

today. 6 degrees celsius! 42 degrees! sunny! it's like a miracle... one that we've been rather impatiently waiting for.