thursday

henry woke up sometime in the middle of last night.  nothing unusual there.  the problem was that he never seemed to go back to sleep.  he was a very uncomfortable little boy and we were utterly unprepared.  he was also out of bed nice and early this morning.  and i had failed to mention this yesterday, but he was up for an hour in the middle of the night on tuesday telling jokes, and then up at six as if the comedy routine had never even happened, which helped make last night's never ending slumber party feel just a little bit like torture, which is, no doubt, how he probably felt about it too.  so when he took an early nap, i took one too, with william settled in to enjoy the 1977 hobbit cartoon movie.  it was the only way, really that i was going to survive the day.  after greg came home i rode into town to get the equivalent of calamine lotion at the pharmacy.  (there is really very little in the way of over-the-counter products you can get at the grocery stores in denmark.)  so now henry is peacefully slumbering, slathered in a drying out lotion with light pajamas on, in hopes that the sleep powers-that-be will smile on us tonight and we will all get a little more rest.

here... a picture... william and greg doing a skype 'night battle' with william's grandpa tonight...

alright!  goodnight!

13.5

an unpredictable day.  greg left home around 6:30 and stayed at work for the next thirteen and a half hours.  that was the unforeseen part.  when henry went down for his nap i thought about either prepping dinner or watching pippi longstocking with william.  i chose the latter.  and then, after henry woke up, greg called to say the production work he was doing in the lab today to cover for someone on winter holiday had turned mildly disastrous and they were now several hours behind schedule.  i thought there was a lesson in there for me somewhere, and it was either, prep dinner when you have the chance because you never know when things are going to go wrong in the lab and you're going to be a single parent for the rest of the night, or, do something fun with your son when you have the chance because you never know when things are going to go wrong in the lab and you're going to be a single parent for the rest of the night.  i, once again, choose the latter.  and as a side note-- for any parents out there looking for a good book-- pippi longstocking is that book.  

in chicken pox news, henry did pretty well today.  he's still not operating at full henry speed, which is most evident... or maybe only evident, when riding bikes outside.  otherwise, he's a bit more snuggly than usual, but still jumps off the bed and runs around like a crazy man.  

here they are on their daily bike outing... 

and now it's time for sleep.  goodnight! 

three-peat

i'm like the girl who cries 'chicken pox!' so you may not believe me when i say this, but i think henry has chicken pox... only really and truly this time.  there seems to be no denying it, except that he's not covered with hundreds of spots yet, but he does have a significant number and they are rather uncomfortable looking.  his spirits were high this morning but he's definitely slowed down since lunchtime and had a short lasting fever before dinner.  still though we were able to get out of the house this morning to do some digging for treasure (william found a diamond, a piece of gold, and a coin in less than five minutes), to play cave men, and of course, to do henry's most favorite thing... bike.  though he didn't make it nearly as far as he would have on a normal day.  

waiting for lunch... energy waning... 

lunch brought him back to normal for a time, but it didn't last and he fell asleep around one.  he bounced back enough after his nap to go outside again, where the guys rode bikes down the bike path to meet greg who was coming home from work, though henry tired of riding about halfway down the path. 

but you might be wondering, and i will confirm: yes, what you see reflecting off henry's helmet and snowsuit is indeed sun!  it wasn't out the entire day, but when we were out this afternoon, somehow, suddenly, there it was... turning the sky blue... 

and the field below, golden... 

ahh... to sunny, healthy, and warm days, all at once... soon.  

god vinterferie

today two boys and their mother, free from responsibility, stayed home and played.  now they are sleeping soundly and resting up for another four days of fun.

et år i danmark!

yes, if i've taught you enough danish by now, then you know that title means one year in denmark.  officially, today, it was a year ago that we were dazedly getting off a plane, that henry threw up in the boss's car on the way to the 'old school' and then fell asleep, that we walked around the super best without a clue that we needed to weigh our grapes (why was i buying grapes anyhow?) and bring our own bags or otherwise buy them at the so-very-busy-that-day checkout line, and that no one was standing at the end of it to bag the groceries up for us in the bags we hadn't bought, or brought.

so there you have it.  no real need to recap, as there is an entire blog dedicated to almost everyday of the ensuing year, though, to be fair, there are so many untold parts, whether intentionally or unintentionally, for how could i possibly fit it all in and why?  i guess that is the magic of a blog... it doesn't have to be a reality tv show.  just an assorted compilation of what are now memories to glance back at now and then.

but for the future, this upcoming week is vinterferie-- winter vacation.  it is for my school at least.  it's not for greg (not until the paid vacation days kick in, so maybe next year).  and it's optional for the guys-- so we opted for it.  which means i should get a good night's sleep tonight. so i'll leave you with the one photo from today... two bicyclists going up the street, a bit of a blur but you might recognize them...

happy one three years in denmark year!  eat an ice cream sundae if you're so inclined.

castle time

pictures tonight... from our adventure an hour or so north by bus to fredericksborg slot (i.e. castle)... also home to denmark's national history museum... 

waiting for the bus in someone else's mittens... 

two easy bus rides later and we are a block away from the castle entrance...



heading in...

it was built in the early 1600's by good old christian iv, who i wrote about back in a post in may.

 inside the castle.  we eat our sandwiches, stow away our backpack and coats, and head into the museum...

william is noticing similarities between a crest on the ceiling and the one on his shield at home...

and he is good at posing for the camera...

the castle was used as a royal residence for awhile and then not toward the end of the 1700s. finally, in the mid-1800's, one of denmark's kings, frederick vii and his wife louise, a.k.a. countess danner, decided to move in and renovate the place with some new fireplaces to heat up the rooms which were so cold during our visit today that we had to go back to our locker and get our coats.  unfortunately though, the castle caught on fire because of one of the fireplaces and much of it was destroyed (and subsequently renovated just a few years later)...

peacock...

in the castle's church...

 an organ from 1610...

up a staircase... 

 wooden deer heads and one of denmark's first flags...

king valdemar iv... from the 1300's... i think i wrote about him a little bit back in february or march.  he liked his wife's ring better than he liked her...

a dining hall...

william's portrait of his parents.  greg is wearing his coat and my coat...

this is how close henry came to sleep, but in the end he managed to stay awake and was like a man who'd had too much to drink, singing and dancing in the streets, and finally passing out on the bus ride home...

 later, dinner in town...

nearly abandoned on a saturday evening.  it never ceases to amaze me how uninhabited these towns are on the weekends, how the restaurants stand nearly empty, always.  copenhagen is probably an exception, but in general, this is not a big 'eating out' country...

some of the american and english influences on the names of establishments in the town of hillerød...
for my okie relatives...

and for greg's mom... who greg believes was a herman's hermit fan as a kid...

at the bus stop... two sleepy guys... maybe three...

we'd parked our bikes at the super best and when we returned had a flat burley tire... and a bike pump in the 'trunk' so it was all okay... 

that was our day!

highland and campus

i was riding home from school today when, for no good reason, an intersection in madison popped into my mind.  one i'd been through... sat at... plenty of times, and the memory of it seemed so completely familiar, as if i'd been there not so very long ago.  it was then i realized it has been exactly one year since we left madison.  when coupled with the image of, or the feeling of being at that random intersection, the knowledge of this little anniversary had me feeling a little sad, but when thinking about everything that's happened since we left, since we arrived, i felt something bordering on pride, which didn't seem quite right either.  we've just been here for about a year, that's it.  either way of thinking about it felt all too serious, so to bring some levity to my ride home i did something i felt like i should be able to do after riding my bike around for a year, but something i've been too scared to try until today, something i often did as a child... i took both hands off the handle bars.  that made me happy.

one year-marker that really does seem to be having a difference is henry's recent venture into year (as in age) two.  i don't know why, but it does feel different to me.  we went to the pirate park today after school (which william now calls the mary park because he's figured out that the pirate ship is actually rasmus klump's ship, the good ship mary.  and rasmus klump is a danish cartoon bear who loves eating pancakes, not a pirate).

as henry alternately walked...

and 'rode' his bike...

it dawned on me that he is not in any sense, a baby, anymore.  i have two children who can get themselves, and their bikes, to the park.  woah.  which is not to say they will go off by themselves to the park, but they could probably do it.  each time we've been there in the past i've climbed up onto the ship with henry, and it's rather uncomfortable, because the opening to get into the ship is so small and i don't really like doing it.  but today, i let henry go up by himself, though he needed a boost to get up there.  it felt suddenly like i didn't need to be up there with him anymore.

in between the park play, we decided to explore a huge fallen tree (or is it two trees... for some reason it isn't really clear to me) that usually seems off limits because the gate on the electric fence enclosing the field it's in, is usually closed.

again, it felt like henry was big enough to, for the first time, explore like a little kid...

though when he started climbing up on one of the trunks like his big brother and i stumbled up after him, and there was snow to contend with and big clunky boots and mittens and coats, i realized he and i were, at least for now, better off watching his brother climb from the safety of the ground...

besides, he can still get a little climbing in at home, and he's not too young now to have an opinion about his pajamas...