Hugo’s børnehave held their sommerfest (summer party) this evening. Everyone brought different dishes so there was lots of yummy food (among his classmates, Indian, South American, Japanese, and of course Danish), and lots of games to play. They had decorated the school with balloons and fairy lights, and all the kids were so excited.
Sophie, who wishes she could stay with Hugo every time we take him to school, was also extremely excited about going to the party. She even put on party clothes (not a small achievement, as getting her to agree to ANY clothes at the moment can be fraught with danger).
While Hugo had a good time playing the different games, Sophie’s favourite place was the disco room. She’s a total groover, she’ll dance to anything!
For weeks now, parcels have been arriving from far places, and I’ve been putting them up on the cupboard in her room. She would stand and gaze at them and prounounce “BIRTHDAY” emphatically (imitating Hugo, but not really understanding what it was all about).
When she opened her presents this morning (with very helpful assistance from Hugo) there was a Dora book in the first one she opened and it was pretty much all over then. “Dora! Dora!” … we hard a hard time convincing her to keep opening the rest.
Denmark celebrated Sophie’s birthday with a public holiday (the secondary reason was for Ascension Day ) so we - and the rest of Copenhagen - went to Tivoli Gardens.
I’m posting this video of Sophie dancing because it’s so funny, and there are more birthday photos at flickr.
Sophie had her first proper haircut today (as in, not just me grabbing a hank of her fringe and chopping it off). It was a much better experience for everyone than Hugo’s first … and second … and third etc haircut. Perhaps it was the chocolate bribe that helped? (PS Thank you so much Aunty Livvy! Your Easter parcel was very fortuitously timed!).
Danish is a really, really difficult language to learn. The pronunciation isn’t intuitive, and almost everyone in Denmark over the age of seven knows how to speak English (luckily for me!) so as soon as it’s obvious that your Danish is ‘not so good’ - an understatement! - they will automatically use English. My ‘functional’ (and I use that term very loosely) Danish consists of “Hej” (Hello), “Hej hej” (goodbye), “undskyld” (excuse me/sorry - I use this a LOT) and “tak!” (Thanks!).
Hugo goes to a Danish preschool, so all the teachers speak English as well as Danish but all the children speak Danish (so of course most of the day is done in Danish). He has been picking up words here and there. Last week he asked for a “vegemite smørbrød” and as I went to the kitchen he called out “that’s a sandwich, Mum!” … although I should have realise he meant the Danish open sandwich because he was quite offended when I brought him a “proper” sandwich, and not just vegemite on bread. When I arrived to pick him up from preschool one afternoon, all the children were playing in the playground and Hugo was babbling a very Danish-sounding babble (the same way babies, when they start to make speech sounds, babble in English).
Sophie’s English is exploding - we’re in that awkward stage where she is saying so many new words and phrases that I can’t keep up, and although she knows what she’s saying I can’t always understand what she means so it can be frustrating for both of us. But it’s really exciting as well as she starts to use longer phrases and her ever increasing vocabulary. (And she does have a few Danish words as well).
