Welp, Q1 2026 is Gone!
That three months flew by, huh? It was just New Year's, and suddenly, the days are getting longer and the sun is shining more...I feel like so much has happened since my last post!
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First, the work to get our "flood room" back to normal has actually commenced (but not finished. Things move slowly). In early January, the contractors came to replace the insulation in the ceiling and fix the floor. They stapled up a plastic layer, new support boards, and fresh sheetrock.
The damage-control folks had torn up the floorboards in October when the water ingress occurred, and the contractors planned to replace it, but the torn-up floor revealed a beautiful dark wood floor, and I wanted to keep that one. The contractors were very nice about it and simply called someone to come in sand and oil it. They installed a little transition and that was that.
We are still waiting on the painter, but I feel like they said she wasn't available until April or something, so we'll be patient.
The electrician was able to come back and start work, too!
They came twice to work on the basement, installing a new electrical panel and some new switches/lighting in the basement, and they removed some unused wiring and extra installations. It's nice that some things are moving and we are making incremental improvements.
We were happy with the progress when they left the first day, but then none of our radiators worked. We have district heating, which means that water is heated at a nearby plant, piped to our house, and used to heat to our pipes before returning to the plant. Without the pump, we have no heat. We figured it had something to do with the electrical, so Zac reached out to the electrician again. They were very bummed out and assumed they had done something wrong, so they came back at like 8:30 p.m. to try to fix it. Happily for them, they hadn't made an error. Our pump just randomly went out at the same time they were here. They contacted a plumber and got him out here the next day.
The plumber replaced the pump (it was apparently well overdue) and fixed a critical safety valve in our water heater that had been leaking. Unexpected improvements are still improvements!
The outdoor electrical work will wait until the weather is nicer - they don't want to work in the cold, and I don't blame them! Zac has a little to-do list for the main floor of the house, too, so I'm sure we'll be giving them a lot more of our money soon.
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We've had quite a bit of interaction with the Danish medical system this year already in 2026, too. First, Harrison tripped on a desk chair and smashed his face on the edge of a TV cabinet. Fortunately, it didn't damage his teeth, but his gums were ripped up quite far. I called 1813, the number you call when you need urgent care, but not so urgent that it's life-threatening. They told us to call the child dentist and gave a phone number.
I may have mentioned before, but dentists for kids are in the schools. It's cool because kids can be scheduled for appointments in the middle of the school day and not have to actually miss that much school. Sadly, there isn't one in the international private school, only the public schools, so we have always had to remove the kids from school for the dentist regardless.
Anyway, I called the child dentist and asked (in Danish) if I could speak English. Usually, I do this either because it's tough for me to understand Danish over the phone, but sometimes it's because I have something complicated to discuss and don't have the Danish vocabulary to do it right. And usually, when I ask, they say it's OK. This time, the nurse did not speak English, so I stayed in Danish language mode and told her I would try.
Me (på dansk): My son, Harrison, fell down and hit his mouth on the corner of a TV cabinet. He cries and he has pain in his gums and there is blood.
Her: Did his teeth get damaged?
Me: No, only his gums.
Her: That's good. He should see a dentist today. I will send you an appointment at the school.
Me: We just moved to Helsingør and I haven't been to the school. Can I get the address?
Her: It will be in the text. You spoke very good Danish.
Me, fully disagreeing, based on my awkward description of what happened: Thank you very much.
We went to the dentist and they decided it would heal on its own. We had to buy an antiseptic to put on it daily and go back for several visits to check it, but it's pretty OK.
Also, fun fact: I don't remember how to say the names of very many body parts in Danish, but I remember gums because the literal translation is "tooth meat" and I think that's funny. Tandkød. Haha.
The next adventure happened when Khloe's sore throat progressed so far that she couldn't swallow and I saw the icky white-ish yellow streaks on her tonsils and throat. I called 1813 again. We were like 13th in line or something, but we sat there patiently and when a nurse finally answered, she immediately made us an appointment for the health center down the road. We drove there, checked in, waited less than five minutes, and saw the nurse. She assessed Khloe's symptoms, looked in her throat, saw it was strep (no swab), and prescribed an antibiotic. We went to the pharmacy and it was there immediately.
The healthcare system here has its pros and cons. On the one hand, we don't pay for urgent care, emergency x-rays, doctor visits, or anything like that. The kids' dental work is free. We have a special insurance through work that allows us to get approved for free services at private clinics, like physical therapy and chiropractors. On the other hand, it's a little hit-and-miss on the speed of general appointments and the psychiatric system is super, super slow. We pay for eyeglasses, ophthalmologists, and prescriptions.
It takes some getting used to because we cannot, for example, call the doctor any old time we want during opening hours to make an appointment. We can, however, call and talk directly to the doctor between 8 and 9 in the morning. We can also make appointments on the app, and then if the appointment is booked out like 2 months in the future and the doctor thinks you should come in sooner, they'll notify you in the app of a quicker time to be seen. We can also, as described earlier, call 1813 for acute injury or illness outside of office hours and they'll get you seen if you need to be seen (for free, of course).
All in all, we've had pretty good experiences with the healthcare here, and even though they take a bit of a different approach than we are used to, different does not mean worse. And bonus, since we've moved to Helsingør, all of our urgent visits, bloodwork, etc. are a quick drive up the street and scheduled just as quick as we can get there. When we were in Birkerød, we often had to drive three towns away to get an x-ray or a tick-bite appointment and wait for hours. I approve of this change.
I'm glad our appointments have been scheduled so efficiently, too, because, in regard to Harrison's gum incident, we were on a bit of a time crunch...we were traveling to the U.S. soon! (See my previous post about our visit to the U.S.)
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I'm actually unsure about the best way to organize all the other notable things that have been going on in our Danish adventure, so I guess I'll try it by family member:
Harrison
We had always discussed that if we bought a house and settled in one area that we would try to convince Harrison that Danish public school was a better choice than staying in the international school. If we will remain in Denmark, Danish public school will help him learn Danish better and faster and will help him integrate into Danish society and culture better than international school for sure.
He was hesitant about the idea, and for good reason. I mean, he had good friends and good teachers at international school. His brother and sister were there, and lessons were taught in his mother language.
His attitude changed when we moved and he met our neighbor, Elliott. I may have talked about our neighbors in a previous post, but I think we really lucked out when we moved to this house. Our next-door neighbors are half Danish and half Australian, so their son, who is Harrison's age, speaks both Danish and English well. They have been very good buddies since we moved in, and they are always together.
And one day, Harrison asked if he could go to school with Elliott.
Over the holidays, I talked to Elliott's mom about the school. I discovered that he doesn't actually go to the school near our house for a variety of reasons, but he goes to school in a nearby town, which is supposedly very good. She said it can be tough to get kids into that school because it's very popular, but that it might be a perfect time for Harrison to transition because some kids recently left a normally full class.
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| View of the sound from the administration office at the school |
I contacted the school and we set up a meeting in early January for a visit. The administration was really kind and welcoming. They kind of assessed Harrison's level of Danish and could tell that he could understand a bit but was not very confident. They thought he would do OK anyway. We agreed that he could start when we returned from the U.S.
We had one day back from the U.S. to get into a routine and prep for a new school. That also meant that Harrison had to say goodbye to his teacher and classmates at the International school before we left for the U.S. All of his classmates made him cards and they sent him home with treats, a Danish flag, and well wishes.
We tried to prepare him for the difficulties of jumping into Danish school. We told him there might be things that they were learning he wouldn't understand, and that it might be really tiring hearing only Danish all day long. We explained that he might feel lonely or left out or lost, but that all of that was normal and OK, and he could always just take a breath and talk to the teachers.
This kid didn't need any of our prep or advice. He did great.
I took him to class on the first day, where we met his teacher before classtime. She took us on a little tour of the before-and-after school care area and showed us the classroom. They had math for the first two lessons, and they were jumping into division.
I was so worried for him. He hasn't done that before, let alone in Danish. I asked if he would like me to stay, and he said yes, but asked me to wait outside the classroom. I settled myself into a tiny chair at a desk in a common area outside the classroom and peeked in through a big sliding window wall at him.
He was seated next to Elliott, and as I sat and alternated between chatting with his teacher and reading a children's book in Danish, I couldn't tell if he was OK or stressed or thriving...it was very nerve-wracking. I could also see kids perched barefoot on top of stools, kids rolling around in their chairs, kids sitting on tables doing their work, and one kid acting like a dog, crawling around the class on all fours while the other children patted him gently on the head as they did their work. I was very impressed that the school allows kids to work in their own space a time, and the vibe was calm and relaxed.
At break, I snuck into the room and asked Harrison if it was OK for me to leave. He said yes, and he's been fine ever since. He likes school, he likes his classmates, and (I think) he is doing well. Or at least he's giving off that impression, because his teachers say he is reading and writing and speaking all right. There is a resource person that comes in to work with him sometimes and build up his Danish vocabulary. He was excited that he got a computer from the school and he genuinely loves the after-school program.
The weekend after he started school, he attended an MGP Kids watch party with all the boys from his class. (MGP Kids is an annual Danish singing competition for children and it's great.) He had a great time, he felt included, and a few days later, I could hear him softly singing "Vi Vil Ikk' Ha' Mobning" to himself while he played Roblox.
He needs a second set of clothes almost every day because they play in the forest in the mud pits. One day, he sunk down to his thighs. One day, he fell out of a tree. He's just a little wildling now. Their after-school program is run by three really wonderful adults. One of them is ex-military and teaches them about weapons. They have a wood shop and all the kids made their own guns. They traced the patterns, sawed the boards, sanded and painted...
I absolutely hate that he made this gun, but I'm so proud of his handiwork.
I'm really enjoying reading little Danish books in the evening with Harrison. We help each other with words we don't know and we learn new words together. It's been so lovely.
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| Our Danish book about cars and the little wood block car Harrison made at school |
He and Elliott are together all weekend and sometimes, after school. It's nice that he has a good friend so close.
Harrison will start riding his bike to school soon with Elliott and the other morning commuters. Zac and I only had a vague idea of how to best ride from our house to the school, so we gave it a try one weekend. We follow the road for a while up from our house, but then we got to a huge forest. There are so many trails that they're actually labeled kind of like little highways!
We made it to the school. It took us about 40 minutes to ride there with all the stops we made, and about 33 minutes on the way back. I am sure it could be faster, but we were learning. It was a really lovely ride, about 13 km total, and despite the distance and the cold weather, Harrison didn't complain at all.
Oh, and I guess maybe this falls more under "home improvement" category, but we painted Harrison's room! I mean, his room was super cool when we moved in - there was a huge mural that wrapped around the room of children's characters, and it was done very nicely, but they weren't characters that Harrison cared about or had a special attachment to for any reason.
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| Before... |
Also, the former child tenant had drawn with marker all over the walls and put stickers in a lot of random places. Harrison wanted his room to be gray. He selected a color, and we covered up Totoro and Bluey, Ronja and the rest. We painted over the words "tis" and "lort" scrawled on the wall of the loft, re-attached the base of the light fixture, and scrubbed the marker and residual sticker goo off the bedroom door, and it looks a lot more like Harrison's room now.
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| After! |
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| The loft |
Khloe
Khloe wanted her room painted, too. Not as extensively as Harrison's, which was an all-surface job, just the space underneath her loft. The former teen tenant of her room had it painted sort of a royal purple, and she prefers pink. She has a clear vision for her room, so as soon as she got permission from us, she started patching holes and prepping for paint.
She did a lot of the work herself, but I jumped in to guide and help free-hand the edges. It turned out really well, and we used every last drop of the paint trying to cover it thoroughly!
She was in a rush because she wanted it done before her birthday sleepover. Khloe is 15 now! She had a friend stay the night, and then we all went to the aquarium in Copenhagen. Den Blå Planet has been on my list for a while, so I'm glad she chose to go there for her birthday.
Kaden generously stayed home so we could drive instead of taking public transit (the aquarium is about 48 minutes away from us by car, but twice as long by public transit). Khloe had a few aquarium experiences on her to-do list (she really wanted to see the piranhas being fed), so we got there early to make sure she could get to everything she wanted.
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| Jellies |
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| Ocean tank |
She and her friend separated from us immediately, but Zac and Harrison and I had a good time on our own. Khloe and her friend enjoyed their day a lot, and we all had a nice lunch in the little restaurant. At the end of the day, we exited through the gift shop and I bought them all their choice of tiny stuffed aquarium friend - two great white sharks and a ray.
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| Fish eating the dead skin off of Harrison's hand |
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| Hip-hop's first shark encounter |
Khloe had a nice birthday. She got lots of art supplies, clothes, and IKEA stuff for her room, and she was very happy. On her real birthday, Zac made Greek chicken pitas as requested, and we ate Ben&Jerry's as a family while watching The Princess Bride.
She's still struggling with headaches, and we have now tried the pediatric headache specialists, physical therapy, and new glasses. We are in the process of investigating some more eye-related things, but for now, she just copes as best she can. She's been really enjoying going to study group after school with the older students, and she just joined a gym to start going with one of her friends after class.
Kaden
Kaden hasn't been going to baseball much since the holidays - he prefers the outdoor practices, and I think it's nice to get a break from driving him back and forth, so I don't complain much. He does still drop in occasionally, and he's really looking forward to playing this spring and summer.
He played in the DISNAC basketball tournament and the volleyball tournament for the international school.
He's also been keeping himself busy with projects around the house. First, he used some scrap wood and leftover stain to make a "jeans wall" for his room.
He also detailed my car, and he's building us some shelves for the kitchen!
He's had a lot of ups and downs at school the last few years. Sometimes, he's really engaged and likes his teachers and cares about his grades, and other times, he's angry and frustrated and couldn't care less about doing his work. We've struggled to get him assessed for neurodivergence, made plans with his educators to give him leniency with his fidgeting, gotten permission to remove him from his third language classes and replace them with study hall, and really tried hard to motivate him, at least in the classes where he's already on track to do well. It's just been a bit of an uphill battle for us all.
He really wants to go to a trade school to become a welder. To do that, he has to have good grades in math, and he needs to speak Danish. The international school does have a Danish language class, but none of my kids can use Danish in their daily lives yet, so it doesn't seem very effective. In fact, that's a common parental complaint at the international school!
Anyway, for the past several months, Kaden just can't wait to be done with his exams so he can get out of school. His plan was to finish his exams, take a year to work and learn Danish, and then apply to welding school. The problem, as I saw it, was that taking a year to independently learn Danish isn't super feasible with his level of motivation. All the jobs he wanted weren't really going to get him where he needs to be language-wise either.
I reached out to multiple advisors trying to figure out what his options were, and finally, one of them suggested that we talk to Kaden about 10.klasse (10th grade). In Denmark, folkeskole is 1st grade through 9th grade, and at the end of it, students take their final exams and then choose which track they want to take for their next step. For example, kids who want to go to business college or be a chemical engineer or become a professional painter all apply for different high school programs that give them general subjects while also helping them navigate specialized subjects that get them closer to their career goals. Kids who aren't sure what they want to do, or maybe kids that didn't get the grades they needed on their exams to be competitive in their chosen track, can go to an extra year of school - this optional 10th grade.
It was hard to convince him that doing an extra year of school was the right path, but at the end of the day, he knew it would teach him more Danish than he'd learn with his previous plan. He agreed we could at least go visit.
I set up a meeting at Ungdomsskolen (The Youth School). It's right up the road from our house. It's not a traditional Danish public school like Harrison is going to; it's more like a Boys & Girls Club or something - a place for youth to go spend time and be together and do activities when they get out of school for the day. There are some classes there, I think, in the evenings, but during the daytime, the school is empty, so they offer 10.klasse during the day, as well as a special 10.klasse for kids that need extra help, and Internationale Ungdomsklasser (IU, International Youth Classes), which is a program for teens who are refugees, migrants, etc. to come and learn the Danish language while still studying Math and English and some other fun things.
Our meeting was good, but they were concerned that Kaden would struggle in 10.klasse too much given his very low level of Danish. Instead, they recommended that he leave the international school immediately and come into the IU class for the last 2-3 months of the school year. They said he could get almost three months of more focused Danish language learning, and then maybe after summer break, he would be a little more prepared to jump into 10.klasse totally in Danish.
Kaden struggled with that decision a bit. He had barely gotten used to the idea that maybe he'd be going to 10.klasse in August instead of just leaving school behind him, and now, he would be packing up and leaving the school he's been at for almost three years quite suddenly and jumping into an existing class of strangers at a school he didn't know. He had to think about it.
They offered him a trial day, so he skipped school one Tuesday and went to IU. He had a really great day!
He decided he wanted to go. I had to do some fast communicating with his international school and his potential new school, but after a week, we had things all squared away. His old school said that since he's already registered for the big exams (the IGCSEs), he can withdraw from the school but still come back on the days of the IGCSE exams he wants to take. That's good because he can probably do quite well on the Math and English exams at a minimum, and then he won't have to take those in Danish after 10.klasse.
He started at IU, and when he got out on his first day, I met him there and we had a meeting with the secretary and a student counselor from the commune. It was all very positive, Kaden likes the school, and I think we may have found a good place where he will thrive and feel a sense of belonging.
After just three days, it really seems like the school is more focused on making kids feel engaged with the Danish language than the educational aspect of things, but that suits Kaden fine, I think. He already voluntarily spoke one Danish word to me last night. Things are moving in the right direction.
Kaden rides his bike to school every day now. He's still adjusting and feels a little lonely, but I hope it will pass quickly and he will learn a lot. Send him lots of positive vibes!
Zac and Lindsey
We're doing things, too!
Even though Zac is battling plantar fasciitis, we still like to go for gentle walks. There was a big light artwork installation in Helsingør early in the year. It was spread through the town, so in some cases, you had to buy a ticket to the castle or the maritime museum, but some of them were free, so we took advantage of those.
The free installations were down by the wharf. It was a chilly walk down, so we stopped at Værftets Madmarked (The Wharf's Food Market) for a cozy Carlsberg.
The biggest light installation was supposed to change in response to the people and activity around it. Zac tried wildly to find a correlation between his movements and the light response, but we decided there wasn't one.
There was another one where you could blow into the artwork and affect the rings of light floating in the water. It was a piece about breathing life into the oceans, and it was pretty. I think it's challenging to show good photos of interactive light artwork, but you get what you get.
The last one we saw was like a multi-part underwater installation that looked like a mermaid diving into the harbor and swimming forward and then out on the other side of a dock. Anyway, it was a nice walk and a fun (cold) time.
Of course, the best light show in Denmark comes from the north...
Helsingør is a fun town to walk around. I enjoy walks to the castle (and hey, as long as we're close, to Bakeria).
One thing I'm a little disappointed in is the street art in Helsingør. Copenhagen is a beautiful, gritty tapestry of sticker art, graffiti, tiles, murals, and the like. This is what we get in Helsingør:
Come on. Try harder.
I guess that's a little better.
There are maybe three local "tagger" names around our neighborhood. There's "woom", "chezo", and one with a badly drawn cat face. Can you find "woom" and "chezo" in the picture at the top of the post? Go ahead. I'll wait.
Yeah. See? Not great talent here.
I'm hopeful that as new people move into the area, the city's street art will get some new life. Lots of houses around us for sale! Until then, I'll just read about all my inner-city favorites and their predecessors in my dansk gadekunst (Danish street art) book, pictured below. Also, see Zac's new skull!
Zac and I listen to lots of good Danish music in the evenings and on weekends. We're collecting some of the Danish classics on vinyl, and it's fun trying to pick out the words in the lyrics. Sometimes, it's hard to practice a language through music though. People write lyrics in a way that you would maybe never speak the same words, so it can be challenging.
I prefer Danish podcasts. My favorite so far is Star Wars Fans DK. It's a podcast where Danish people just get together and talk about Star Wars. It's the best. My only complaint is that the episodes are really long for the amount of time I normally have to listen, so it can be very challenging to pick up an episode in the middle after being away for a week. Sometimes I follow well, sometimes not as well, but it's very good listening practice. Someday, I will be on this podcast. I know you think I'm kidding, but Denmark is a small country and there aren't so many people in love with Star Wars here, so they're always asking people to just come on and chat about Andor and sound effects and whatever else you feel like chatting about. Just you wait.
We recently got an opportunity to practice our Danish speaking and listening (and singing!) skills at my friend's 40th birthday party! Ann-Louise invited us and like 30 Danes to a cozy party at a pizza place in Espergærde. (Lisa, it was the one where you and Zac stopped to use the bathroom when we walked down to the beach there!)
We ate absolutely delicious wood-fired pizza and drank Aperol Spritzes and good beer. People gave beautiful speeches about Ann-Louise, we watched her open gifts, and we got to know her childhood friends. We also got to spend time with Jacob and Christina, who are always so lovely.
After the pizza place closed, a subset of us took a bus ride back into Helsingør. We had the whole bus, so we just started in with all the Danish birthday songs (I mean, I'm saying "we" very loosely...Zac and I still don't know them very well), and when they ran dry on those, I initiated "Happy Birthday." Around that time, someone completely hidden from our view in the back of the bus pushed the button to get off and we all thought it was quite funny as he walked past us all without a word.
When it was our turn to get off the bus, we walked to a small, old bar near the station. There was cold beer, a little dance floor, and an older man set up on a tiny stage with a keyboard and a microphone. He entertained us for several hours, playing everything from Volbeat to ABBA and beyond. We watched Ann-Louise be lifted off the floor like an angel as he sang "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" and everything about it was amazing.
We were pretty fuld when we left the bar, but we had parked our bikes at the station and made it home to bed quickly and safely. I've missed riding my bike, but drunk and uphill in the frigid Helsingør coastal winds wasn't my favorite.
We also spent some money this quarter. Besides getting the electrical and plumbing in order, we splurged on some things we were missing in our home. Thing 1: Sewing machine.
Her name is Gladys, after my great-grandmother, and I hope she's as good to me as the sewing machine the OG Gladys bought for me when I was 16 was.
Thing 2: A dining room light.
You guys. This is not an ordinary light. It's a Louis Poulsen PH 5. Classic Danish design. A diffuse glow for the most hyggelig dining experience. I've wanted one for so long, but it seemed quite unattainable. Zac's parents generously gave us some housewarming gift funds though, and we desperately needed lighting in the dining room (as I have said before that the Danes take their lights when they move). It seemed so much more affordable when a chunk was paid for as a gift! Isn't it the most beautiful light you've ever seen?
They don't mess around with these lights, either. The lamp store owner hand-wrote me a receipt for it, and when I unboxed it, I was quite surprised to find that it came with a pair of white gloves for handling and its own microfiber cloths for dusting.
That's it. Two things. I mean, I guess we also bought some physiotherapy balls and a mat for the dog bowls so we don't have to keep them on a Volcom towel in the dining room anymore, but those aren't as exciting. Oh, and we bought Zac's yellow skull decoration, as I mentioned earlier. That was a fun day!
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| (Hat by Vanessa Elsner) |
And the yarn from the yarn store allowed me to finish nålbinding the sweater I started last July. I have crafted an awkward piece of clothing!
Zac has been frustrated that he had to quit running in October due to his foot issues, but he contacted the doctor and got going on physiotherapy. He rides his bike there. It's fun to bike to things! And in case you were wondering, yes. He still regularly makes us amazing food.
This was the perfectly balanced smashburger. I just need you to know.
We also had one beautiful sunny day. All the vintergækker came out, and so did the chipper! Man, I love that thing. It's so fun.
I'm so happy that Vibe introduced me to the joy of a garden chipper! Oooh, speaking of Vibe, she came to Friday bar last month!
That was fun. But sometimes, I also do scary things. For example, I was invited to Mødredrinks (Mom Drinks) through Aula, the all-powerful Danish school app I've heard so much about (but never experienced until Harrison started Danish public school). The mother of a kid from Harrison's class was hosting a get-together for all the class moms at her house. I immediately signed up to go because I knew it was something I should do. I don't know any of them. I don't understand their language super well. But also, in Denmark, kids are together for the long haul. For the next few years, Harrison will have these same kids in his class, and I decided I should take every scary-ass opportunity to get to know people and practice Danish in social situations.
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Happy springtime!
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