Even the royals get in with nature here in Denmark. While Princess Isabella doesn’t attend a forest school, Danish royals aren’t afraid to get a little mucky in their free time either.
Now that Princess Isabella is 8, apparently she’s starting to take on “official duties” – the first one being the christening of a ship named after her on Samso Island. I was in the middle of researching a weekend to Samso when I came across these photos. Not only is a major ship her namesake (Cool? We thought so – my daughter asked me where we can get one of those. Um, nowhere.), but she also took the day to visit a nature school, a shrimp and bird estuary, and the strawberry fields of the island.
Princess Isabella isn’t afraid to throw on a little nature gear like rubber waders and falconry gloves – after all, she’s still a child. And one in Denmark at that. Here, being a royal isn’t all just tea parties and tiaras. Just the way it should be, right?
Just a little something to change things up! I’ll have photos from our farm outing soon but in the meantime, a little video of some summer strawberry picking over at Camilla Plum’s Fuglebjerggaard Farm!
The other day, my daughter was explaining to someone that she was Danish. Obviously, that’s not the case on paper, but it’s becoming clearer to me that she is increasingly feeling Danish, whereas feeling American is rather abstract for her. This is not to say that she doesn’t know America. We’re gearing up for a trip back to North Dakota (my home state!) next week, and she’ll be in the DC/New Jersey area next month (our other US home). While I was working, trips back to see the US and both sets of grandparents were very much the norm as I often had to return to the home office and let her tag along. But to her, these trips back are starting to seem more like destinations at the end of an airplane route, and less like home.
We just completed two years here in Denmark, which is a good time for me to cue up the cliché of not being able to believe how fast it went by. And it’s just now at the two-year mark, that I feel like we are hitting our stride as expats around here, although for my daughter that feeling of comfort probably hit sooner. She was just two and a half when we came here, so anything that is truly in her working memory is from here in Denmark. She’s making big preparations in her mind for when she leaves the forest school to start real school, “skole”. She’s got all sorts of plans; I don’t yet have the heart to tell her that while she will in fact start school, it won’t be here.
We have one year left to go, so I’m facing the dual preparations of soaking up every ounce of what we love about this place, while trying to pre-plan for a smooth transition, most likely back to the US for us for one year. When we came here, I didn’t think too much about preparing our kids since we only had one and she was so young. This time, I’m planning on being a bit better prepared.
To that end I have been reading the new book by fellow diplo-spouse Clara Wiggins on “The Expat Partner’s Survival Guide”, specifically the chapter on moving with children. It’s a great resource for thinking through transitions for everyone involved in the move, and quite honestly, I wished I had picked it up sooner. It’s full of tips and experiences, but also has a comprehensive resource list at the end of each chapter to help you in your own specific move.
A couple of things that she advises for raising kids in this type of lifestyle:
Take kids “home” when possible for holidays
Keep kids current with some shows or books or jokes
With one year out, I realize we’ve been doing a lot of the first three, but not so much for the fourth. We’ve always done a lot of looking at photographs and videos here at our house, so it should be easy enough to layer in more conversations about home and what that means, where we are from and why that matters. I can still create enough space for her to feel her own brand of Danish without taking away the fact that she is American.
It makes me all a bit nostalgic for how quickly the time has gone (there’s that cliché again) but may this last year be the best year – at forest school and beyond!
The forest school is predominantly held – wait for it – in the forest, but it doesn’t mean that these kiddos don’t get out and about in the city from time to time. Periodically, if there is an event of note, or if the weather is particularly dreary, the classes visit museums or other points of interest. And a couple of weeks ago, we were delighted to host this group of curious ones at the American Embassy here in town.
The Embassy often hosts schools groups to visit and learn about their work and the United States but this was the first time that the doors opened for these tiny tots. After all, visa processing and bilateral trade agreements aren’t necessarily top of mind for them. So we structured the visit around the little stuff – after all, isn’t that stuff the coolest anyway?
Here they are learning about the American flag, what the stars and stripes stand for, and how the colors compare to the Danish flag…
And here they are waving to the Marines who keep the embassy safe and learning all about reinforced glass…
The model of the USS Constitution was a major hit as well…here they are sitting calmly and listening, but about 20 toddlers swarmed that glass case just minutes before giving anyone adult in the area a brief moment to wonder if this was a good idea…But as always, the forest school kids surprised me with their own ability to self-regulate. “Step back, ” one of them said to the others, “we have to be careful here.”
And who can resist snack time? In keeping with Danish school traditions, fresh fruit was front and center, but let’s be honest, the chocolate chip cookies, a special “hygge” American treat was the real treat (at least, that’s what the teachers told me, and they haven’t stopped talking about them since)…
Flags to color and stickers were take-home treats…
I don’t know how much of this visit will stick with four-year olds, and frankly, I’m sure the huge adventure park across the street is probably the thing that was most entertaining thing for them that day. But Denmark has been so good to us in terms of opening up its doors in so many ways, it was a nice feeling to open ours in return. One thing the children learned was that Denmark and the US are good friends – I hope they remember one day that we absolutely meant that.
