How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

Did you play with dolls when you were a little kid? I did. I was given a baby doll, which I never liked much, when I was probably two and my sister had gotten a big plastic doll the size of a toddler with long hair and little dresses and plastic shoes, a doll that I really wanted for myself and that a little rubber baby doll was little consolation for not having. I'm pretty sure that it was at this point suspicions were first planted in my mother's mind that I was not your usual little boy. Although I did like matchbox cars, too. I just liked dolls better.

Flash forward to 43 years later, to the husband and I in a store buying birthday presents for our goddaughter, the only child of our good friends the priest and the policeman. She was four on Wednesday, and one of her numerous birthday parties was yesterday. We got her glitter crayon things (they were actually more like big lipsticks) and glitter magic markers and horse stickers. And then we went to the store with children's clothes next to my office building, the store with the bright pink little workboots in the window.

Naturally, all those little clothes were irresistable. The husband and I can never go in a place like that and just buy one thing, we end up getting whole ensembles (and I don't think the husband is one of those guys who ever played with dolls when he was a child, he was a manly little boy I suspect, even if he's Mr. Fashion Guy now). It's like getting even for my sister having the fun doll with the clothes and me having the baby doll with diapers and a blanket.

Our goddaughter now has a fall coat with matching gloves, hat and scarf, along with a pair of matching little pink workboots. I was worried that she wouldn't like everything because it was brown and pink - another friend of mine's six-year-old daughter refused to wear a dress that was brown with pink polka dots, because "it's not pink!" - but after the guests had gone, and the five of us had eaten a spaghetti dinner, our goddaughter put on a brief fashion show with all her new clothes.

The question remains, are we becoming a bad influence on her?

The Swedish word for the day is rosa. It means pink.

by Francis S.