Vi hadde hver vår oppgave i dag: hun tok seg av babyen, og jeg ordnet papirene til bilen.

Because the sentence is in the past tense. Hadde is the past tense of å ha (to have), while har is the present tense.

• Vi har hver vår oppgave i dag = We have our own tasks today.
• Vi hadde hver vår oppgave i dag = We had our own tasks today.

Even though i dag means today, Norwegian can still use the past tense if the speaker is talking about something that already happened earlier today.

Hver vår oppgave means something like each our own task or more naturally a separate task each.

It is built like this:

• hver = each
• vår = our
• oppgave = task

So vi hadde hver vår oppgave means that the two people did not share one task; instead, each person had a different one.

This pattern is very common in Norwegian:

• Vi hadde hver vår kopp kaffe = We each had our own cup of coffee.
• De kjørte hver sin bil = They each drove their own car.

Because vår matches vi.

Norwegian often uses this pattern:

• hver sin / sitt / sine when referring back to han / hun / de in a more general way
• but when the possessive is stated from the speaker’s perspective, forms like min, din, sin, vår, etc. can appear depending on the subject

In Vi hadde hver vår oppgave, the subject is vi, so vår is natural.

Compare:

• Vi hadde hver vår oppgave = We each had our own task.
• De hadde hver sin oppgave = They each had their own task.

So hver vår is not strange here; it agrees with vi.

Å ta seg av is a fixed expression meaning to take care of, to handle, or to look after.

So:

• hun tok seg av babyen = she took care of the baby

The seg is part of the expression. You usually learn ta seg av as a whole chunk.

Examples:

• Kan du ta deg av dette? = Can you take care of this?
• Han tok seg av barna = He took care of the children.

You generally cannot remove seg here, because ta av by itself means something completely different, such as take off.

Babyen is the definite form, meaning the baby.

Norwegian often uses a suffixed definite article:

• en baby = a baby
• babyen = the baby

In this sentence, it refers to a specific baby that both speaker and listener know about, so the definite form is used.

Ordnet is the past tense of å ordne, which can mean to arrange, to sort out, to organize, or to take care of depending on context.

Here, jeg ordnet papirene til bilen means something like:

• I sorted out the car papers
• I dealt with the paperwork for the car

It does not necessarily mean neatly organizing papers into folders; it can also mean handling practical or administrative matters.

Literally, papirene til bilen means the papers for the car or the car’s papers/documents.

Breakdown:

• papirene = the papers/documents
• til bilen = for the car / belonging to the car

In everyday Norwegian, papirer often means documents, not just sheets of paper. So this probably refers to things like registration, insurance, ownership papers, and so on.

Norwegian often uses til where English might use:

• for
• of
• the apostrophe ’s

So papirene til bilen is a very natural way to say the car papers.

This is standard main-clause word order in Norwegian:

• Subject + verb + rest

So:

• hun tok seg av babyen
• jeg ordnet papirene til bilen

After og, Norwegian usually starts a new main clause, so the normal subject-verb order appears again.

If an adverbial had been placed first, the word order could change because of the V2 rule. For example:

• I dag tok hun seg av babyen = Today she took care of the baby.

There, tok comes before hun because I dag takes the first position.

The colon introduces an explanation or specification of what the tasks were.

So the structure is:

• We had a separate task each today: here is what those tasks were.

After the colon, the sentence spells them out:

• hun tok seg av babyen
• jeg ordnet papirene til bilen

A dash could sometimes work in similar writing, but the colon is very natural when what follows explains the first clause.

No, oppgave can mean several related things depending on context:

• task
• assignment
• exercise
• duty

In this sentence, task is the best translation because the sentence is about dividing responsibilities for the day.

Examples in other contexts:

• lekseoppgave = homework assignment / exercise
• en vanskelig oppgave = a difficult task
• min oppgave er å hjelpe = my duty/task is to help

Yes. Norwegian often allows more than one natural phrasing. For example:

• Vi hadde ulike oppgaver i dag: hun tok seg av babyen, og jeg ordnet papirene til bilen.
• I dag hadde vi hver vår oppgave: hun tok seg av babyen, og jeg ordnet papirene til bilen.

These versions are slightly different in style, but the original sentence is perfectly natural. The original emphasizes that each person had their own separate responsibility.