ANNA - SUMMER 2005
On the second of May, I celebrated my second birthday. My parents bought me a whole bunch of Lego Duplo, and the whole family spent one and a half hour to build this fantastic Lego town. Unfortunately, the aya could not appreciate the artistic value of it, and when I was out with my father for just an hour or so, she cleared away every little piece of it. I was extremely sad, of course!
As I have learned to say "Ellepant" recently, my parents ordered me an elephant-birthday cake. Really tasty, it was, but so big that we had to eat it five days. The inside, which you cannot see unfortunately, is made of delicious spongy chocolate cake with cream. My father made me a hat with a paper "2" on top, and everybody was singing birthday songs all day, in Dutch, English and Bangla. I have learned to sing as well, I sing "Happy, happy, to you", since the word "birthday" is too difficult for me. Furthermore we had Frankfurter sausages and French fries for dinner, so I was totally stuffed when I went to bed.
The other thing which I really like is to play with dolls. Here you can see me giving (myself and) my doll a bath. I call her my baby, and make a bed for her in a box. This doll used to belong to my sister Elodie, who was begging for ages before my mother would buy it for her. When she finally had it, she hardly ever touched it, and even the name of the poor doll has been "Babyborn" up to now. 
I am also very particular about clothes. I really like neat dresses, you know the English type. Sometimes the ayahs grab a T-shirt and shorts for me, but then I just start a hell of a lot of noise and in the end they always give in. My mother does not like that usually, especially since I do the same thing to get chocolate before, during and after every meal. But the clothes are OK, she also likes me to be dressed up nicely. And, by the way, I am very happy that my friend Maxime from the Netherlands has such a wonderful taste!
In July, we went to the Netherlands for holidays. What a trip that was! A flight of four hours to Singapore, a long wait there, and then 13 hours to the Netherlands. Good thing they had television on board, and I even had my own! So I went through the DVD list and chose the best one: Elepooh. My mother says this bear is called Winnie the Pooh, but since the elephant is still my favorite, I definitely prefer Elepooh. I watched it at least 20 times.
In the Netherlands, we suffered from jetlag for some time. After we had recovered and done all absolutely necessary shopping (you know: alcohol, chocolate sprinkles, an espresso machine, things like that) we went to France for eight days. It was the same as in the Netherlands: we traveled from friends to friends and had a super time. And on the way, we drank a little champagne in the fields. That made me sleepy so I would sleep in the car and give my mother some rest. My mother was crippled after this trip; she has a stiff neck from sitting in a bent over position all the time and she is deaf from my noise. But she is still happy, at least she says so. We made a large "Tour de France" and went from Maastricht to Dijon, to Beziers, back to Bretagne and through Gent to the Netherlands, and almost always on small roads. And the old-timer did not give up even once!
Shortly after we came home from holidays, in August 2005, I went to school. It is not a real school, I don't get to read or write, but they have lots of toys, balloons and nice teachers. I immediately liked it. And it is across the road from our house! When I came home, they gave me a book, in which it said: "We spent some wonderful time in the company of your child. We hope to pass many more such lovely, vigorously active, playful learning time in the coming weeks." Makes me feel like I am the queen and my parents like somebody is making a fool of them....but for sure they mean it well. Because, of course, I am a very nice girl.
Here you can see Karmela, my favorite aya, my mother and me in the local dress: Salwar Kameez. Don't you think it looks fabulous on me? By the way,  my mother is a bit jealous of Karmela. Because when Karmela leaves for home, I cry and screem. And sometimes, when my mother comes home, I don't even go to her, I cling to Karmela. But when my mother leaves, of course I scream just as loudly! I just want all my loved ones close to me. Nobody should leave the house. Actually, nobody should leave me. Or otherwise, they should take me with them, and the others as well!
World cook's homepage Anna's homepage  Back Next