ANNA - 2007

Now I am four years old and my parents are no longer content with me. They tell me, that a four year old longer needs a nappy at night, and furthermore, also does not suck a thumb. Problem is, I really really like my thumb so it is either in my mouth or halfway getting there. So this morning, my mother caught me when my thumb was halfway getting there. So she got angry and said "Anna, no thumb in your mouth!". But my thumb was not going to my mouth. And so I told her: "No, not going to my mouth, I am only thinking".

In the middle of July, I decided it was time to re-celebrate Sinterklaas. So I grabbed my family members by the hand, made a circle and started to sing Sinterklaas songs. In the evening, I put six shoes and guess what? The next morning they were stuffed with pepernoten. So Sinterklaas comes to Bangladesh even in the middle of summer, I knew it! So the next day, it was time to celebrate Christmas. I started preparing the Christmas tree and decorations. And suddenly my mother put a halt to it. I don't understand why, certainly after Sinterklaas Christmas is coming. I tried to convince her, but she said no way, no celebrating Christmas in the middle of July. So the noise I made after that, did not resemble a Christmas song, I can assure you.

As my mother is the world-cook, I am also genetically "defaulted". I love to cook day and night. As soon as I wake up, I ask my father to assist me in making cup cakes.  This time, I decided to make them look nicer all by myself. So I took a tomato from the fridge, ripped pieces off it with my teeth and decorated the cakes with tomato (my sister Elodie later was nagging about how that was not a good combination).  My mother found that so sweet, that she wanted to make a picture. After three pictures, my face was still not as she wanted it, so I had to look up and smile. This however made the muffin plate topple over and messed up my beautiful dress totally. Finally, after she dried my tears, she managed to make a good picture though.

For summer holiday 2007 we have been in Singapore. We were in a beautiful resort in Sentosa Island where I could swim all day in the swimming pool and the sea. My bathing suit was totally faded after that, and my sister Elodie had to wear my second one, since she forgot hers. But never mind, I am  not that fashionable; nothing made me happier than that slide in the pool, nice bathing suit or not.
On Sentosa Island, we did some fun things, like visit the Merlion, play mini golf and sit in the cable car.

We also went for shopping, and while mama was spending her money, I played games with Victor and a mirror. I had to distract my mother's attention, to be able to save some money for later. We used the subway a lot and I was dancing in there like a real pole dancer. Too bad the train was almost empty. In the end, I was so tired, that I fell asleep in a station in the middle of our pieces of luggage, my head on my teddy bear. And, as you can see, I am still not sucking my thumb - only thinking.

After the summer holidays, my school only started mid-September, so I had to wait almost a months more than the rest of the family. The French apparently like to stick to their own curriculum. When I finally started, a few weeks later it was Eid holiday and again a week later Autumn holiday, which was very funny, because we were the only kids with holidays. So my daddy and me went out for swimming and games and had loads of fun.
Just before the holiday, the school celebrated Halloween. I knew about this, but unfortunately, my parents only found out the evening before, and did not have a costume ready. My mother came up with a black costume and skeletons, which she found suitable for Halloween, but I did not like it and screamed my head off: I wanted a dragon suit and nothing else. Luckily my friend Fleur helped me out and offered me a nice princess dress in dragon colors which suited me fine.
After that, it was time for Sinterklaas to arrive in Dhaka. Even though it was still summer (it is summer here the whole year round), he came dressed in his thick red coat and the Black Peters had their long sleeves and black woolen tights. Can you imagine, I was already sweating in my cotton sleeveless dress! As always, Sinterklaas attracted a lot of attention and the Bangladeshi did not quite know what to make of this show. He brought me a sticker book and loads of speculaas and pepernoten. I had a special green bag to carry my cookies home and I did my best to collect as many as I could.