BrusselsNannyy Diaries: Little Kid Love and Smart Cars

The other day during Abendbrot, Sylvia asked the boys how their days at school were. Niki started talking about how he carved a pumpkin, and then Jonas piped up: “I kissed another girl!” Sylvia flashed me a concerned look across the table. Uh oh. A few months ago, Jonas told me and Sylvia about a girl he liked (Mandy) and how he tried kissing her at school. He said she let him kiss her, but then decided she didn’t “love him.” Now he is on to the next one… Sylvia sighed. “And here it goes,” she said, referring to the little crushes that we all experience in elementary school. She then started prying, and surprisingly, Jonas was willing to tell her everything. He explained how Mandy didn’t seem to like him anymore, but he still liked her, but he was willing to go for this other girl if he can’t have Mandy. “So she is like your backup?”, asked Sylvia. Jonas replied shyly, “Yes…(long pause), But I love both!” Sylvia looked at me again, she actually seemed kind of worried. “Jonas, you can’t have one girl as “a backup”, that’s not right.” He looked away shyly. Then he said, “I’m going to try kissing Mandy again!”, and then rain away. Sylvia and I exchanged glances and sighed. What could we do? I was seeing the beginning of a little boy finding his romantic side…how interesting. It was really something I’ve never experienced before:)

I carved a pumpkin with the boys the other day (first time for Jonas!) And told them the special name for it: Jack-O-Lantern. The pumpkins you find here are small, so I'm sorry out Jack-O-Lantern is not very impressive... It works tho.

Also, on Friday, I had to watch not only the usual 3 boys, but, just to make my life a little more exciting, I also had to watch a 4th! Niki had a friend come over (Frederik) and stay for 5 hours long... And not only that, but he is pretty much a clone of Niki (who, by the way, has been acting up lately and misbehaving a lot... he has been quite rude to me). Basically, they feed off eachbother's craziness and misbehavior. But, even though I wanted to leave them on the street to find their own way home after Niki would NOT stop kicking Jonas, I just thought this was adorable:

Niki and Frederik held hands the entire 20 min walk home! It was even funnier because they would pretend "punch" each other and pull on each other's backpacks, but then they would go right back to holding each other's hands! So cute:)

And I just can't help taking pictures of this cutie:

Change of Topic:

I went to one of the “big” grocery stores here in Brussels for the first time the other day. “Big” in quotation marks because it is actually about one-tenth the size of a normal Hannaford in New York. But in Europe, everything is smaller. The grocery stores, the cars (I have never seen so many Smart cars in one place in my life), the streets, the shops, the jars of peanut butter… It’s not a bad thing (well… maybe the peanut butter), it’s just different. I like how everything is small, it makes the city feel cozier.

Smart Car! (In front of a Hookah bar hehe)

Anyway, going into a foreign country’s grocery store is always an adventure. I found some pretty interesting (and tasty) things. They have a whole section dedicated to Islamic foods. I found Halva, which I have never actually tasted but heard of. Apparently, the word “Halva” comes from “hulw," the Arabic word for "sweet." Well, if it’s sweet, I’ll like it (I have a major sweet tooth…it’s kind of a problem). Looking at the ingredients, it has sesame seeds, glucose syrup, sugar, plant fat (yum?), vanilla. I looked online, and the more “original” is made with less oil and more natural stuff.

From Wikipedia, the most trustable encyclopedia online:

The term halva, meaning "sweet", is used to describe two types of desserts:

§ Flour-based – This type of halva is slightly gelatinous and made from grain flour, typically semolina. The primary ingredients are clarified butter, flour, and sugar.

§ Nut-butter-based – This type of halva is crumbly and usually made from tahini (sesame paste) or other nut butters, such as sunflower-seed butter. The primary ingredients are nut butter and sugar.

Halva may also be based on numerous other ingredients, including sunflower seeds, various nuts, beans, lentils, and vegetables such as carrots, pumpkins, yams, and squashes.

I also bought some date filled cookies (also Islamic), some dark Belgian chocolate (the real stuff, sweetened with natural sugar). I also found some honey waffles WITH chocolate inside! YUM:) The sweets aisle is PACKED with all kinds of cookies, waffles, chocolate and other candies. It literally looked like if you added one more type of cookie or chocolate, the shelves would just buckle under the weight of all of it and fall. Belgians obviously also have a sweet tooth. Guess I ended up in the right place:)

I’ve started watching 40 minutes of French Nickelodeon every morning. It’s actually really helping my French a lot. Guess what Spongebob Squarepants is in French?? Bob L’eponge Carré!