Au revoir

Me and my protégé

Dear Readers,

This has been a building year for my organization and I would like to thank you dearly for your letters and well-wishes during the hiatus. I am confident that the changes we have implemented will be well-received and we’re looking forward to what we think will be our most critically-acclaimed year yet. But before I introduce the changes, I’d like to catch you up on some of the highlights you’ve missed since my last post almost a year ago.

Once I dominated fine motor skills, a new world of activities was opened to me and I embraced many new hobbies. I enrolled in music classes where I learned to sing in French and play finely-tuned African instruments like a block of wood and a gourd floating in water.

I also immersed myself into my lifelong interest in dance. Unfortunately, the ballet company I joined put more emphasis on uniformity than I was comfortable with. There was little room for self-expression and what’s worse, the choreographer’s routine left considerable ambiguity over who was to be the diva. In my first performance I corrected their errors and broke free of the rules, showing them and all the world who the true diva is.

Parlaying my celebrity, I decided to bring in some serious cash and do a few tasteful endorsements. Here is my Benetton ad.

As with all child stars, inevitably there comes a day when we grow up and our personal lives become a media obsession. The paparazzi wouldn’t let me alone every time I showed up to a red carpet event with my latest love interest. One guy I dated really thought he was something because he had his own car but when he pulled the old fake-yawn-and-arm-stretch routine in a lame effort to snuggle up to me, I sent him packing.

I did some arctic trekking with my assistants in the barren tundras of Minnesota. It was a chilling change from the arid, African heat of Senegal but the wind-whipped prairie winter brought out the roseyness of my cheeks, which was a very fetching look for me. There I got to spend good quality time with some of my most dedicated fans. I was really touched by their hospitality; they treated me like family.

While touring in Minnesota, my assistants finally complied with my request for an apprentice to help manage my increasingly pressing workload. Almost immediately, I regretted my decision. “What was I thinking?” I chastised myself as the beat-red bundle slept in my lap. The thing was soaking up far more resources than I had budgeted for. She knew almost nothing about baby adventure travel and she was the cause of many a sleepless night for me and my assistants with her wailing self-recriminations. The whole affair began to have the stench of failure and I considered abandoning the project. But my assistants persuaded me to take my apprentice back to Africa with me and give her a trial run since we had already sunk so much time and money into the project.

Ultimately, I’m glad I listened to their advice because the newling grew up a bit and as she did, the awkward clumsiness was slowly replaced with a cute baby quality which we all began to find tolerable. She has worked hard over these past six months and has learned a lot about the three pillars of baby adventure travel: observation, witticisms, and sarcasm. And so, it is with great pride and a touch of sadness that I hand over the enterprise to her capable hands. Soon, we’ll pack our bags and say good-bye to Senegal as my apprentice chooses her own direction and forges her own path.


Fear not, Dear Reader, I will always be there to lend sage guidance and support and I assure my die-hard fans they have not heard the last of me. But as I turn three years old, it is time for me to accept the fact that I have graduated to the ranks of Little Girl Adventure Traveler. I rest easy -- and of course with dramatic panache -- proud of a job well-done.

Now without further delay, I introduce the next generation of adventurer, Catalina Sahara Holliday. Please visit her website at catalinaholliday.blogspot.com and find out where she will take us next. I'm still working on getting her to relax in front of the camera.

Au revoir and peace to all,
Omi, Little Girl Adventure Traveler