Around the neighborhood

 So, I was on my way home from the market the other day when I saw this all-to-frequent and yet still-oh-so-scary occurrence. I was thankful I had my camera with me, because it has gotten to be burdensome with all the other kid-gear. So....check out the fourth floor where a lady is washing the outsides of her windows by sitting/squatting on the 5 inch deep ledge. YIKES!!!

 My windows continue to be dirty.

Running out of megabytes...or something.

Blogger/google/the powers that be have told me that I am nearing the max on my space in cyber-space, and if I desire to keep sharing our lives freely with our family and friends, I'll need to start paying! Soooo, I'm trying to make all my holiday pictures as small as possible, and perhaps I will open a new google account and blog in 2013. :) That said, here is the whirlwind of our last couple weeks.

The weekend before Christmas we celebrated with several other families with a delicious meal, fun gift exchange, ornament making for the kids (with a little help from the moms), and all-around good time. Our kids were so enamored to see different toys, that they busily checked out all that was available and then Lu promptly collapsed on the couch.  Both kids loved the trampoline too!

Unfortunately, between a December birthday and Christmas, Moo has become totally aware of what all is out there in that big world. What do I get to open now? Why is it that they put pictures of other toys on the boxes of the toys you've just received? And in the back of books? Poor Lu was simply overwhelmed with all the Christmas blessings she received Christmas morning, so I think next year we'll try to spread out the gift opening over a few weekends. Or maybe she'll get used to it by then. Yikes.Thankfully Moo was just as excited to help other people open their gifts as he was to receive his own. May that continue.

Christmas weekend, we went to a parade - the first ever in our city. Most people here don't know that Christmas is celebrated on the 25th. They have combined the traditions they have seen in movies and on TV of Thanksgiving and Christmas and celebrate it all on New Year's! It is quite common to have  a big turkey dinner and a visit from Santa on New Year's Eve. We were excited to participate in a parade on the  22nd that concluded with a carol sing and a few local pastors telling about the true reason for Christmas. It was a bit cold for the kids, but a joyous celebration.

We went to a candlelight service at our church on Sunday with a delicious meal after for 200+ local believers and foreigners. On Christmas Eve we went to the church that we attended our first year here (closer to our old house) and heard the Christmas story told from a children's Bible. The kids were invited to go up and participate in the story as shepherds, angels, and wisemen. We didn't bring a costume, but Moo was zealous to participate....but definitely not without a costume. A friend of ours lent his scarf and after I tied it around Moo's head, he leaped over the pew to join his buddies up front. Lu was excited to participate and demonstrate her new word of the day....in her sleep-deprived state, she proceeded to yell out "SHEP - HERD!  SHEP - HERD!" while the narrator continued the story. Ah, children. Gotta love 'em.

On Christmas Day we hosted a few families at our house for dinner, and Moo & Lu delivered chocolate bars to all while singing and ringing jingle bells in their self-appointed Christmas costumes - Santa & the Christmas Fairy.

Sightseeing

With my sister-in-law, her hubby, and their friend visiting, I was pretty excited to participate in one of Rick's famed tours of our fine city. Usually Rick takes visitors around while I hold down the fort at home. We decided to risk a full day without naps and see what we could see. It was super hot, but well worth the trip to see these fantastic ancient sites. Rick has a gift for holding onto vast quantities of historic info in his head. It was really nice to see him doing what he does so well - teaching and sharing about the history and current culture of our home city. Moo loved spending the day doing anything with Aunt Julie. And Lu loves everything, so a fine day had by all.

 Tile mosaics from the Ishtar Gate - one of the gates to the ancient city of Babylon - 575 BC

 Not sure where this lion was from, but I got one kid to sit still in front of something old and called it an accomplishment.

 Basilica Cisterns - built by Constantine and enlarged by Justinian (6th century AD) -  stored water under the city in case of war. Moo and I liked walking on the boardwalks through this mysterious place - especially watching the fish swim in the water below.

 

 Includes an upside down medusa head - no idea why.

 After hours of Dad's tour guiding, Lu crashed. She skipped the cisterns.

 Egyptian pillar - 1500 B.C. - was placed in the middle of the hippodrome - a horse-racing track. Still looks like new!

 Blue Mosque - tourists visits this mosque to see the beautiful blue tiles from Iznik (ancient Nicaea) inside.

 A fountain in the courtyard - can you see the rainbow? And my kids making chalk drawings? Waiting for our relatives to see the Hagia Sophia. That is the one tourist place I had seen previously.  Rick has seen it a bunch of times, so we waited outside in the shade.

Streams of people enter the Blue Mosque during the holy month of Ramazan. Prayers and Qur'an readings occur throughout the day. The plaza felt a bit like the festivals I used to go to in Chicago - tons of people and different vendors.

Beat the Heat 1

I was so excited to hear from a friend of another restaurant in our area that is kid-friendly! Dad has been gone 12 hours/day for 3 weeks and it has just gotten hotter and hotter. Last Friday I decided to take the kids to find this place in the hopes that Dad could join us later. As it turned out, he got home much later and missed all the yummy food. (Frowny face.) The kids and I had a very nice meal though. Check out this shady playground!

 Lydia is waving to two birds on the adjacent chair who kept eyeing her pizza.

 Isn't this a magical place? I bet it is beautiful at night. Only crazy foreigners with little kids eat at 5:30!

And the best part? The restaurant comes with a nanny who will play with your kids while you eat!

Mom's Day

I had a wonderful mom's day this weekend. Homemade pancakes (with a little bit of help from Moo and a lot from Dad), a beautiful potted plant (tiled by Moo at Sunday School), a glorious uninterrupted nap (graciously provided by my hubbie), and an amazing 20+ course dinner! Thinking about where I wanted to go,  my only desire was to go to a kebap restaurant that overlooked the sea. We hopped on a bus before 5 hoping to get there before the evening crowds. We found a nice place that offered kebaps and was along the water.

What we didn't realize, was that there was only one menu choice for the evening - the full 'fixed' menu! It usually takes us 15 minutes of trying to hold our kids together with fruit snacks and bread while we await our meal. However, at this special place, within two minutes of sitting down, we had 11 cold appetizers laid before us with news that the hot appetizers were on the way! Woah. Deciding not to think about the end cost of this adventure, we were happy to discover our kids happily discovering several appealing dishes - cucumber in garlic yogurt sauce, hummus, and lots of bread. The main course was a humongous mixed-meat (steak, chicken, meatball, ribs, etc.) kebap served on a special platter above the other courses. I was so bummed that my camera ran out of batteries after the first round! Just when we thought we would burst, they came to clear the dishes. This wonderful restaurant also had a kids play zone - just like burger king. Fancy white tablecloths, a professional photographer taking family photos while you dine, and a play structure complete with balls to jump in. We watched the kids play while we let our food settle. Just as we contemplated asking for our bill, 9 more plates arrived with various fruit and desserts. Oh my goodness. Delicious. And we had to waddle home.

I think this is a common way to dine out with family here for a special occasion as I often see people inside restaurants with platters and platters of food. Coming from the dutch financial tradition of only ever ordering an appetizer if it is instead of the meal, this was an amazing treat. We all went home happy and full! (Until the train ride when Moo asked what he could have...as if he hadn't already eaten two plates of food).

tee hee...Lu's professional shot from the restaurant.

Funny things people say

I seem to be a magnet for people to say funny things to. These are my interpretations of what I think random people have said to me this month on the street, in the post office, and on the bus. They may or may not have lost something in the translation.

-          Is you sister alive? (about Lydia in the carrier-once to Micah, once to me: twice I was asked if my daughter was living!) Two interpretations given by locals: a joke because she is so sweet looking. iow – is she real? and secondly, she is so still, is she a baby doll?

-        Are you watching them? Are their parents Turkish? At the park I was mistaken for being the  nanny. My tutor claims it is because I look so young. I wonder if it’s because no moms are in the park with their kids…it is only grandmas and nannies. Where are all the moms?

-       So sweet! May God protect him from evil. How old is he?  This is often the chorus when strangers come upon children. When I turned around to look, I was surprised to see two dog owners having the conversation!

-         (regarding my kids) What brand? Upon many bewildered looks and much asking for clarification, I learned this woman was asking what country we were from!

-          Don’t even try! (to tell me your child is 10 months old. She has teeth! And she’s so active/attentive…her eyes are following the conversation. Whoever is talking, she is looking at them.) When do their kids get teeth?? 

-         He, Lydia, must be a boy. She has no hair. Is this a joke or are they serious? When I tried responding with the smiling comment, “yes she is growing teeth, but she’s not growing hair” I didn’t get any laughs. I guess I need to still work on my bilingual sense of humor.

Valentine's Day

Love is in the air! What says it better than a bouquet of balloons?






Naturally, a pair of gloves meant for you and your love to never be apart...even in cold wintertime. Mittens for your outer hands, and a shared glove for your shared love. Free with the purchase of $12 worth of products from this store!

5 months

I took Lydia to the doctor today and got the following advice for a 5 month old:

Don't take her to the mall. There is air-conditioning there and people are breathing in the same air. You can take her to the outdoor mall though. No problem there.

Take her to the bazaar or the boardwalk as there are lots of people of different sizes and hair color to see there (which is comical to me, because the only people with different hair color are the foreigners and the women that dye their hair).

Invite older children to your house. Bake a cake. She will like watching them.

playgrounds

 I'm not sure why I have stressed for a whole year about walking up and down the hill to distant playgrounds. This dream playground has been right under my nose the whole time (literally right across the street from our apartment)! Maybe when Micah turns 3 I'll let him live out the great adventure of playing on wood piles with miscellaneous pipes and who knows what else. Just another way that city life and suburban life have different definitions of play. :)

starting solids...

well, they do things a little different here.

Lydia's doctor's advice for starting solids is as follows:

(Can I start giving cereal soon? I ask. 'Oh, no. She might be allergic. Start with vegetable soup.')

At six months, start with vegetable soup at lunch time. Use whatever vegetables are in season, a little olive oil, no salt.
(Should I puree this? I ask. Yes, is the reply).

7-10 days later give yogurt around dinner time.

7-10 days later give cereal around 8 or 9 at night.

This sounds a lot cheaper than buying jars of baby food! But, we'll see what I actually end up doing another month down the road. I snuck several boxes of rice and oatmeal cereal into our luggage on our trip back from the States....as back-up. 

momhood

I took the kids to the park today and we were pleasantly surprised to see lots of young kids there with moms and grandmas and older sisters.  All these women except the grandmother wore headscarves. I sometimes feel a little wild when I walk into these environments with my short American haircut and capri pants. However, kindness and hospitality prevailed and before I knew it the grandmother walked right up to Micah and shoved a bite of banana into his mouth! Her grandkids were done eating their snack and half a banana remained. Of course it would go to the new kid on the playground, even if he didn't speak the language. Grandma started conversing with me...and as usual the intro questions went like this:
- Where are you from? Are you German? English?
- Do you live here?
- Is your husband from here?
- Does your mom live here?
- So you're alone then? (my husband doesn't count...typically there are female relatives close by to help with raising the kids)

And then several minutes of saying how beautiful my baby is. (it used to be Micah...but now they all dote on the baby....and he thinks it's funny-which I'm thankful for.)

composing...a sketch of daily life and not enough cash

I find myself composing blog posts in my head during the day sometimes...and then forgetting them by the time the kiddos go to sleep. Well, here are a few attempts at the crazy stories of my mommy-life over the past few days:

Yesterday I took Lulu to the doctor with Moo in tow. After two vaccines, I found myself at the checkout desk a couple hundred lira short ($100+) of the amount due. (Alas we only have one ATM card here (usually in Rick's wallet) and our US charge card charges us a whopping percentage on overseas charges). Happily, I have discovered that the doctors offices here are often quite willing to let me pay the balance at future doctor visits. How they know I will return and finish paying, I'm not sure, but I appreciate their trusting nature!

As a reward for Micah sitting through a doc visit, we hopped on over to the Little Caesars next door that just added a kiddy playground! (Hooray! Another kid friendly destination in our neighborhood). Knowing I only had about 10 lira and some coins in my wallet, I looked for the cheapest thing on the menu...hardly bothering to really read descriptions. The server offered me an English menu, but I said, "No need, just give me this parmesan pizza and an order of nuggets". 45 minutes later, when playtime was done and it was time to pay, boy was I surprised to find my order totaling 18 lira! I asked the server to check for a mistake, and to my dismay discovered my 'cheapest thing on the menu' was merely the cost of the special crust on a 9 lira pizza. Oh dear. I shook out my wallet and my pockets and surprisingly had enough to cover the bill. I'll have to give a tip next time.

Another surprise we discovered while we were gone was that they overhauled the bus payment system. You can no longer pay cash on the buses and they phased out the old keychain electronic payment method. Thus...new cards are needed that are only sold at certain city centers with exceedingly long lines as everyone tries to adjust to the new system. As I stood at the end of a line of 40 people with Micah in the stroller and Lydia strapped in the Ergo on my chest, sun beating down, my watch telling me I was already 5 minutes late for dinner 15 minutes away...I wondered what the likelihood of me ever getting one of these new cards would be. Then some beautiful pushy ladies behind me told me that I needed to go to the front of the line...I couldn't possibly stand here with these two kids in the hot sun as long as that line was going to take. I didn't think that would go over well with the other people who had been waiting in the hot sun.....but these ladies just pulled me to the front of the line and begged and pleaded and scolded until someone let me go in front of them.

As I carted my kids around on public transit this week, I was so blessed when someone on each bus helped me get my stroller on and off. I really appreciate the way they watch out for moms with little kids here. I think back home we sometimes expect moms to do it all and keep their kids quiet at the same time. I had 6 different people offer me a seat on the bus last night when Lydia started crying. Lovely.
 

Gifts from the neighbors

Our neighbors often drop by with unexpected fresh produce from their friend's farm. This week, we got a huge jug of fresh milk! I think it was because Mom is visiting. An extra treat!!