realmotherhood

Happiness, happiness

2009-12-15T04:36:00.000-08:00

I've had quite a few discussions recently about the frustrations of living here and how we deal with them. There's a tendancy when you live abroad to blame all life's difficulties on your host country and its people. Often, when a group of expats gets together for a good therapeutic moan, there's a thin line between venting frustrations, making observations and being derogatory and dare I say it, racist.

There's no doubt about it, living abroad can be tough. People think culture shock is something that you only experience for the first few months. I can say from experience that it takes much longer than that. I remember reading about culture shock for the first time after I'd been here for about 4 years and realising I was still in the throes of it. In fact, unless you assimilate totally into your host culture you are always going to feel a little bit like an outsider. When you've lived more of your adult life abroad than at home, you are also an outsider of sorts when you're home. This can be very isolating. It's no coincidence that my best friends are people who are in the same boat as me.

It's important to remind ourselves, that while a good old moan about how Turkish people do this and Turkish people do that makes us feel a whole lot better, we cannot change them, and nor do we have the right to expect them to change. Certain behavior that is totally acceptable here, like talking about someone's weight, salary, talking over another person, etc is considered rude in our culture. So if someone mentions that you've put on weight and you should go on a diet, you may be mortified and outraged at how rude they are, but you have to remember that they do not consider their words to be rude. They may think that by not refering to it, as is the norm in our culture, we are showing a lack of concern for that person's well being.

'You are responsible for your own happiness', is something that I picked up from a visiting psychologist to the university I used to teach at. I found it really helpful at the time when I was having quite severe social issues, bordering on social phobia, as a result, partly from experiencing culture shock without being able to identify or deal with it, and I still have to remind myself of it from time to time. You cannot change the people around you, you can only change your own behaviour and attitudes. You can change how you react to the people around you. This applies to any context, not just living in another culture. People are always going to annoy you, you are always going to receive service that you consider sub-standard, people will always try to rip you off. Are you going to let those people make you unhappy? Or are you going to express your disatisfaction and your unwillingness to accept their behavior.

I've been going through a bit of an 'I hate Turkey' phase recently as you can probably tell from my previous post. We all go through them. Fortunately, they usually precede a trip home. And there's nothing like a trip home to remind yourself why you left in the first place :). This particular I hate Turkey phase, has been different from previous ones. I think it's a combination of really believing in my own self-worth, wanting to defend my kids' rights, feeling that I've been stretched to my limits in most areas of my life, and lastly and perhaps most importantly feeling competent enough in Turkish to express myself clearly, a very empowering feeling.

I have made a few discoveries in this recent kick-ass frame of mind. You cannot stop people trying to rip you off but you feel a hell of a lot better if you give them a piece of your mind. I have lost count of the number of times taxi drivers have tried to rip me off, either by taking me on an impromptu and unacknowledged tour of Istanbul or by putting the meter on the nightfare. I have reacted in different ways at different times. Sometimes I've just paid the fare, sometimes I've made the driver stop and I've got out of the cab (this happened once when I was pregnant in the height of summer on a shadeless road), sometimes I've attempted to dispute the fare with the driver and always come out worse off. Recently when a taxi driver tried to take me on the long route on a rainy morning with both kids, I told him to take me directly where I wanted to go. He suggested I get out of the taxi when I said he was no better than a thief, I refused and insisted that there was no way I was getting out of his taxi on a rainy morning with a baby and a young child. I got what I wanted. I felt shaken but empowered. For the first time I had successfully stood up to a taxi driver and come out better off. I also had a long, difficult shopping trip to Marks and Spencer to buy new clothes for me and the kids for my nephew's christening. I won't go into the tedious details. To put it in a nutshell, after waiting around 30 minutes to get served, I then discovered that their 'spend 200ytl get 100ytl free' campaign was not what I'd been lead to believe. After expressing my disatisfaction to the sales person and not getting anywhere, I said I'd like to speak to the manager. The manager came and the issue got sorted. No voices were raised, no one got angry, no one was defensive. I, the manager and the salesperson parted company with smiles on our faces. Previously, I would have said nothing and gone on my way, having paid more than I wanted or intended to, muttering under my breath about how crap and incompetent Turkish sales people are when really I had to partly take responsibility for failing to communicate my feelings and demand my rights.

Along with the frustrations of living abroad there are many positives. Today a friend said to me, for every negative there is a positive. If you lose the negative you also lose the positive. Yes, strangers intervening with our kids and calling into question our parenting skills can be maddening but it comes from a genuine concern for the child. If you lose this, you lose the feeling of security that comes from knowing that someone will intervene to help you out if need be.

Wherever we are, we will experience things that we don't like. Happiness is not to be found in your location but within yourself.

2009-12-02T04:04:00.000-08:00

The other day I made a decision. I decided not to continue with the course of anti-biotics that the doctor had prescribed for E. I realised when making the decision that this would also mean that I would be looking for a new paediatrian, as I wouldn't go back for the follow-up visit to let him know that, hey look! She got better all own her own. This is not the first time I haven't followed his advice. He prescribed anti-biotics 3 times for D within 5 months, and this is the third time for E. If memory serves correctly out of the 6 times he's prescribed anti-biotics, I have administered them once. That was to E after she'd had a rattly cough for over 3 weeks and it hadn't cleared up with another treatment. Sometimes I've been torn over what to do, sometimes when he's immediately prescribed anti-biotics for what appears to be typical cough and cold symptoms, I've thrown the prescription straight into the bin. I know that sounds irresponsible and I did have an uncomfortable 24 hours at one point when E's sore throat didn't seem to be improving and I had no prescription. I was racked with guilt and embarrassment at the thought of having to go back to the doctor's and explain what I'd done, and say sorry for doubting him and could I have a new prescription please. But, of course she got better on her own. The second time he prescribed antibiotics for E, I tried to explain that I'd rather not give the kids antibiotics unless it was really necessary, to which he replied that of course I was right, antibiotics shouldn't be overused but were sometimes necessary and he would of course NEVER prescribe them unless it was a last resort. So that conversation sort of made it difficult to not take his advice without admitting to him or myself that I suspected he may be a bit of a charlaton.

I have dragged my feet over making this move and I reluctantly come to the decision that I'll have to end my relationship with the hospital/health centre that I've been using since the beginning of my second pregnancy. I've been reluctant because I know that the treatment I've received there is very typical of the health services generally in Istanbul. I haven't been happy with it a lot of the time but I know I'd get the same if I went elsewhere. Another reason I haven't wanted to change is because I want for myself and the kids to have a sense of belonging in this great, sprawling metropolis. In Turkey, you don't have to register with a doctor and have all your medical records transfered from your previous doctor like you do in the UK. You just turn up and as long as you've got the money, you'll get treated. They just don't seem to be interested or concerned about your medical history. (I'm talking about private health care here. I don't use the state system because I don't want to put a strain on an already overstretched, underfunded system,.... or be jostled around by peasants in a dank waiting room for hours, lol. If you can afford medical insurance here, you tend to go private). For D right now going to the doctor's can be a frightening experience. He's accompanied me on many of my check-ups during E's pregnancy. It's also where E was born and of course he visited us here. He also often comes along for E's check ups and of course, he's sometimes ill himself. It's a place that is familiar to him now. He recognises it when we drive past. Many of the receptionists remember him. These facts all give him a sense of security about the whole doctor experience. It's important for him right now, and will be for E too very shortly. But, I have to admit that I just don't think I'm getting the best advice about the kids' health.

I have thought about naming and shaming both my ob/gyn and paediatrian here. In the case of the ob/gyn I think it's a case of actions speak louder than words as I didn't go for my 6 week post partum check up and haven't been since. Besides which, I feel that it would be pretty nasty of me as I believe that they believe that the advice they've given me is for my or the kids' own good. I have to believe that because the alternative seems too implausible. I mean, I have asked myself why the doctor would prescribe antibiotics if he didn't think it necessary, he must surely know about the link between the use of antibiotics and asthma, why on earth would he do something that may increase my daughter's chances of getting asthma? Then, it struck me, duh, private hospitals are businesses, ie, they make money, of course it is in their interest to have patients that need constant attention. Healthy people means no doctor's visits. And everybody knows about the pharmaceutical companies' relationship with doctors. Well, I do anyway as I've had a number of students from the big ones like Bayer and Glaxo, and let's just say that there are little incentives for the doctors if they help the sales reps reach their targets.

I may be naive but I believe certain professions are vocations. People are called to them to help others. Those called to professions like teaching or the medical profession, have the best interests of those in their care at heart. I don't believe all priests are paedophiles, I believe most priests devote their lives to something they believe in. Somehow despite personal experience that seems to suggest the contrary, I just cannot take in the fact that doctors are more motivated by money than their patients' health. And, it's not only a question of money over patient welfare. I mean, everyone has to earn a crust but if doctors are knowingly giving people the wrong advice for their own or their employer's financial gain, that is incredibly unethical in a profession where ethics are key.

I don't know, it sometimes makes my head spin. While admitting that I may be naive, I like to think the best of people. But, then people do bad things, terribly bad things, and I can't understand that, but there's no getting away from it. All I know is each time I leave the doctor's I feel increasingly unsatisfied. The most recent visit, had me waiting around with E for 2 hours in a room where 50% of patients were suspected swine flu cases. Now, I'm not one to be caught up in the hysteria but E is not yet 1, she's in a high risk group, so whatever I can do to protect her I have to do. Yet a doctor, charging around fifty pounds per visit sees nothing wrong with this. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like crying because this is not just 1 doctor and it's not just about the kids' health. As long as we live here we will be paying through the nose for services that are sub-standard, taken for a ride in matters like the kids' education, health and social development. It's a depressing thought. And as any mother knows, your kid's welfare is something you would do anything to protect. I'm like a mother lion wanting to lash out but who can I lash out at? Turkey. For being so deluded. For not having any open debate about these issues. For being defensive. For thinking that progress and development is a 80% rate of ceasarean births. For claiming to value youth so much but to care so little about their health. Recently my friend's daughter was suspected of having swine flu, and she could not get hold of tamiflu for love nor money, even though a couple of months ago it was freely available. What's most probably happened is some enterprising people have bought it all up and will sell it on the black market for way over the cost you would pay (yes you would pay, no nhs here) had you bought it with a prescription from the chemist. I commented that it was so unethical, my friend made the important point that this would happen anywhere. The point is not that Turkish people are more corrupt than anyone else but there are not systems in place to stop this sort of crap happening. Meanwhile the 'headscarves in schools' issue is debated ad nauseum. AAAARRRRRGGGGGROOOOAAAAARRRR! Woe betide anyone who crosses me at the moment, as a taxi driver learnt this morning. Actually, THAT's progress and development, I came out better off after an argument with a taxi driver. He'll think twice before taking a yabanci on the scenic route again!

2009-12-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

We've been away. Today was the first day back to work and school after a four day holiday to celebrate eid. It's called Kurban Bayram in Turkey which translates as the feast of the sacrifice, and that's what people do. Those good muslims that can afford to, buy a cow or sheep and have it sacrificed, then the meat is distributed to the poor.

Although I have spent many a Kurban Bayram here I have never witnessed any of the evidence of the mass slaughtering of animals that takes place on the first day of bayram. Until very recently, animals used to be slaughtered any old where, but tighter regulations now mean they must take place in a designated area. I have never experienced any of this because I'm always safely ensconced in my mother in law's house, getting the breakfast ready, ironing shirts and waiting for the menfolk to get back from the mosque and the slaughtering, as is traditional in my hubby's family (and probably most other Turkish families).

Even the purchase and slaughter of the kurban has become much more consumer friendly and efficient recently. Ours was purchased from Carrefour, probably on taksit (this is a common form of payment here, I suppose it translates as 'installment', most credit card purchases can be made on taksit, so you can spread the cost over months and not pay any interest). Instead of having to wait for the iman to come over and pray that the sacrifice be accepted, there's an iman constantly praying and he just gives the nod at your beast to make it halal. The meat is then cut into pieces and the hide donated to the local mosque. I try to avoid thinking about what dh has been doing when he returns from this annual event, he never really says anything about it, but he is very strongly duty-bound. I remember, just a few years ago, people being warned about the psychological effects witnessing the slaughtering of animals may have on kids at bayram. In other words, people used to take their kids along for some reason. I know I may sound squeamish, I do eat meat after all, and I know that someone has to slaughter it.

What else happens at Bayram? All the housewives make sure that their houses are scrupulously clean, which they are all the time anyway but they really clean like maniacs for this one. Then everyone puts on their new or best clothes. Women wear all their gold jewellery. Then everyone visits their family and neighbours. You have to wish each person in turn 'iyi bayramlar' (happy bayram), kissing hands, cheeks or just shaking hands according to age, gender, how well you know the person. Then you are offered lemon cologne which you rub into your hands, then a chocolate or sweet, then stuffed vineleaves and baklava. This is the same in every house you go to. You may visit five or six houses in a row. The first baklava goes down great, it's just so delicious and sweet and nutty and crisp. By the third house it's starting to get sickly. By the end of the day you never want to see baklava ever again. Then you find on leaving your mil's house, she has somehow managed to secretly pack a large stash of her homemade baklava in amongst your things. It gets left in the kitchen for a few days, then disappears (not thrown out, throwing out food is günah!)Kids may be given money or sweets. Especially if they kiss hands. So it goes like this, 'Ahmet, kiss Hüseyin dede's hand and wish him iyi bayramlar'. Ahmet refuses. Hüseyin dede waves a 20 lira note around, Ahmet kisses hand. So the kids are sort of paid to show affection and respect to their elders. Not something I really approve of, or want my kids to do but, hey, this is their culture, they have to learn about it.

Can you tell this is not my favourite aspect of Turkish culture? Then there's also the fact that fresh in my mind are the events of last year's Kurban Bayram. If you've found this blog recently you won't know that I had a prolonged period of prodromal labour before E was born. For 10 days I had regular contractions every night. This coincided with last year's bayram. (E was born on the last day of the week's holiday last year). Even though the contractions were not real labour, they felt like real labour (apart from not increasing in frequency and painfulness)and had me on tenderhooks. I still was made to go to the in-laws and proceed with bayram as usual (you're not going to have the baby now are you, if anything happens we'll just drive back, you'll be just as comfortable there as you are here. Then when I insisted that if we did go, it would only be for one night, bayram berbat oldu (bayram's ruined), I'm bored, we should be visiting people, moan, moan, moan). As I watched everyone play happily with E this year, I looked on, thinking what short memories people have.

Öğretmenler günü kutlu olsun

2009-11-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

Or Happy Teacher's Day, as that's what is is today in Turkey. Ataturk is often quoted on this day, his most famous quote being 'geleceğimizin mimarı ögretmenler' (teachers are the architects of our future). Does that make sense to you? It made sense to me today when I saw it on a billboard but it reminded of the first time I experienced teacher's day in Turkey. One of my students told me this quote but of course I couldn't make head nor tail of it having only being in Turkey just over a month at the time. So he kindly attempted to translate it to me. With the help of his fellow classmates and the old redhouse (cheap, and frequently inaccurate Turkish/English pocket dictionary). The translation he came up with was something like 'teachers will be architects in the future'. A real case of lost in translation. I had all these questions that I couldn't get him to answer 'why have a day to honour teachers but then suggest they change profession?' 'I can understand people wanting to leave the profession but why are they all going to be architects?' 'Does this have anything to do with the earthquakes and all those badly constructed buildings that collapsed?' Puzzlement on my part. Frustration and disappointment on his. It's amazing how quickly you forget what is feels like not to have the gift of a common language.

Anyway fellow teachers, well done, you're doing a great job. Don't consider a new career in architecture

Judge as you would be judged

2009-11-19T04:14:00.000-08:00

'Overwhelmed to be in a line of work where everyone seems to know what you should be doing better and what they would do in your place and how they would do things different based on a few days of witnessing it and receiving no praise or encouragement for all you have formed, sacrificed and given your sleep, body and life to for years, 24 hours a day.'

This is what a friend had written on Facebook today. Sound familiar? It certainly rang a bell with me. I often wonder if I'm being petulant when I feel like shouting 'look, look at me, look at what I'm doing, imagine what my life is like, this is mind, body and soul, all day, everyday, no holidays, no days off!' The difference between a bad day at home with the kids and a bad day at the office, is that at the office you can usually get away with it but with motherhood, that's it, you've ruined your kid's life, you've created a sociopath, you've given him a lifetime of low self esteem and all it's related issues. And on a good day, well noone really notices, or just puts it down to you being lucky and having pleasant kids. There's a constant judging that goes on, why can't she control her kids, why does she insist on doing that, surely it would be better if she did abc. When I'm out I often feel people watching me and no that's not paranoia. We draw a lot of attention to ourselves because we're 'foreign' and everyone wants to know what foreign people do with their kids (when we say 'foreign' we mean everyone who is not Turkish, you know, everyone from Yabancıstan). So as well as the normal amount of judging that you feel everywhere, you know that you are being scrutinised as a representative of Yabancıstan, and that one false move will have all those around you repeating 'you see what foreigners do with their kids.' Pressure!

Having said that, there is nothing I like better than watching other mothers incredulously as they interact with their kids. This is not only a mild form of entertainment, it also serves to convince me that I am doing a pretty good job after all. E and I often go to IKEA for breakfast (3 ytl for breakfast and as much bread and coffee as you can manaage, bargain!) once we've got rid of D, erm I mean dropped D off at nursery. Here are some of the things I noticed today and at other times that have me inwardly scratching my head asking myself why she is doing that, surely it would be better if she did abc, can't she just keep that kid under control.

1) This is something that is totally the norm here and I see it all the time but it never ceases to amaze me what a ridiculous, illogical waste of time it is. The kid runs around playing while the mother sits down with a plate of food, the mother then gets a forkfull of food, chases the child around the play area a couple of times, all the while holding the fork of food with their other hand cupped underneath the fork in case of droppages, and finally deposits the fork of food in the child's mouth. The mother then goes back to get another forkfull while the kid runs around playing with their mouth full of food. And so it goes on until the end of the meal. Is it me or is that the stupidest thing ever? I feel like asking what they think the child would do if they didn't feed them in this way. I feel like telling them that if the child were hungry they would sit down and eat. But I feel that they would think that that would be like starving your child into submission. And I think who I am to judge as I see them eye me surreptiously as E self feeds (and you know how messy that can be when they're so young)and when D is with me, as he eats his muffin first before his lunch, and scoops up food with his hands when he gets bored of trying with the fork, then puts his hand in the air and shakes it to get rid of all the food stuck to it.
2) What often happens is a group of mothers come out for breakfast and put the toddlers in the play area (I mean the play area in the restaurant). They then try their best to ignore the kids while they have their breakfast. Unsupervised toddlers? Small space? Limited toys? HAHAHA! So today, one girl is sitting on a little chair turning the steering wheel thingy and another girl wants a go. The first girl is not going to move so the second girl keeps running back to her mummy in tears, mummy just wants to have breakfast and not deal with the kid so she goes to the other kid, looks around for her mother, who is having breakfast with her mates trying her best to ignore her kid, so the second girl's mummy picks up the first girl and physically moves her so that her kid can play and leave her in peace. The first kid, rightly so, starts having a big tantrum but her mummy has no idea what has happened.
3) An older child had been playing in the play area (the one where you can leave kids) and his mother came to collect him and noticed that he'd been sweating. So she proceeds to remove his clothing, down to vest and pants, in the middle of the shop to put some non sweaty clothes on him. Now that must be a real dilemma because surely by undressing him she's risking him getting cold (and getting ill and dying). So what's more dangerous? What's the biggest threat to health, standing around a shop in vest and pants or going home in sweaty clothes?
4)Another, older child, filled his chubby little hands with those little pencils, he couldn't get enough pencils into each paw. Then he stuffed them all into his pockets. His mother did her best to ignore him.

So the policy seems to be ignore them unless it's anything to do with food or body temperature and then go totally over the top.

Then there's mothers like this one who make us all look like supermum. But that's a whole nuther discussion

one more step away from toddlerhood

2009-11-09T12:04:00.000-08:00

Today I was going to write a post about how D has stopped napping. I was going to recollect all the time and energy I've put into getting him to nap over the last 3 years. All the methods I've used, breastfeeding, rocking, etc. The months when I would regularly go for a walk at 2pm with D in his pushchair for his afternoon nap. I would have talked about how we gradually moved away from breastfeeding to sleep, to me staying with him until he slept, to eventually (only a couple of months ago) being able to put him in bed and leave the room. I would have recorded our naptime routine which has remained more or less unchanged since he was 12 months: nappy change or more recently potty, then books and milk, then lights off and lie down. Not that it's always been easy. There's been tears, stress, refusal to nap on his part, refusal to give in on mine, the tiptoeing around once he finally dropped off, the relief and feeling of freedom once he was tucked up in bed fast asleep. The last couple of months when I've taken to giving him a small gift when he wakes up from a nap (some may call it bribery, I prefer to think of it as an incentive and a small price to pay for an hour to myself). How I finally got the two of them to nap at the same time and reclaimed my hour to myself. How my triumph was shortlived as once I'd got E napping at the same time as D, he decided he wasn't napping anymore. Not for anything, even the mystery present. How I realised that I just had to accept that he was growing up and perhaps really didn't need that nap anymore. How naptime has been renamed quiet time when E sleeps, I have a cuppa and use the internet and D does something quiet on his own. I would have bid a fond farewell to something that has become ingrained in our daily lives for the last 3 years. The thing is though, he's fast asleep on the settee beside me. I knew that 'quiet time' would work ;)

While Dh is away

2009-11-09T04:58:00.001-08:00

1) Don't write a blogpost about how DH is away for a week and you're all alone with the kids, all night, that's like all the time that it's dark, you, alone, poor, defenceless little you, with 2 helpless little children.
2) Don't watch any films that have the following words on the cover, killer, murder, thriller, horror, psychological thriller, supernatural, home alone, home alone with two kids
3) Don't watch the crime channel. Don't even stop on that channel when zapping, you know how the most gristly, ghastly true crime stories are the ones that somehow have a secret power to suck you in so that you end up knowing how such and such a seriel killer lured his victims into his lair, the pleasure he got from torturing them, and how he finally disposed of their bodies. If you do, against your better judgement, choose to disregard this advice, and find that you've watched an entire programme on some evil killer, turn over before the shot where they do a close up of his face, then slowly zoom in on his eyes, so that you feel that you are looking into the eyes of pure evil. You'll be haunted by them all night, and the next night, and the next.
4) Don't read any news stories that contain the words 'mother killed while sleeping', 'woman killed in her own home', 'murdered woman surprised intruder', etc
5)Leave more lights on than usual
6)Double lock the door, put the chain on. Check several times before turning in that you have actually locked the door. Oh and don't forget to leave the keys near the door, there might be an earthquake.
7)Remind yourself that you can always stay at the in-laws,...or they could come here
8) Relax and enjoy the time to yourself!

By the way, for the information of any potential internet stalkers, he's back now

Why I don't watch many films

2009-11-04T01:02:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've watched more than 20 films since D was born. That was 2006. The main reason of course is that I just don't have time. Anytime I have attempted to watch a film, I get all comfy on the sofa or in bed and promptly drop straight off to sleep.

The problem with watching certain films is that you get into them, get gripped by them and start to get affected. It's like the time when E was a newborn. I decided a film was just the ticket to take me out of myself, a bit of escapism. So I dimmed the lights in the bedroom, got the laptop propped up in bed whilst E slept soundly in the moses basket beside me. I'd quickly flicked through the films we had and chosen one that looked a bit like a light romance, The Changeling with Angelina Jolie. Of course, I didn't have time to read what it was about. Half an hour into the film I was gripped, glued to the screen, tense, terrified, shoulders to ears. I don't know about you but I think a child seriel killer is a bad choice of subject for light entertainment. After a while all I could feel was the terror of those boys, and the poor mother. Hoping beyond hope that he was still alive. Then it's Madeleine McCann, and all the other children that have gone missing. Where are they? What's being done to them? How can people be so evil? Why is there so much bad in the world? And there's this voice in my head going 'Turn it off, don't watch it'. But I can't stop watching because I have to see the resolution, I have to get rid of that horrible feeling, because it's Hollywood, right? It's Angelina Jolie, right? This cannot just be a film about a boy that gets abducted and possibly murdered along with dozens of others. But it was. No resolution. It left me with a stone in my chest.

So last night, the kids had gone off to sleep no probs and I found myself with a whole evening to myself. I know, I'll watch a film, I think, reaching for the pile of dvds I keep adding to thinking oh that looks alright I'll watch that one day. So I chose Little Children with Kate Winslet. It said something about Academy awards on the cover and I like Kate Winslet. Seemed like a safe choice. The scene was immediately set with a radio report about someone being released from prison for exposing himself to a minor and the subsequent panic in the community. Immediately the warning voice in my head was shouting 'turn it off', but I didn't because Kate Winslet wouldn't star in a film with such a distasteful subject matter, it's Hollywood, it's not going to be about anything bad. Anyway it turns out to be about two people who meet through their kids, bored with the marriages who start to have an affair. But I've still got this uneasy feeling because there's all these cute little children and this predator. I mean, what's he got to do with the story, where's it all going? Then there's a little character development and you sort of start to feel sorry for the guy. He goes on a date and seems to want to live a normal life. He meets another damaged soul and they're both crying out to be loved. Then there's the CAR SCENE. My heart was pounding, I felt a genuine discomfort watching that scene, not like when you watch a horror and you feel scared but it's a good sort of scared, one you enjoy in a way. No I just felt real fear, horror and disgust. Of course, they couldn't have him abuse a child, so they have him abuse the nearest thing, a young woman who is totally screwed up from being abused as a child. But he was so nice in the restaurant, you think. Exactly! That's what they call grooming. How else would people leave their kids with them? I feel compelled to go and check on the kids and they are sleeping soundly. I look at D, snug and peaceful, safe and secure. Just as every 3 year old should be. God knows they can be annoying little sods sometimes but every child deserves to feel safe and loved. They rely on adults totally and it's an utter, total betrayal. Why do these things happen? How do people ever let their kids out of their sight? Why does this badness exsist?

And so, I found myself at 11.30pm with this stone in my chest again. How am I supposed to sleep now? I had to turn on BBC prime to bring me out of it. Fortunately, for once BBC prime had something decent on, This Life 10+ so I ended up watching that until over midnight. Then with the usual night rousings and the 6am start I'm absolutely knackered today. So, no, watching films is not a good way to relax.

Winter, just like that.

2009-11-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

Last week, as I was sitting on the beach with my trousers rolled up to my knees, worrying about the kids getting sunburnt, I realised that it was a week until Halloween and Bonfire night. These two traditions but more especially Bonfire night are so atmospheric because of the season in which they take place. Some of my earliest memories (probably from the age D is now) are of running round a bonfire, eating red hot roasted chestnuts and baked potatoes, frozen hands covered with socks instead of gloves (I don't think it was necessarily a money thing, there were 5 of us, if I had that many kids I'd have trouble keeping track of my own gloves nevermind 5 little people's!). Having to find the cat and keep her indoors. Getting as close as you can to the fire to stave off the cold, then having to back off because you're too warm. Burning cheeks, fingers and toes when you finally escape the cold dark evening and go back into the warm house. Since I've lived here I've often thought about having my own little bonfire party but never get round to it. This year again the thought crossed my mind but sitting on that beach last week I told myself (that even if I could muster up the motivation to organise it) it wouldn't be the same here without the autumnal weather.

Well I needn't have worried about that! In the space of a week our lifestyle has changed from being semi-outdoors most of the time to doors and windows closed, indoors all day and lights on at 3pm. There comes a point in every Istanbul summer when it just seems to have been so hot for so long when you catch a glimpse of jumpers and blankets at the back of cupboards it's hard to conceive that you will ever need to use them again. I still haven't entirely packed away the summer clothes. D still has a couple of pairs of shorts hanging around and my wardrobe until now is mainly t-shirts and jeans and a cardy for when it's a bit chilly. Well I think we can definitely unpack the winter suff now. As I was getting the kids ready I realised they both have very little in the way of winter stuff to wear. I've had to have an emergency shopping trip to buy coats, jumpers, vests and tights for them.

I nervously drove from one side of Istanbul to the other yesterday to spend the night at my in-laws. As I set off the rain was lashing down. The sound of the rain pounding down on the car and the rythmic swishing of the windscreen wipers quickly lulled the kids off to sleep. It had the the opposite effect on me as drivers whizzed past me, zigzag overtaking in fairly heavy traffic with reduced visibility both from the pounding rain and the spray off the road. At one point I wondered if I should turn back as the flash-flooding of about 6 weeks ago in which several people lost their lives sprang to mind. As I lay awake with E in the middle of the night, I heard the wind howl through the trees. Driving back today, the weather not quite so harsh, grey skies, evidence of the wind by seeing the trees bend back and forth, I could almost smell the cinnamon. I dreamed of getting home to a nice warm house and a mug of steaming hot cocoa. Now I'm back home and having to make do with a jumper and a coffee.

The bloody swines

2009-10-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

Far be it from me to suggest that Turkish people like nothing better than a good crisis but I will never forget being told quite earnestly not to take the children to any parks in case they got bitten by a killer tick and died. Because, of course it would be much safer for us to wander round the non-pavemented roads filled with an over abundance of cars mainly driven by people whose only concern is getting from a to b in the shorter possible time (think Dukes of Hazard x 100,000). I mean, what's the alternative apart from sitting at home all day. Yeah but everyone knows that's not safe because thieves sneak into buildings when people inadvertantly leave the front door open and then hide under the stairs and wait all day for you to open your door so they can pounce on you and steal all your gold and cash because a cardboard box under the bed is the safest place to store all your most valuable possessions.

So, the first I heard of swine flu I was a little relieved because in my badly-informed mind, it was carried and spread by pigs. During the bird flu crisis we couldn't go anywhere near anything remotely feathered and a lot of people gave up eating chicken. Well, it's easy enough to avoid pigs round here, and as for giving up pork, well the lack of availability of it here means you don't have much choice. At least we'll be spared the media frenzy and subsequent hysteria of the general population.

Well it turns out there's as much of a pandemic here as everywhere else. Someone DIED of it last week. I've asked a couple of people I've heard talking about this death, whether the person was elderly or had a weak immune system but no-one seems to know. All we need to know is that someone died of swine flu and so we could all die, all 70 million of us.

One way of dealing with this hysteria, I mean pandemic, is to close all the schools (that have barely been back a month after the 3 month summer break) in the country in order to disinfect them. This closure is to take place tomorrow. The fact that I was only told about this on Wednesday (today is a holiday here), would really annoy me if I were a working parent. It sort of bugs me anyway cos I'll have a whole day home alone with both kids and anywhere I might take them to relieve the boredom and break up the day will be overcrowded with kids that should be at school.

All parents were also given a letter from the school pointing out how important hygiene is. It reminded us about handwashing and suggested we avoid kissing (I assume they mean the peck on the cheek greeting-type kiss rather than snogging), shaking hands and going to crowded places, which in Istanbul means everywhere apart from my own home and even that feels sort of claustrophobic when we have 'guests'. I'd also like to add to that list a few things that I see done all the time that really are unhygienic like the communal water glass, the communal salad, using your own spoon to serve food to a child (yes I mean MY child), and my biggest bugbear, leaving used tissues lying around.

The day the clocks went back

2009-10-25T11:10:00.001-07:00

Although we didn't realise it until sometime this morning, thanks everybody for reminding us. Me and DH nearly had a big row this morning as he complained that he'd been up since 6 with D, but I knew for a fact that he'd been snuggled up with me until 7. Turns out we were both right, his phone time had changed automatically, mine hadn't.

Anyway, we'd recently decided to have more family days out, rather than hanging round home at weekends, where neither of us seem to be able to relax properly. I desperately try to get as much housework done as I can while DH looks after the kids (this arrangement is not really me trying to fulfill the role of good Turkish wife, we've sort of come to an unspoken agreement about this. DH gets to spend very little quality time with the kids during the week, whereas I get more than enough of them, so doing the housework without constantly rushing off to deal with some other disaster seems like a piece of cake). The trouble with this arrangement is that having everyone home all weekend means no sooner have I got things into a liveable state they are immediately wrecked again. Also, for DH, who hasn't got quite the same knack as I have for occupying 2 kids at the same time (no I don't just stick them in front of the TV, well, not often anyway), it gets pretty exhausting. Thus the 'days out' decision.

So yesterday we decided to go to Şile, which is a seaside town on the Black Sea, about an hour's drive from Istanbul. We packed a flask and a blanket, buckets, spades, a towel (yes I know it's nearly the end of October but I for one am going to have a paddle), and a football, expecting to have a brisk run around on the beach, warm up with a cup of coffee (not the kids obviously, they'd just have to stay cold) before heading back indoors for a delicious fish meal. I don't know why I was surprised when we arrived and it was red hot. So much so, that we started to regret not packing sunscreen for the kids. Weather-wise, it was a glorious summer's day, and here we all were, with jackets, fleeces and not a swimming costume in sight. Not that that was to put D off, who in true British seaside style, got soaked through while paddling and spent the rest of the afternoon making sandcastles in his pants. It really was the perfect day out for all of us. E, who wasn't mobile in the (real) summer, now realised that she loved the sand (go on let her have a crawl around). Well, that was until, she decided to see what it felT like if you lay down prostrate with your mouth open (nasty for someone who doesn't know how to spit). Then once she'd tired herself out, we stuck her in a swingchair in the beach cafe and she dropped off within a couple of minutes, leaving us to collect shells to decorate D's sand muffins.

Once we'd tired of the beach and worked up an appetite from all that sea-air we headed off for our late-lunch/early dinner. There's only one thing to eat when you're by the sea, freshly caught fish on one of the moored boats in the harbour. Now you may be thinking, boats, cramped eating conditions, a preschooler and a mobile baby, are they mad? Perhaps we are, but on this particular day I think we were just lucky. Or is it that, the kids are showing all the signs of having the same love affair with food that their mummy does? While there was food on the table, the kids were stationary and occupied. The whole meal was stress-free, me and DH even enjoyed an alcholic beverage apiece. The only hiccups in the whole afternoon were when D needed the toilet and the one on the boat was an a la turka (squat down toilet), which for some reaon D is scared of (maybe that dark, dirty looking hole, actually, I'm pretty scared of them too) and when he started to get a bit bored during that post-meal 'shall we ask for the bill' period. Fortunately, D's ever resourceful mummy quickly resolved both issues, one hidden in front of the parked car and the other with a fish (how about that) sticker book that I just happened to have in my bag.

When a glass of wine isn't enough

2009-10-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

I was really looking forward to a glass of wine once I'd got the kids to bed tonight. But after the night I've had getting E to sleep I need something stronger, much stronger. Therapy might help for starters. It's taken me 2 hours of rocking, walking, bouncing, breastfeeding, lying on the bed playing with toys, lying on the bed in the dark, a couple of spells in the carseat with the fish channel. I reached the point where my head was spinning and my back and arms were aching so much, I just had to put her down for fear I would drop her. She screamed her head off, perhaps that's just what she needs a good cry then off to sleep, thought I. No, she just got beside herself and I picked her up again after a couple of minutes. The first 20 minutes your thoughts are along the lines of, 'well she'll drop off eventually'. Then it becomes 'There's got to be an easier way than this'. Then all sorts of things occur to you 'got to nip this in the bud' 'get her into her own bed' 'she has to learn to go to sleep' 'a couple of night's crying has got to be better than this'. Eventually it's just 'for god's sake, just GO TO SLEEP'. And it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the crying. Imean, D used to fight sleep like mad, still does, but he didn't cry. She's constantly wailing. She even falls asleep crying. In the end I got her to sleep by rocking her in the carseat. And that's where she still is. There's no way I am moving her. Not until DH gets home from his night out and can deal with her. I'm officially off-duty until at least 2am.

Why do I bother?

2009-10-15T04:10:00.001-07:00

Despite what outward appearances may suggest, I do want to do what's best for the kids. I think things like predictable routines, a healthy diet and a stimulating environment are really important for older babies, toddlers, and pre-schoolers.

I have always been a bit of a nazi when it comes to Deniz and sleep. Mainly because kids need to sleep enough in order to thrive. And nearly as importantly mummies need a break from their kids so that they can grab a coffee and get on the old laptop. I've finally got round to trying to get E into a proper nap schedule. Unfortunately, she's just about ready for a nap when it's time to take D to playgroup so she inevitable takes her first nap in the carseat. I'd decided to try to be careful about timing so that she could take her afternoon nap at home in bed at the same time as D. Up until recently, she's just fallen asleep on the go, in the car, pushchair or sling etc.

So the new routine is, we pick up D around 12.45. Get home, get milk and read books to him in bed, then leave him to get off to sleep. Then it's lunch for E, then theoretically nap at 1.30 til 2.30-3, then she's right till bedtime around 7.30.

But, I have run into a new problem. Yes the fly in the ointment is getting E to sleep. Suddenly she won't sleep. Today I took her to the bedroom and laid down with her and tried to breastfeed her. I had to abandon that when she started trying to sit up while feeding (yes that means with my nipple in her mouth), then proceeded to bite me (and that really ****ing hurts), that's enough of that, I thought. But then I felt sorry for her as she started sobbing to have had one of her favourite things taken away. So I tried again, different position, other side. That didn't have the required effect. So I tried walking up and down, shhing and patting, bouncing on the bed etc etc. After 15 minutes of this I was exhausted, sweaty, my back was killing me and she was starting to irritate me. It was going on for 2 and I still hadn't had lunch and sleep deprivation is one thing but I'm not prepared to starve for anyone, blue-eyed baby or not. So I did the thing I hate doing, the thing I always swore I'd never do. Put her in her carseat and popped her in front of the telly, on the aquarium channel while I made a sandwich. And you know what? She was asleep within minutes!

Incidents that happen when you're alone with the kids that you don't tell anyone #1

2009-10-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

D and E played quietly together in the TV room while I got breakfast ready this morning. When I came to feed E she was closer for comfort to the electrical sockets and wires that we've child-proofed by stuffing behind furniture. I made a mental note that the time I can now leave E alone in a room is the time it will take her to get from one side of the room to the plugs and wires. Anyway, as I fed her her first mouthful, I noticed there was something else in there too. A foreign object. I did the old, yes I know you don't like it and it's not much fun for me either as I risk getting bitten by your brand new but extremely effective new teeth, stick the finger in through the gums, prising the mouth open a little and sweeping the roof of the mouth. It was a fairly big object so I got it first time. What was it? A shard of glass from the vase that D had broken a couple of days ago and I thought I'd cleaned up.

10 years of Turkey

2009-10-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

13 October 1999, I left Heathrow for Istanbul. The sense of trepidation as I left the familiar for the new and different life I was about to begin weighed on me heavier than my meagre wordly possesions that were packed into 1 suitcase and 1 holdall. All sorts of thoughts were running through my mind as I said a tearful goodbye to my then ex-boyfriend and husband to be. Was I a total loser to have reached the grand old age of 28 and not own anything other than a few pairs of jeans and jumpers? What kind of person can pack up from 1 life so easily and start afresh in a new place? What awaits me in Istanbul? What will my workmates be like? Am I too old for this? Haven't most people got tefling out of their system and decided on their real career by the time they reach this age? But the adventurer in me was intrigued by this city and the image I had gleamed of it from books I'd been pouring over since accepting the job offer and making the move to Turkey something definite. The mosques, the tiles, the history, the culture, the Bosphorous, the now cliched 'east meets west' pictures of women in full black cover up alongside their uncovered sisters with long flowing locks and western dress.

A new start, a new job, new friends, a new country, a new language. Would I like it? Would I stay long? What kind of impact was it going to have on my life?

I finally arrived in Istanbul, minus my only worldly goods that had got lost en route, on a day much like today where the weather feels too hot for the time of year.

I can't say that I never pictured myself here 10 years on because that wouldn't be true. I'd always felt DH and I were destined to be together and my move here was partly an attempt to let destiny have her way. 10 years down the line, I have everything I'd always wanted, a loving husband, a wonderful family and a home of my own. My 10 years here has also enriched my life in so many other ways. From the friends I've made here, some come and gone, some still around, to the experiences I've had, the places I've visited, the things I've witnessed. There's been earthquakes, bombs, weddings, births, skinny dipping in Olympus on Christmas Eve, sleeping under the stars on hot hot summer nights, frying myself on various beaches, celebrating new year's eve in Cappadocia, my first experience of Ramadan and the much loved drummer, mevlits, bayrams, drunken nights in Taksim and Sultanahmet gazing up at the birds circling the minarets of mosques dating back hundreds of years, the list goes on.

Thank you Turkey and everyone I've met along the way for the last 10 years. Here's hoping I'll still be here (well not neccesarily here)in 10 years' time, blogging away.

And so begins another weary day

2009-10-06T00:20:00.001-07:00

Last night once we'd got the kids to bed DH and I were too tired to even speak to each other. The headache that had been building up all day was now a mild migraine. E had been cingy all day, wanting to be picked up, crying when put down. I have to admit to feeling really sorry for her as she doggedly crawled from one room to the other to be near me only to have me dash to another room to deal with some other chore. My wrist is totally done in to the extent that it hurts to pick up a cup. The washing machine is playing up and the laundry basket is full. One load of washing came out sopping wet yesterday but I couldn't even wring it out as my wrist is so sore. And even if I could have, E wouldn't have let me put her down for that length of time. It had to be thrown haphazardly on the clothes horse in the garden and left to drip dry, while I wondered how I was going to mop up the swimming pool on the bathroom floor. Of course I had to make the hard decision to try to ignore E's cries while I dealt with the disaster in hand. Listening to the crying baby making an already stressful situation even more stressful. It really was the type of day that has you willing the hands on the clock closer to bedtime.

Then once peace had descended, like I said we were too exhausted to do anything other than give each other weak smiles and turn in for another early night. I checked on D before turning in myself as I usually do. The usually warm air tinged with the scent of a sweaty sleeping little boy was this time tinged with a more repugnant smell. I didn't need to get closer that a foot to D's bottom to find the source. Yes he must have filled his nappy in his sleep and I could tell from the smell, the smell which only mothers could find slightly pleasant, the smell that reassures that your child is well fed and thriving, (what! Yeugh, that's gross shouts a chorus of other mothers. What you don't like the smell of your child's poo, just a little bit? Well you're obviously just not as good a mother as I am). Just what I need, I thought as I turn on the night light and attempt to rouse D just enough to change him but not enough to make him fully awake. That done I head for bed and drop off to sleep almost immediately.

I hardly seemed to have been asleep for 5 mins when E woke me crying. I fed her, dropped off again. The same thing happened. Again. And again. And again. Before I knew it it was 6am again and time to start another day. While D bounded into the living room shouting can I watch a dvd? I stumbled out of bed facing the usual indecision. What do deal with first? Nappies? Mine and D's breakfast? Coffee? E's breakfast? The beds? Coffee. COFFEE. But what about the nappies, well D had a change in the middle of the night and E doesn't feel that wet, coffee. Then once in the kitchen it made sense to get breakfast and so the day began. At some point I saw D strain and knew that he must have eaten something at some point yesterday that didn't agree with him. The almost immediate stench comfirmed this. I made a mental note, next priority D's nappy. But somehow still didn't get round to it. In the meantime E had fallen back asleep mid-breakfast (7.30) and I'd somehow managed to get her settled back into bed without waking her. Just as I was tiptoeing out of the room, D came wandering down the corridor 'MUMMY, DO YOU KNOW..' I shushed him and hurried him into the other room, noting the piece of poo that had fallen out of his nappy. Oh god could things get worse I thought. In fact I'd barely finished the thought when I saw another piece of poo, this time with a footprint in it, and then all the pooey footprints on the cream carpet. Hope you had a better start to the day.

You can't just come back here and start posting as if nothing's happened. We deserve an explanation! Where the hell have you been?!

2009-10-01T04:15:00.000-07:00

Well, first off, I'm not going to claim this is a comeback as I've done that before only to have let the posts peter off again. But I've been missing the old blog and felt like posting today, and it's my blog so I can do what I want.

Here's why I haven't been around:

1) Time. Never have a lot of it free though I do often manage to get a post out while the kids are in bed of an evening. EXCEPT when I'm in the UK. You may have noticed that the posting always stops or becomes very infrequent when I'm back in blighty. That's because there's loads of crap I feel compelled to watch on the telly or I have one of my nearest and dearest to share a glass of wine and a chat with.

2) A feeling of being exposed. Warning, long-winded explanation. What seems like a long time ago now, my sister lived in London with her Italian boyfriend and had dinner parties. They made pasta dishes that didn't have anything to do with Dolmio and drank wine with Italian names that they commented on the quality of. It all seemed very sophisticated to me, whose approach to wine was, if it's under a fiver and says 'wine' on the bottle then I'll drink it (not much change there then). They had a game we very much enjoyed playing called Psycologise. The questions were like 'What is L**** first attracted to in a man?' A) His eyes B) His bank balance or C) I can't remember, probably something lewd. So L***** writes down her answer and the opposing team write what they think is her answer and you get a match you get a point. So the question was something like 'If Siobhan had a personal problem, would she share it with all and sundry, share it with a couple of close friends, or slam shut like a clam and refuse to ever discuss it'. My sister was the only player to guess the last option as the correct answer. Somehow I've gone from being someone who'd never discuss problems in her personal life as if admitting a problem was a sign of weakness to someone who regularly reveals all in a very public way. Basically, for reasons I won't go into too much detail here, I started to feel a bit like you do in that recurring dream you have during adolescent where you're naked when everyone else is fully dressed, sitting in an exam, on a bus, in an interview desperately trying to find a way to cover up, realising with horror that you can do nothing to escape the public scrutiny of all of your imperfections and vulnerabilities. I've been quite candid about a lot of personal and emotional aspects of my life here. My first blog I started so that my family could follow my pregnancy, this blog I started for myself. It was an outlet for me and in some ways it is cathartic to express all my grievances here. The flip side of this is that a lot of people know a lot about me. Now, obviously, I was ok with this, especially as most of those people I'll never meet. But the thing is, if you never have any feedback or dialogue about what you write, you don't know who's reading, or in other words you don't know who knows what about you. There are a handful of people that comment here, some that I know personally and some that I don't know but feel a sort of cyber affinity with. Then, there are some people I know who read the blog because they talk to me about it. Then there's the rest. And I don't know who they are. But sometimes I get an inkling and it sort of makes me feel uncomfortable. I bumped into an old student once who told me she loved my blog setting my mind racing, panicking, have I said anything horrible about my students here. Then an old family friend I see every 5 years or so, after the usual 'what you bin doing, remember when we used to, etc' said 'anyway I have to go now, btw, love the blog, it's so brave of you to write about your pregnancy-induced incontinence' and was gone, while I shouted after 'but I wasn't incon....' Then there are others closer to home who never talk about my blog so I assume they don't read it but sometimes get the feeling that they've heard it all before when I start talking about something I've already written about. But I can't ask if they've read about it on my blog because if they say no there would be a question hanging in the air (maybe unspoken) 'Why don't you read my blog?' and the unspoken answer 'well I just find it all a bit embarrassing, all that talk of breasts and bodily functions'
3) Self-doubt. Well, it's shit isn't it? I mean it's not exactly going to launch a career in journalism. And it's not like it's original, bored housewife writes 'my three year old tried to clean the poo along with the potty the other day', 'my nine month old has started pulling up and cruising'. Hardly ground breaking stuff. And anyway, what do you think is so fascinating about your life that you need to write all about it and expose it to the world.

So why start again?

Well, I'm bored and I've missed it and you all. I have by some miracle got both kids to nap at the same time for the past 3 days. There's nothing on the telly. As for the personal stuff, well obviously I only really write about what I'm comfortable with people knowing. There's a hell of a lot I don't write about. Some things are sacred. It's all very well talking about how my kids were born, but the conceptions are just between me, the turkey baster, Max, Susannah and Jackie Corkhill (from whom I learnt how to make babies. Having been to a catholic school, we had to find things like this out for ourselves). And the self-doubt? Well the blog is what it is. It's just me rambling along, writing mainly for myself as a hobby and to have some kind of record other than photos of this wonderful time. If people can relate to me or find it in some way amusing, entertaining or insightful, then so much the better. If people don't, then they don't have to read it, do they?

2009-10-01T03:53:00.000-07:00

1 October, 26 degrees (80 degrees f), beautiful cloudless blue sky. I love this time of year. The summer's relentless heat that drives us indoors for most of the day has finally abatted. Now is the time to enjoy the weather. As usual I seem to be the only person to think this. For everyone else it's back to long trousers and long sleeves, I've even seen a jogger in a fleece today. It's as if they can't wait for winter to begin.

Deniz stands out like a sore thumb when I drop him off at school dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. All the other kids are sporting their new autumn wardrobes and doubtless wearing vests underneath it all. When I pick him up, one of the teachers always starts looking for his jacket, then asks incredulously 'wasn't he wearing anything else?'I wonder if D has started to notice that he is different. Is he going to resent me for it?

Sights and sounds of the past weekend

2009-06-22T11:55:00.001-07:00

Birdsong in the morning. So normal at home, so rare in Istanbul. We spent the past weekend at the in-laws holiday home, about an hour from Istanbul on the road to Greece (and I have to say I'm always tempted to keep driving as I approach there and see the signpost Ipsala 175kms)

The sound of waves crashing onto the beach. I'm no longer the sun worshipper I once was. Finally realising my health is worth more than a tan, having two kids to keep sun-creamed, hatted and sunglassed, keeping sand out of the sandwiches, and an aversion to exposing my post pregnancy tummy to the world, means a trip to the beach is not what it once was, but the effect of rhythmic sound created as the waves crash back and forth will never change.

Brown jellyfish. The Marmara sea has always (since I've lived here) been full of transparent jellyfish of various sizes but usually quite small. They're harmless, though I have to admit to feeling very squeamish on the odd occasion when they have come into direct contact with me body whilst swimming. But these brown things are something else. Great big ugly things that I would not even get into the same sea as, vast and wide as it may be. A small white jellyfish drifting over my hand while swimming is one thing, but getting tangled up with one of these tentacled monsters, urgh, no thank you. I'll just paddle here, thank you very much.

D and I went for a walk one evening. My aim; calm him down and tire him out, his aim; find some chickens (many people keep chickens in their gardens there). We found the chickens and as we were cautiously creeping through the grass towards them I noticed some movememnt, what is that, hiding in the grass I wondered. I could tell from the movement and shape it was nothing to fear (having had a snake phobia for as long as I remember, I'm ever cautious of movement in the undergrowth). We were both astonished and delighted to see a tortoise poking its shy little head out of its shell.

Birdsong and bright sunlight are all very well but they made my early risers, rise even earlier. Once D's up, he's up, we've accepted that but E can usually be got back to sleep for another couple of hours, then she usually has her first nap of the day within an hour of waking up. Not today though. Around 8, after being up since 6, I decided to wander to the shop for fresh bread for breakfast with E in the sling so she could take her nap out in the open and D and I could work up an appetite. As we were walking I was aware of something in the road ahead that I assumed to be some kind of debris like part of an old tyre. It moved. I stopped, frozen to the spot but mermerised. It moved in that unmistakable slithery, reptilian way and it slipped off the road out of sight back into the grass. Most probabaly more afraid of us than we are of it, I thought, as I surprised myself with my calm reaction to my first encounter with a snake in the wild. All very exciting for D too.

Education, education, education

2009-06-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

I made a reference a few posts ago about us starting to think about schooling for D. In some ways it feels way too soon but on the other hand I know it's about time I got on the ball.

When D was first born, a number of people strongly advised us not to register him as a Turkish citizen. There are 2 main reasons for doing this: firstly he wouldn't have to do military service and secondly he'd be able to go to an international school. Though I totally disagree with military service outright and hate the idea of him having to do it, I didn't feel that strongly about schooling. I ran it by DH anyway, he's a fairly conventional type and the Turkish are very nationalistic, so he wouldn't give the matter much thought. D is now a dual citizen of Turkey and Britain. D is Turkish and we live here so we should be subject to the same rules and regulations as everyone else, is how I felt. To not acknowledge that he is Turkish would be to somehow deny what we were. I felt the same way when getting married and it was suggested I change my beautiful, unusual, always a talking point and a clear indicator of my origins, chosen and given to me by my parents when they gave me life, name to something like Fadime. I am what I am, I told people at the time (well I told DH and expected him to tell everyone else), I married a Turkish person, I respect your customs and beliefs, I have attempted to integrate but I am not Turkish and won't pretend to be whilst at the same time denying everything else I am. Our children are what they are and we have to accept the good and bad aspects of that. It wouldn't be right for us to expect to live here and enjoy all the many benefits that entails while at the same time putting ourselves in a priviledged position. If little Mehmet next door has to go off and do his stint in the army, is it fair that D gets out of it, is what I thought. Which is all very well, when you're thinking about some future child who doesn't yet exsist. As for schooling, all I knew of international schools were they were expensive and you could follow the British national curriculum at some of them. Again I thought, well we live here, why would we want our kids to have a British education? In my naive vision of our future family, they would go to the local school, have neighbourhood friends, no sense of being better than anyone else for my kids. Such ideals come from a working class background, where the daughter of an immigrant miner became a teacher, and the grandchildren were all university educated. I could afford such ideals because I came from a place where one could excel without money or priviledge.

There are so many flaws in the Turkish education system I'm not even going to attempt to go into them here. Basically we have two choices: a local state school which means overcrowded classes (60-70) students in a class, underpaid teachers, and underfunded schools or a private school for which you're looking at yearly fees of at least 20,000ytl and still not a very good level of education. Depressing thought. But then, on a friend (whose daughter is a year younger than D)'s instigation I started to make casual enquiries about the French school, Pierre Loti. In Istanbul there are a number of schools (French, German, Italian) that have been set up through the consulates to serve their countries' citizens and that accept some local children too. As I understood it, you stand more of a chance of getting a place at the French school if you hold a foreign passport (yes) and one of the child's parents speaks French (oui). Initially I called the school on my friend's behalf but tentatively for D too. I was told that D would have to start this year and they would like to meet him, a rendez vous was arranged. DH and I still were not really sold on the idea, as we think D is still a little too young (it would be a 8am to 1pm day but with a daily journey back and forth across the Bosphorous, most probably on a school bus).

One of the major selling points of this school is the cost. It's between 2000 and 3000 euros per year. Compared to Turkish private schools it's a drop in the ocean. I can't say we've got a couple of thousand euro to spare but it is an affordable sum rather than paying your entire yearly salary that a TPS would require. There are other reasons of course, the quality of education, the fact that D would learn a 3rd language, one which I loved and was motivated enough to master, and wouldn't have to waste time while all his classmates learnt English (a lot of classroom hours are devoted to English here), being in an environment where it is normal to be different and not feel like the freaky kid who has a yabanci mother, the possibility of studying at the Sorbonne (ok I'm getting a bit carried away). While I was throwing these things round in my head, still not really convinced that it would be a good idea to send my only just 3 year old off into the big wide world, another friend (son born same year as D) was also making enquiries. Turns out that, not surprisingly, there is a lot of competition for this school and not very many places. Priority is given to French citizens (fair enough), then people who work for French companies (does that mean the cashier at Carrefour's son is prioritised higher than MY son?), then people who speak French (I dust off the Satre, Balzac and Zola works long abandoned around the same time as doc martens, and The Stone Roses albums. The TV, usually a silent black screen (unless there's a match on) is permanently on TV5, that's tey, vey cinq, of an evening, D is dressed in I heart Paris t-shirts and we can all be heard humming La Marseillaise). Suddenly we really want our son in that school.

So we went for the rendez-vous. I was a little nervous cos my French is a somewhat rusty after all these years. What to wear? What to say? Turns out no one was remotely interested in me. DH and I had both got 'poshed up', he ended up staying in the carpark with E. So that was all for nothing. It was only D they were interested in and he completed a series of activities (jigsaws, identifying shapes, colours etc) on which, I assume, his suitability for the school was assessed. He performed pretty well and I left feeling quite positive about the whole thing. Until I really started to think realistically how many people would have applied and how many places they actually have. I was told again and again we would need a torpil. At first I thought, no, my son did pretty well in the tests let him get a place fair and square. But the more I listened to others, the more I realised how naive I was being. I have never used any kind of swing to get anywhere in life, I have never embellished my cv, what I have done I have done off my own bat, unfortunately, somewhat late in life I'm starting to realise that in these competitive times, that that may not work anymore, I was being totally naive. So, forget all that socialist crap about being equal, getting on in life based on merit and FIND ME A TORPIL!!!!!

Firsts

2009-06-08T03:25:00.000-07:00

29th May, Elmas finally managed to get those chunky, chubby, pink legs up AND over enough to ROLL. She picks her moments though, she was in bed supposedly all ready to drift off to sleep with all the right conditions, relaxing bedtime routine, dim lights etc. Babycentre doesn't deal with the possible outcome that they don't drift off and instead go mad rolling all over the place.

4 June, the baby who in my less maternal moments I refer to as miseryguts, LAUGHED. I cannot remember D's first laugh as he always seemed to be laughing, but to hear E laugh for the first time was such a delightful surprise. I heard the unmistakable sound coming from the other room, and thought, no, it can't be, as I crept in not wanting to ruin the scene by my presence, I don't believe it, she does have a sense of humour after all! DH was holding her whilst trying to throw a ball in a basket for D. Somehow she found that hilarious. So the ball throwing continued way past everyone's bedtime.

6 June, E's first trip to the beach. Sometime during the first post partum weeks I was having a particularly bad day, aching body, sore breasts, sleeplessness, a son who'd gone from angel to devil in a couple of short weeks, convinced I'd got cancer, oh yeah, and a screaming baby. DH in an attempt to cheer me up said, just think, in 6 months time we'll be taking them both to the beach. Then I had an image of a chubby pink girl, barely able to sit, on a beach towel, with a sunhat on, and it really did put a different slant on things. Well that time has come. Unfortunately she didn't get a splash in the sea as it was full, and I mean full of jellyfish.

Not only did I manage to bath E without her screaming blue murder, I managed to lie her flat in the water, and she enjoyed it. She even smiled. I've got photos to prove it but am not posting them here (not that I suspect YOU personally but well you know, see previous post. I'm even reluctant to send them to family by email for fear my computer be seized and I be accused of that thing that I'm not going to refer to by name cos I don't want to attract the wrong kind of audience)

I've been up before both kids twice in the past month.

I'm back in the 60s on the scales, for the first time since I was about 5 months preggo. Wooohoooo, still a long way to go though.

I'm actually getting rid of clothes that are too large, which isn't really a first but I haven't done it for so long. It feels good. Begone, you size 16s, never darken my door again.

I'm just holding out for another week or so then E will have her first solids. (Well, that's not really a first either cos there was that piece of cucumber that D shoved in her mouth while I was in the other room. I suppose that doesn't really count as she didn't swallow it as I discovered when D bounded up to me and announced 'I'm feeding Elmas', as I rushed to her I found the piece of cucumber in a little pool of sick and E red, watery eyed and surprised. Another one who doesn't like cucumber then, none of my delicious cacik (tzatziki) for her.) I have to admit while I was pregnant I did have some doubts about how I'd feel about the enormous commitment that breastfeeding requires. I did ask myself if I really wanted to go through those first 6 months of providing a little infant with all the nutrition they'd need to double their body weight and make all their tremendous development. But of course I couldn't have imagined doing anything else once she was here. And now that time of being my infant's sole source of nutrition is about to end. I'm about to be replaced with carrots and apple puree.

Love em or leave em alone?

2009-06-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

I originally described this blog as being about motherhood in a foreign land but realise that recently it's all just been about motherhood in general. I was thinking about this fact the other day, wondering why I had nothing new to say about being a mum abroad and I came up with an observation about how strangers react with kids here. There is a lot less fear here concerning kids and 'strangers'. This is both refreshing and endearing, but also annoying and sometimes bordering on irresponsible.

Is it Turkey that is naive about the safety of kids or are we paranoid and overprotective? It's difficult to say. I know a lot of my behaviour when I'm out is seen as strange to the general public here but I know it is totally a result of the world I come from. I'm talking about things like the fact that I would never leave the kids outside the toilet while I use it. I can see people looking at me funny when I try to squeeze myself, the pushchair and D into 1 narrow stall and I know it's not worth explaining why. If I were to say to someone why I was concerned they'd say 'oh don't worry, we'll look after them' and they would with pleasure and it would never occur to them that they are included in the people I suspect of abducting my kids, I know that, but something inside me stops me from taking that risk. All around me I see this contrast in my instincts to expect the worse in people and never let the kids out of my sight contrasted with the reality that people have a genuine love of kids here and see no reason to hide it. I've found myself on more than one occasion looking round the park suspiciously at all the men sat on park benches watching kids play, only to realise that they're some kid's dad or grandad. Many a time while changing E's nappy in public toilets I'm aware of at least a couple of people looking over my shoulder, waiting for me to remove her bottoms so they can exclaim 'aaaaiiiii, bicaklara bak, tombiş, tombiş' (oooohhhhh, look at her chubby legs), and I bite my tongue instead of saying 'hey lady I'm about to remove my kid's nappy and you're not even attempting to hide the fact that you're eager to get a look, do you know that you'd be subject to a lynching elsewhere?' Why do I bite my tongue? Because they wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about, and if they did have an inkling, they'd be shocked and upset that I would think such a thing. Would I react differently in the UK? Probably. Are people in the UK more of a threat? Probably not. It's like the age of innocence here. One of the sweetest examples of this was when E's doctor picked up her naked form and smelled and kissed her back. How lovely, a paediatrician with a real, warm love of kids that can be expressed without feeling cautious, either that or he's a complete perv! People love other people's kids, childless people love kids, people with their own kids love other people's kids. I can never imagine anyone describing kids as 'screaming brats'. When at a wedding in the Uk recently, someone said 'I really don't understand people who say kids are not welcome at weddings'. I was totally shocked. People actually do that!!?? It certainly wouldn't happen here. Kids are welcome anywhere and quite often there is no end of people willing to entertain your kids and give you a break.

There is a flip side to this. What happened to us today spurred me on to write this post. D has been ill for 3 or 4 days, he's been home all day, E hasn't been sleeping, nobody has been in the best of moods, so I decided we were going out for lunch (for my benefit) then off to the swings and slides (for D). So after we'd had lunch D trotted off to the swings with me and E closely following him, en route D was accosted by a group of teenage girls squealing 'oooohhhh, look at that, look at his eyes, gel sevelim biraz (don't really know how to translate but something like, come here and let us love (ie cuddle, kiss) you, take his picture, take his picture. This is so normal for D that he just ignores people that do this and carried on. Arriving at the playground there was a welcoming committee, who rushed up to D and said, come on I'll put you on the swing, let me help you up the slide, be careful, you'll fall, I was simultaneously trying to disperse the crowd around D while another couple of women were homing in on E. I felt so fed up I took us to another play area a little further away. On the way we had another couple 'oooohhhh look, isn't he cute, take his picture' incidents, to which I snapped please don't take his picture, leaving the would be photographers probably thinking what a rude foreigner I was. Then, we wandered past a young 'courting couple', when the girl saw E, she started squealing, in a high-pitched, audible a mile away voice 'aaaaaaaiiiiii şunu bakarmisin Sinan, al sana, al sana, Al SANA' (oooooohhhhhh look at that, Sinan, get it, get it, GET IT), obviously one of those girls who thinks her boyfriend can get her anything she wants but her voice was getting higher and louder and she kept repeating GET IT, to the point where I was wondering how long it would take him to get her out of the Maya (baby carrier) in an attempted baby snatching and would I be able to scoop up D and make a run for it. Not that I was ever really genuinely afraid, but jeez you people, they're just kids!!!!

Life, death and snails

2009-05-29T03:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, Deniz and I had our first discussion about life and death. This is how it went:

When I was a baby I was in your tummy and Elmas was in your tummy too

That's right, you were

And when you were a baby you were in Elmas's tummy

No, when I was a baby I was in my mummy's tummy

Who, who is it

My mummy is your granny but she's dead now. Her name was Sheila

Like Elmas Sheila, who mummy

Grandad is my daddy and he was married to my mummy

What

Well now grandad is married to Yvonne but he was married to my mummy but now she's dead

Why?

That's what happens, one day there was no Elmas, then she was here, one day she won't be here again. That's what happened to my mummy

Does she live with grandad and Yvonne

No she's dead

Is Yvonne dead?

No (laughing)

Why?

Shall we look at some photos of my mummy......

A few days later, in the garden

Ooooh, mummy, look at that snail, it's dead, like your mummy

Budding artist

2009-05-27T03:52:00.000-07:00

Deniz drew the sun yesterday. This picture shows a shift from his usual abstract style to a still life study
He's not really happy with the image yet so he's working on it

mug, martyr or muddled up mummy

2009-05-18T03:45:00.000-07:00

Heavily pregnant with D, I'd just started my maternity leave and we called in at a friend's to pick up some baby stuff. As we were leaving, laden down with a cradle, a bath, baby towels etc, my friend said, oh and here's a book about sleep. Throw it on top of the pile I said, wondering why on earth I'd need a book on sleep. Admittedly, I didn't know how to change a nappy, breastfeed, bath a baby etc and I'd referred to the baby books for instruction (like, how difficult can it be). But sleep, well, don't you just put them in bed around 7 and they leave you in peace (apart from a couple of night feedings which we would take it in turns to get up for)until the morning. I'd accepted that I'd have to curb the going out side of my social life but there was no reason why I couldn't have friends for dinner (minus the tv crew). The scenario I'd envisioned, baby goes quietly and calmly off to sleep around 7, then I spend the rest of the evening relaxing with friends, opening a bottle of wine, chatting etc, needless to say never happened.

By now your nights of getting up every two or three hours are behind you -- we hope. By three or four months, most babies are sleeping 15 hours a day, around 10 of those hours at night and the rest divided among three daytime naps (that number will drop to two when your baby is about six months old). You may still be getting up once or twice a night for feeds at the beginning of this stage, but by the time your baby is six months old, she'll be physically capable of sleeping through the night. Whether she actually will depends on whether she's learning sleep habits and patterns that will encourage this.

I remember reading this when I received it in the form of a monthly newsletter from Babycentre when D was 5 months old. Our nights of getting up every 2 or 3 hours were far from behind us. In fact, getting up every 2 or 3 hours seemed a desirable alternative to what the reality was. So, according to Babycentre, he wasn't learning the correct sleep habits and patterns. In other words, there was something wrong with my baby, I was doing something wrong. It was my responsibility as a mother to establish good sleep habits. Whether or not he slept at night was all down to me. Then I had the book my friend had given me, Healthy Sleeping habits, Happy Child which also confirmed that my baby should be sleeping for longer periods, waking up less frequently and definitely didn't need feeding. And as the title suggests, the book implies that not only should my baby be sleeping, it was actually unhealthy for him not to be sleeping, thus I would make him unhappy if I didn't do something about it. Now, with all my vast experience of motherhood, I realise how naive I was. I didn't know anything about babies, I didn't have any nephews or nieces to compare my baby to, no mother to ask advice from. All my knowledge of babies came from my childhood, which being an Irish, catholic childhood was full of babies. Yet, I'd never seen anyone breastfeed or heard anyone refer to it. To my knowledge, babies slept in cots, drank milk from bottles, cried and had nappy rash.

So in my attempt to solve our problem I sought the answer in books and on the net. I came across them all, Ferber, Weissbluth, Hogg, Sears, Gordon. I read them all, considered most of them and tried some. I even recently came across this lady, on one of those Natural Mothering threads that's main theme seems to be look what good, compassionate, caring people we are because we breastfeed and sleep with our babies and look what the rest of the evil, child-abusing world is doing, that I feel compelled to read when I get the odd 5 minutes to myself and should be doing something more worthwhile like cutting my toenails or cleaning up the wee patch on the bed. Incidentally, I haven't tried Ms Wahlgren's method and don't recommend you do, but from what I understand it involves lying the baby face down, thumping its bottom repeatedly and forcing its head back down when he or she lifts it up, in one of the demo videos she appears to be bashing the pushchair (with baby inside) against the wall. Yeah, I know I said the odd 5 minutes, it was probably one of those rare days when D and E napped at the same time. So do any of the methods or approaches work? Well, all I can say is, D is going to be 3 next month and some nights I'm up with him more often than I am with E.

I have considered the possibility that I perhaps try too hard and take it all too seriously. I was amazed recently when my cousin's 12 month old lay down on a settee in a crowded house in the middle of all the noise and commotion and just fell asleep. That's what they do if you just leave them, my cousin told me. Really? Haven't I tried that? Actually E has done this a couple of times but it's not something I think you can get into a consistent habit with, if the child is tired enough and relaxed enough I suppose they would fall asleep anywhere. A couple of weeks ago, in a casual conversation with my neighbour about E, I was trying to explain that she was what may be referred to as 'high needs' without knowing how to translate it into Turkish. I told him that she wants picking up all the time, to which he replied 'well who got her used to that?', a slightly reprimanding tone in his voice. He then went on to explain that when she cries I should just leave her and then...I didn't hear what he said next as she started crying and I had to pick her up but a friend told me it probably ended with.....if she doesn't stop crying shove a hot potato in her mouth. Then when I see people with babies the same age as E, with beautiful summer dresses on, while my wardrobe still consists of articles that allow quick, easy breast access, with minimum belly exposure, and I think to myself, no need to ask how the breastfeeding is going then. And I wonder if I'm just making it hard on myself. I mean when I look at D and his playmates, I can't tell which ones were breastfed, parented to sleep, left to cry etc, they all just look like happy carefree preschoolers.

And back to the Babycentre newsletter which I received again last week as E has now reached that stage. Despite my resolve not to make the same 'mistakes' I did with D, ie getting him used to props to get him off to sleep. He was rocked, bounced, breastfed, walked, pushed, you name it to sleep. The only thing we never did was just lay him down. With E it would be different, we'd get her used to going to sleep on her own from the outset. She'd be fed, swaddled then laid down and allowed to drift off to slumber. Well, it worked sometimes, about 1 time out of 10. At 5 months she has exactly the same nightly waking patterns that D did even though she does sometimes drift off to sleep without aids. The difference is that I perceive it as less of a problem. The nights when I get the best rest (I can't use the words 'a good night's sleep' as that's something I haven't had for 3 years and to be honest at this point, sleeping 8 hours in a row just seems like downright laziness to me now) are the nights when I feed her when she wakes up without looking at the time or counting how many times she' woken. I wake very briefly, like you do when you realise you're too hot and kick off the covers, then drift back to sleep once she's latched on. Maybe there is something to all this co-sleeping malarky after all. And yet, I still can't help but worry that by doing this now I'm just making a rod for my own back.

So here's my advice for anyone who's interested:

* As a new mother you'll be given lots of advice, disregard most of it.
* Seek advice from people who have a parenting style you admire, who have babies with a similar temperament to yours, and who've had a baby recently. Forget any advice from anybody who had a baby in the 70s when, smoking when pregnant and around babies was considered ok, babies were bottle fed and placed faced down to sleep, given a lamb chop to chew on to alleviate teething pain and left with the 12 year old babysitter while everyone got pissed down the pub.
* If it feels wrong to you, don't do it
* It is quite normal for a 6 month old to wake up a couple of times a night.
* Your baby doesn't have to sleep in a cot
* If you get to the point in the middle of the night where either you or the baby are going out the 5th floor window, pass the baby onto someone else. If you are alone, resolve to get a babysitter the following day.
* There is no shame in needing and asking for help
* It's your baby, don't let anyone make you feel guilty for decisions you've made with yours and the baby's best interests at heart
* Forgot the sleeplessness, enjoy the baby. Your child's babyhood is like a second in the hour that is your life.

Speech! Speech!

2009-05-15T03:18:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I keep a blog is so that I have a record of these precious times. I frequently look back over this blog and the one I originally started when I was pregnant with Deniz and am surprised by the things I've forgotten. Pictures are great for conjuring up memories but to actually be able to pinpoint the time D started pulling up and how I felt at the time and what else was going on envokes a different sentiment. This time of year, I'm feeling particularly nostalgic as this time last year, I was in the first trimestre of my pregnancy and I was still enjoying harbouring our little secret while at the same time eagerly awaiting the 12 week mark when I would feel secure enough to tell people. Looking back over the blog posts I wrote around them I was interested to read a couple of posts I'd written last year about D and his speech.

Nowadays when my days are filled with D's constant chatter, it's difficult to imagine a time when I could get all his speech into one post. His English really took off when we were in the UK for a month in the summer just after he'd turned two. When we arrived in the UK what he did say was mainly in Turkish, which I'm sure must have been very frustrating for everyone, but as the weeks went by he became more and more confident in English so that by the time we got back here mid-August, he was chattering away. Then for the following few months he was more confident in English and so used that to everyone here regardless of whether or not they could understand. Then around November when he started going to (Turkish speaking) playgroup, his Turksih improved immensely and quickly. By the time E was born he was comfortable in both languages and could switch easily, quickly identifying who to speak what language to.

Now in English at least he's very literate and I'm sure he's at least on a par with monlinguals of his age. He can (sort of) count to 20, though he insists that it's FIVE-teen, knows countless songs, he even plays around with some songs and changes the words to make them funny. He uses some conjunctions like 'first of all', 'after a while'. He knows his social niceties and often remembers his pees and fankoos. I love him to pieces when he says 'fankoo to making my dinner'.

He has quite a strong grammar base but there are still some gaps. He often omits auxilary verbs so '(Is) she coming too'. He's just starting to use 'either/neither' correctly rather than 'too'. Some of the things he says are typical of errors of native speakers like over-generalising on grammar rules, saying things like 'comed' instead of 'came'. Other things I have to wonder if they are influenced by Turkish, like the use of gender pronouns, he, she, him, her (in Turkish there is only one pronoun to denote singular, 3rd person 'o' meaning he, she or it). He hasn't started using them consistently correctly, so E is often 'he'. Likewise there are things he says in Turkish that probably come from English like 'varmamış' instead of 'yokmuş'.

Right now, as with actions and behaviour, he has a great tendancy to copy what he hears. One night, we had 'the boys' round to watch a big match, it was hilarious to watch D waving his arms around, jumping up and down, shouting 'haydi, yuwu'. When he recently used the 'f' word, while DH and I appeared to him not to have reacted at all, we caught each other's eyes in shock and slight bemusement, I felt my cheeks grow hot as I realised that I couldn't blame it on the kids at school, the TV, other adults. Ok I have to admit that word has slipped out in anger a couple of times. And I mean literally a couple, which just goes to show, you really do have to be careful what you say all the time. It is often funny to hear your own words echoing out of your toddler's mouth. Things like 'she's a right fussy little thing'. Sometimes it becomes apparent that he doesn't fully understand and is trying things out. Once he said of E, 'she's cute, isn't she?' to which I couldn't help replying, 'you're cute too', D then replied 'you're cute and daddy's cute too'.

I continue to swear by books as a great way to widen your kid's vocabulary and make them more literate. D comes out with some of the choicest remarks. I already wrote about the 'what a pandemonium' declaration in a noisy changing area. There was me looking round smugly simpering, did you hear that, did you hear what my kid just said. But of course it was wasted for we were in Turkey and noone else understood. Things are aften described as normous or dorible (adorable).

I have never really doubted a baby's ability to learn two languages simutaneously and to an equal level of competence. Some people thing that one language may become stronger than the other or that by having two languages the child may never fully master either but research has disproven this. People oftask me what language I speak to D and are surprised that I speak English. I don't understand why anyone would want to speak a foreign languae to their own child.

Now we are considering school option for D (far too early imho but it has to be done here) and we are starting to consider him learning a 3 language, quite possibly French as I am (was) fluent. I am also curiously awaiting the time when E starts to talk to see which language they will choose to communicate to each other in

Guilt

2009-05-12T03:21:00.000-07:00

*When I stumble out of bed at 6.45am to keep D company when he's been watching the disney channel on his own, in his pyjamas, in the dark since 6am
*for the fact that E still isn't on a regular nap schedule and invariable drops off to sleep in the car or while we're walking around only to have her nap rudely interrupted when we arrive at our destination
*For walking away from D when he is screaming 'but I want a biscuit/some ice-cream/the Bob the Builder pants/the bucket sticker/the tiny little bit of blue crayon that I've been holding for days'
*For not reading to E as much as I did D at this age
*For not talking to E as much as I did D at this age
*when E is crying even though she's been fed, winded, got a clean nappy on and has recently woken up and I just have to go to the toilet
*For not baking, painting, having a nature table, having colour days, having projects and jumping through hoops for D
*For all the junk D eats
*For E's continuing issues with wind and my lack of willpower to change anything in my diet to try to make her less windy
*For not using organic foods
*For not checking out that eczema on D's arms
*For wanting my bed back
*For not wanting those little hands contantly round my neck, snagging my hair, and leaning on my back
*For that gooing, babbling, nappyless lump on the bed on her own waving her legs around, gnawing on a toy, hasn't she been there ages already, she's not crying, leave her
*For D's cushion friends
*For all that petrol, the car, my saviour, what would I do without the car, I worship it
*For the chocolate that I confiscate then eat myself
*For those two pairs of heart-breakingly gorgeous tear-filled blue eyes

do not feel guilty, do not feel guilty, do not feel guilty, repeat daily as many times as necessary

Co-sleeping

2009-04-29T03:21:00.001-07:00

Or in other words, the highlight of my weekend

Get lost mum

2009-04-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

So there's the me and D thing, then there's the me and E thing and then there's the me, D and E thing.

It took some coming to grips with at first, having a third party around. As my in-laws have often remarked about D 'arkadaşın oldu'. Yes a great solution to being a sad, lonely, friendless foreigner is to reproduce, that way you can mould the child to be exactly the type of friend you want. Joking aside, no really I was joking, D and I had become good companions, shopping, visiting friends, going to the park, going for coffee (I read somewhere that by the age of 1 a child is familiar with x hundred brand names, Starbucks was one of D's no doubt). We had our routines, our things that we did that took too much explaining to others. Then E came along and ruined everything (joke again). But, seriously, I'll never forget driving D to playgroup for the first time after E had been born about 10 days post partum with tears streaming down my face because I knew that things would never be the same again. A silly thought really as things are constantly changing anyway, especially with young ones. Within a very short space of time they go from a helpless, arm flailing blob whose only form of communication is screaming to a pant wearing, bilingual bossy boots who can put his own shoes on and declares 'What a pandemonium' (that's the Mr Men for you) in the middle of a noisy changing area. That'd be partly down to the old hormones that were responsible for lots of other silly thoughts at the time, like convincing myself I'd got cancer but refusing to get it checked out because the treatment would probably be incompatible with breastfeeding and D really didn't cope well the 2 days I was in hospital having E so I don't want to have to go to hospital again, I mean who'd get him his cornflakes.

So anyway, the me D and E thing. It seems to be a relationship based on protecting one from the other. I spend half the time trying to make sure that D doesn't prod, poke, suck, bite, or squeeze any part of her body, contains his curiosity about her body (one day he pointed to her nappyless form and told me she's got a china in there, answers on a postcard please), smother her when he's hugging her, bash her over the head with a toy, jump on her head while she's having her nappy changed and he's bouncing on the bed, that happened once, oops (what do we need a changing table for, we hardly used it with D?) and making sure (usually unsuccessfully) he doesn't wake her when she's asleep. The other half of the time I spend trying to make sure that D doesn't feel pushed aside by E's arrival and all her needs. That means being careful about saying things like 'no I can't pick you up because I'm carrying Elmas', and making sure that when everyone is making a big fuss of her he feels included too.

So this morning I had one of those 'both kids are quiet' moments, and that little housewife voice inside my head reminded me of our housework mantra 'do what you can when you can'. As I was trying to sort the washing into piles I noticed D go into the bedroom where E was lying nappyless on the bed waving her legs in the air (one of her favourite things in all the world). I quickly finished what I was doing and went into the bedroom to move one of them away from the other when I noticed that E had a great big beaming smile on her face. I don't know what D had done but she was looking into her big brother's face and smiling her head off. Delighted and surprised I had to admit to myself that it hadn't occured to me that there was a D and E thing.

Tatty hilarious

2009-04-15T03:51:00.000-07:00

I'd been at the hospital with D and a nasty eye infection. As I was walking from the doctor's surgery to the carpark I had to pass the cafeteria. My eyes were drawn to a crowded table, noisy table. A table of doctors, obvious from their white coats. Then I spotted my ob/gyn was amongst them. They were all laughing at something. The cynical comedian inside me thought, look at the table of gynacologists, wonder what they're laughing at? Ways they coerced their patients into having c-sections most probably. Remember that one woman who still wanted a natural birth after more than 30 hours labour, everyone sniggers, so you had to play the triple whammy, placental abruption, uterine rupture and cord round the neck, everybody falls about laughing.

Seriously though, I do wonder what ob/gyns say to each other about the astronomically high rate of unnecessary c-sections they perform.

The last remnants of his babyhood

2009-04-12T01:31:00.000-07:00

I was tempted to entitle this post From Bog to Blog but then I'd have to admit plagerising it from somewhere else. We've All Gone Potty, was another one, came up with that one meself. Have you guessed what this is about yet? Yes, I decided to take the plunge this weekend and say no more nappies.

He'd been showing signs of readiness for a while. He's even been using the potty on and off for a while. DH and I had decided to leave it up to him during the time that E was born as we'd read that regression was normal when a new baby is born. Then 1 day around 6 weeks ago he disappeared into his room and went all quiet for a long period of time. Long enough for me to get suspicious but as no ruccous could be heard I left it for a while. Eventually I started to get worried and went to investigate. The look of horror on his face and the pleading tone 'you go away' in his voice when he saw me approaching the room told me that this was something he wanted to deal with alone. So he'd shut himself in his room, painstakingly removed his nappy, selected his favorite Bob the Builder pants and was patiently attempting to put them on. Much as I wanted to help him I knew I had to respect his need for privacy (hey this isn't supposed to happen yet, I thought as I felt both a pang for him and all that difficult growing up he has ahead of him and amusement at the foibles of a toddler). I realised that the end of nappies was nigh.

Then we went to England, spending time with family, visiting people and going here, there and everywhere. The commitment and consistency needed were lacking. On arriving back here I realised that there was always going to be something so we just had to do it.

Of the 2 friends that I have that have potty trained kids the same age as D the advice was the same. Do it the Supernanny way, which I am informed is if you don't want them to use nappies, don't put them in nappies. A bit like giving up smoking, no good cutting down gradually aiming to eventually stop, just make a clean break. And so we did. We'd talked about it beforehand and stayed at home all weekend. D has been to playgroup this morning nappyless for the first time. So it's day 3 and you know how many accidents we've had? One. I consider that a success.

Again I find myself wondering what all the fuss was about. From teething to stopping breastfeeding to potty training, all things that I'd been led to believe were going to be REALLY BIG deals, all have gone smoothly. I find that I look back and realise what an easy baby D was (you weren't saying that at the time). When E is screaming enough to burst my eardrum I can't help but remark to any one in earshot that I never heard D scream like that, he never cried.

So it seems that he really is a big boy now. Although I haven't thought of him as a baby for ages, that little telltale sign of his nappy at times visible over the waistband of his trousers kept him in the category of toddler. Now suddenly, it seems within the last 6 weeks he's dressing himself, putting on his own shoes, feeding himself. He seems to have got over the clingy you 'do it mummy' phase followng E's birth. I caught myself as I considered replacing his chewed to pieces sippy cup, realising that he doesn't need another one. And finally and I hope to god it's the last time I say this, he's sleeping all night. He comes home from playgroup talking about his friends and I know he has his own little set of friends there. A social circle that I'm not part of.

So my little baby really is all grown up it seems. What next? I can't really think what the next milestone will be until he starts school. Please make it come round v e r y s l o w l y.

Changing shapes, part 2

2009-04-11T03:16:00.001-07:00

It's not only my body that has changed dramatically. E has gone from this, at about 10 days old

To this at three and a half months

She is now the same weight as D was at this age and she's actually longer than he was, despite being 25 percent smaller than him all round at birth. At her (late) 3 month check up the doc was amazed at her growth. You're only giving her breast milk, aren't you? He asked, followed by masssshhhhhaaaaala. I couldn't help simpering with pride, as if somehow I'd got it right this time. That reminded me of what a failure I'd felt when D didn't pack on the pounds as a newborn and I was pressured into giving him formula. E has jumped from being in the 50th percentile to the 90th. So another great heiffer of a girl in the family. Here are two pics of E and D at the same age in similar positions

Changing shapes

2009-04-09T03:04:00.000-07:00

Women are so beautiful when pregnant. I loved my body during both pregnancies. It's just so full and firm. The great, round, swollen tummy becomes the focal point taking your focus away from all those minor imperfections that we're made to feel so self-conscious about. But what happens to that lovely, rotund bump once the baby is born? Well initially it's an empty, saggy, bruised and discoloured sack. Two children means twice the love, double the fun but also double the stretch marks and the number of kilos you are over your ideal weight. How do you deal with this? Well at first you're so busy and tied up with the new baby that it's the last thing on your mind. By the time you get to worrying about it there are great websites like this one I've recently discovered to help you celebrate the changes that motherhood has caused to your body

This season I shall be mostly wearing.....

2009-04-08T03:26:00.000-07:00

....a baby, of course. Don't you know of the benefits of babywearing? OK, I'll admit that I do it mainly for the ease it gives me. So I can't really go all smug hippy mummy and pour scorn on those mothers that stick their babies in prams, pushchairs, swings etc expecting fisherprice and the like to raise their kids. I can't hand on heart express my pity for those poor kids that are expected to be kept happy with flashing lights and plonky music or exasperatedly declare that a baby would be much happier, tightly held against its mother's warm body, listening to her heartbeat, feeling all snug and secure. It is just another way to get by and cope with life with a baby.

With D I'd been loaned a babybjorn from a friend and loved the convenience it gave. As I didn't have a car at the time, nothing was easier than popping him in there and jumping on a bus or in a taxi. No struggling upstairs with a pushchair in one hand, nappy bag in the other and a baby .....wait a minute, how do people carry the baby,... see what I mean. Even when I did use the pushchair, (hey you have to put them down sometimes, how am I expected to enjoy my extremely hot beverage from Starbucks with a baby strapped to my chest, taking myself out for coffee has been the highlight of many a long, lonely new to motherhood day but even that is not worth risking scalding my baby with a caramel macchiato, imagine what they'd say at the hospital) I took along my BB for those times when he got fussy, so I could carry him and push the pushchair and still get on with wandering around Tepe Nautilus, Capitol, Meadowhall, or some other shopping centre, well you can't actually do that much with a 2 month old.

This time around, with motherhood not being such a foreign land I decided to try a sling or wrap carrier. Not only was I now aware of the ergonomic advantages of a sling-type carrier over the BB style carriers, I also knew (because that's what I'd been told) that you could put the baby in there and just get on with everyday life, do the hoovering, go shopping, breastfeed, you could even wander round Ikea breastfeeding and noone would even know. In fact you could just pop the baby in there and forget about them, it would be like you didn't even have a baby. It was with images of myself, baby strapped into the sling, hand in hand with my toddler, getting on with things as before, that I made my bid for six pounds for a Maya on e-bay.

It and the baby arrived round about the same time and I have to admit it took some getting used to. As it was second hand it didn't come with instructions so after several viewings of the demonstrations on their website, I gave it a try. I somehow managed to scrunch E in that little hammock but she wasn't happy, she looked too twisted, I wasn't confident of the amount of oxygen she'd be getting and her screams were enough to tell me it wasn't right. I didn't attempt it again until I'd had a live demo from my doula. I didn't feel really happy using it and it definitely was not the answer to all the prayers of a new mother to two that I thought it would be until I had a brainwave. E doesn't like being held horizontally, if only I could carry her upright in the Maya, duh, quick look at the demo vids again revealed I could. She was happy, and I felt more comfortable.

Now, me, holding D by the hand and E in the sling is a familiar sight round our way. I have even been known to wander round Ikea breastfeeding without anyone knowing. You get mixed reactions from the general public, who as you know, like to make their opinions known. Of course everyone stares at you, everyone stares at you anyway when you've got a new baby here, until you start adjusting your clothes and you can almost hear people's alarm as they realise you are about to breastfeed. I've had people chastise me because the baby can't possible breath in there. I've been asked if there's a real baby in there. I've even had people pull open the top part of the fabric and peer inside (yes total strangers). At a family gathering with the in-laws, the younger ones compared it to Angelina Jolie, while the elders compared it to the gypsies, and that about sums up the attitudes to babywearing here.

Well if Spandeau Ballet can do it.....

2009-04-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

...so can I. Make a comeback, that is.

It has been such an intense time since Elmas was born. There has just been so much going on it's been too difficult to select what to blog about. And then there's the time factor or distinct lack of it.

Anyway, a cyclist driving towards me, going the wrong way on a dual carriageway, and a woman standing on the outside ledge of her 5th floor window to clean it, can only mean one thing, I'm back in Istanbul. Yes we're back from a wonderful 3 week trip to the UK to introduce E to all the folk back home.

Being back here also means back to eating with one hand, make that doing everything with one hand, using the bathroom with a baby strapped to me, and a great deal of time spent trying to avoid the following scenario:screaming baby squirming to get at the breast, screaming toddler clawing at my neck and face and accidently knocking screaming baby resulting in more screaming and inevitably screaming mother. Outwardly looking more stressed and haggard than ever, inwardly blissfully happy and wouldn't change things for the world

Birth story, part 1

2008-12-31T11:12:00.000-08:00

Dh and I had always wanted more than 1 child. We wanted our kids to be fairly close in age so we'd decided to start trying for no. 2 when D was 18 months old. D was 18 months old at the end of Dec 2007. So 2008 began with the beginnings of no.2. It seems appropriate that the last post of this year be her birth story

During this pregnancy as I prepared for the birth, I'd often imagined how I'd triumphantly declare that I'd had a successful vbac. Part of me is very disappointed that I can't do that, it has even taken the edge off announcing the birth of Elmas. Part of me wants to be devastated that I ended up having another c-section but I can't devote the emotional resources needed to deal with that right now. And a part of me still feels a little triumphant knowing that I did everything I could to avoid a c-section. I laboured long and hard, progress was slow and I coped with it just fine, mainly on my own. When consent was given for the c-sec, I didn't want it, I was willing to go on but I felt like I didn't have much choice.

If you've been following this blog you'll know that it all sort of started on Tue 2nd Dec. I'd gone to bed feeling funny, crampy, etc. The next night the contractions started. After about 4 contractions within a short space of time, I realised I couldn't ignore them and had to get out of bed, check how often they were coming and sway to deal with the pain. When I went to the toilet and saw some bloody show I realised that this must be IT. A little part of me panicked as I was no way ready yet and definitely didn't expect to give birth so early but I quickly pulled myself together, reminding myself of all the prep I'd done and telling myself that I'd be holding my baby in 12 hours. I wasn't. The contractions petered out during the day, leaving me wondering what was going on. Some reseach on the internet revealed that this was prodromal labour, common in second pregnancies. I was assured that something was about to happen and that all these contractions were probably getting things ready for the real thing. Night after night, the same pattern followed. Contractions every 10 minutes apart, not unbearably painful but too painful to ignore. I did get to a point where I was so tired that rather than get out of bed to ease the pain, I'd just lie there and tense up, writhing in pain (yes you really do writhe). Not the best way to deal with contractions

On Fri Dec 12 around 1am, so officially Saturday, the contractions started as usual. I had no reason to think it was the real thing as it was just the same nightly pattern. However when I didn't get the usual respite and chance to catch a few hours sleep, around 5am, I started to think that perhaps finally things were progressing. The contractions continued all day and by the evening were getting stronger and closer together. I desperately hoped that this was the real thing but daren't let myself believe it as I didn't want to be disappointed again. We had dinner as usual and I watched the clock willing D's bedtime to come so that I could focus on the labour. Poor old D watched on as every 5 minutes his mummy had to reject his touches or games, he accepted the explanation that mummy had a pain, and after a minute or so we'd get back to what we were doing. Once we'd got him to bed, we called DH's parents to get someone to come over to babysit. There was no ignoring the fact now, I was in labour. I was excited.

There were certain things I'd planned to do in labour to lessen my chance of a repeat c-sec. One of them was to keep as far from the hospital for as long as possible. Around 9 we called the doula and she advised us to get checked out at the hospital and depending on how far along I was we'd decide whether or not to stay. I was feeling a little antsy by now, not really because of the pain but because everything seemed to be going so slow. I told myself that a quick trip to a and e would give me some reassurance and like the doula said, we didn't have to stay there.

The duty doctor was a lovely man and I wish I'd got his name, I wish I'd got him to attend the birth actually. He examined me and said that I was 70% effaced and 3cm dilated. This was a little disappointing after so long but my disappointment disappeared when the doctor said that he'd spoken to my doctor ans knew that I wanted a vbac and didn't see any reason why I shouldn't be successful. Yes, yes this was finally happening, it was a reality, I was in labour and I was going to give birth to my baby. We then went to have a nst, where the nurses immediately tried to gown me up, no no I'm not staying I insisted. But you're in labour they said incredulously. I knew that staying in the hospital would mean I'd be on a stopwatch and I'd have to have the constant fetal monitoring which confines you to the bed, neither the best position to deal with contractions nor help things along. The doctor came to see me again and said I could go home if I wanted after the nst. He also asked when I had last eaten, to my surprise he didn't order that I no longer eat 'just in case', instead he told me to have a snack and a drink as the baby wasn't moving much. Again I found myself delighted that I seemed to be being taken seriously, and that this was really happening as I wanted. I was given an acknowlegdement paper to sign stating that I was aware of the risks involved in a vbac. Around this time I started finding it difficult to control my body temperature and was also shaking uncontrollably. At around 1am we left the hospital and went home.

I was starting to get really tired, this was my second sleepless night. I'd hoped that at home I might be able to relax and maybe even sleep a little. Dh went straight to sleep which I didn't mind as I wanted him to be well rested. The hours between 2 and 5am as any insomniac will know are the longest, lonliest hours of the night. I tried the birth ball, I paced the corridor, I swayed. Around 4am I wasn't doing well. It wasn't so much the increase in pain more the relentlessness of it. At some point I'd gone to the toilet and seen some bright red blood. Is that normal? Is that a warning sign? I chose to ignore it. By 4.30, I could feel myself mentally approaching a place I didn't want to be. Why are you doing this alone, I asked myself. I called the doula, got DH out of bed and decided to head for the hospital again.

Same procedure, same faces, oh you're back again etc...The doctor examined me again and said I was 4cm. I'd dilated 1cm in 6 hours. Another gush of bright red blood, is that normal, I worried, the doctor didn't react to it so I supposed all was well. We went back to the room where we'd been before and I was relieved to see the bright, smiling face of the doula. I was soon hooked up to the fetal monitor and attached to an iv. The contractions were getting stronger, longer and hard to deal with whilst hooked up. Julia was great reminding me to focus on my breath and squeezing my little toes (brilliant way of diverting the pain). She'd been right, pain was all about perception, I swear some of those contractions I did not feel the pain at all. I was starting to go to a place where I couldn't think of anything other than the labour. Julia kept telling me how great I was doing, I wasn't so sure, I didn't feel great. The centre of pain throughout all the contractions was in the small of my back, I willed the baby to move down so that the back pain would ease up but no...She was still high up and with every contraction there was an protruding regtangular shape high up near my ribcage. After all this time she was not moving down.

I suppose my own doctor came around 7am and that's when things started to go wrong. I'm also not sure how well I remember things. As soon as she saw us, she started going on about the risks etc...Somewhere she mentioned the magic words 'dead baby' which was enough to scare DH into doing anything. I told her I knew about the risks and had signed the paper. On examining me she expressed concern about the fact that the head wasn't engaged, then she said that I was bleeding too much, it was abnormal. The bleeding was either uterine rupture or the placenta coming away, either one potentially harmful for the baby. I should have a c-sec. My attitude was to mentally cover my ears and say lalala I'm not listening to you. She left the room and I looked to my support team for support, they knew how much I wanted this, they knew how much this meant to me, they knew how upset I'd been about D's birth. They would help me through this. The turning point was when they didn't tell me what I wanted to hear. I asked them what they thought I should do, Julia said noone could make the decision for me but she pointed out that the doctor seemed very nervous and that what she was saying was correct. DH's only words were 'the baby could die, it's not worth risking'. Meantime I was having another trembling fit that I couldn't control (unbeknowst to me I was 8cm dilated at this point, could have been transition). I was exhausted, I felt backed into a corner, noone wanted me to go on with the vbac. As I signed the consent forms and was wheeled away I couldn't meet anyone's eyes. Natural birth, failed, for the second time.

Here she is..

2008-12-28T09:30:00.000-08:00

Aaaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh

2008-12-22T01:49:00.000-08:00

I imagined my first post partum blog post to be about the birth or the highs and lows of the first week, or how ecstatically in love I am with my new daughter and how equally in love I am with my son who has coped with everything wonderfully, but I find myself only 8 days post partum, through bad planning or lack of communication, alone for a full day with both kids for the first time. I'm not ready for this!

Our day officially began at 5.45 when D woke up, but Elmas and I had been awake on and off since 3am. E is having one of those days where she either wants to be on the breast or sleeping on me. I have not been able to put her down (the sooner I work out the Maya sling the better) all morning. Thankfully D has been happy to play away on his own with only verbal interaction from me. Now it's 11.45 and by some miracle both kids are asleep at the same time, E finally settled in the carseat after about 30 mins rocking. I should be getting some rest myself or getting showered and dressed or fixing something to eat but I find myself compelled to blog. It's going to be a long afternoon.

She's here

2008-12-15T03:16:00.000-08:00

After over a week of prodromal labour and 24 hours of the real thing, Elmas Sheila was born by c-sec at 8.10 am 14 Dec, weighing 3.1 kg, details and pics to follow

breakthrough or breaking point

2008-12-13T09:14:00.000-08:00

If this is not the real thing, I'm going to break down and cry

Moralım bozuk

2008-12-08T01:11:00.000-08:00

That was going to be the title of the post that I didn't write yesterday (rough translation 'my morale is broken'). After 3 nights of contractions every 10 mins or so, I finally decided to go to the doctors on Saturday. As soon as I arrived at the hospital everything stopped, the contractions, the loss of mucous plug, everything, obviously a big tiger for me. (Natural bith advocates highlight the fact that animals look for a safe, secure place to give birth, and if they suddenly find themselves in danger, eg. faced with a tiger in the jungle, labour will stall until they feel safe again. Humans are just the same, if we are in a safe, secure place birth will happen naturally. Arriving at hospital, being hooked up to monitors, having your genitals examined by numerous strangers are all metaphorical tigers that may effect labour, hence the need for artificial augmentation of labour, cutting women up, sucking babies out etc) Anyway, the upshot of the doctors visit was that the baby is doing just fine, and I'm fine. At one point there was a reference to 'seeing what we could do to get this baby out today', until I reminded the doctor that I wanted to do everything as naturally as possible and that if we were both ok I'd rather wait things out at home. The 'bad' news is that I'm not at all dilated or effaced, which sort of means I've endured all this pain for nothing. Anyway according to a test the doctor did, birth is imminent within 2 weeks.

Then I lost the argument about whether to stay overnight at the in-laws during the eid holiday (referred to as feast of the sacrifice in Turkish). I lost to a kurban. We did agree to stay only 1 night rather than 2. Nevertheless, going into labour away from home, in a crowded house, where I know D doesn't sleep well was not a good prospect for me. On Saturday night, I went to bed feeling utterly miserable and exhausted. On top of the contractions I now had a pounding headache, and if that weren't enough, D woke up around 1am with a fever (bless the little angel, who, after I'd given him some Calpol, laid in bed and sang himself back to sleep).

Sunday, yesterday, we came to the in-laws and are still here. I've barely had a contraction since we came, tigers again. Actually it's all turned out ok. Last night I had the best night sleep for ages, despite D's continued feverish state. I'm using my 'delicate condition' as an excuse to 'rest in bed' ie use the internet and read in peace and quiet. Time to take stock and get things straight again in my head.

One of the things I've found important and useful in preparing for this birth is to educate myself and convince myself that birth is something natural, it's not an illness and that there is nothing wrong with me. However the experience of the past week did start me thinking, well what if there is something wrong with me. I've had so many contractions and the baby's head is not even engaged yet. The mantra 'I trust my body' was starting to loose it's effectiveness. But now after more than 24 hours respite from the pain, I can see the beauty of how the body works again. I suppose the contractions were to get the baby in a better position for birth. My body was exhausted and I had an ill child to look after, so nature is giving me a break. Time to catch up on my sleep and await round 2.

Here we are again

2008-12-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

4.09AM, birthball, hot water bottle stuffed down back of pyjamas, 3rd night in a row. I've stopped assuming that this is the real thing. I no longer expect things to move forward. I feel as if I'm doomed to have short, regular but painful contrax for the next 3 weeks. So this is what they call prodromal labour.

I'm doing ok. Doing all the things I should be doing, eating, drinking, sleeping when I can (the contrx seem to stop for a couple of hours at a time while I sleep), repeating my birth affirmations, getting on with normal life as much as I can.

I am starting to waver though and have started to seriously think about seeing the doctor tomorrow. I want to see the doctor because I want to know what's going on and to reassure myself that the baby is ok (though I can feel her moving just fine), and because from Monday to Thursday next week is a holiday here so I feel compelled to do something before everyone disappears. I don't want to see the doctor because I don't want her to start suggesting we augment labour artificially or schedule a c-section. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that things are not moving along because there's a problem with the pelvic inlet and the baby cannot descend. I'm also aware that my doctor is not going to be working over the holiday period so her plans for a nice holiday might override my plans for a natural birth. Bloody marvellous, you pay all this money for private healthcare and you can't even trust your doctor to give you sound advice. Unfortunately my doula is also away on holiday, though she says as of tomorrow she can get here in within 4-7 hours, bless her.

In the meantime, once again I don't really feel like I'm being taken seriously by those around me. On the one hand I do want everyone to keep calm and stay in their places until the emergency call. On the other hand, I would sort of like some acknowlegdement of what I'm going through. It seems that if it's not the real thing it's not worth taking any notice of. DH is still talking about a 2 day visit to his parents next week. I don't really want to be that far from the hospital and I can't imagine what I'm going to be doing in the wee small hours when there are people sleeping in every room. Well I can rest assured that I'll have D for company cos he doesn't sleep well there either.

4am again

2008-12-04T17:53:00.000-08:00

It's the second night in a row that I've found myself awake, balanced on my birth ball with my laptop, a hot water bottle and a camomile tea for company. Turns out that the nesting frenzy of last week may have been the real thing. That'll teach me to procrasinate, I haven't even started my perineal massage yet, don't even know how to spell it. I should have known when I found myself preferring to clean the floor on my hands and knees rather than the quick runaround with the mop. Always take a heavily pregnant, nesting woman seriously. I've been having regular contractions for about 24 hours now. They are not getting more frequent, longer or more painful so I'm assuming it's not time to go yet. I'm going to be one of those women whose birth's take place over days and days, or even possibly weeks, yikes! My birth story will have you all backtracking at 2am on Thursday morning, at 7pm on Friday, the next day around lunchtime, wait a minute what day is it, you were in labour for how many days? Now I understand what that feels like. In the next couple of hours I have to decide whether to send DH off to work as normal and get on with my day as usual, (well as normally as you can when every 10 minutes you have to stop what you're doing, lean over and start swaying and heavy breathing, maybe shouldn't use the car) or whether to insist that he go and get me that doner I've been craving for weeks, take loads of pics of me, write my Christmas cards? Watch a funny dvd? Get D out of bed and get him painting and cooking etc in an attempt to make the most of our last day as just us?

ETA, it's actually kind of good being awake at this time, I haven't had this much quiet time to myself in ages. Mmm, what shall I do now? Snuggle up with a good book I think

Nearly 37 weeks

2008-12-03T03:38:00.000-08:00

My belly has finally reached that stage where not an ounce of fat can be seen. It's a great, big, round, bump of fecundity. I've always loved that word ever since Miss Taylor my English A'level teacher bandied it about all over when we were studying The Rainbow (that's a novel by D.H.Lawrence and nothing to do with Zippy, George and Bungle, even though a lot of my education was of the Mickey Mouse variety) after all these years I have a context in which to use it.

I feel pretty good. Almost immediately snapped myself out of that fug of last week by deciding to get busy. The following days were spent in a whirl of washing and ironing baby clothes and shopping for things we still need. I now have 2 drawers full of pristine newborn/0-3 month clothes (including 35 vests). We are definitely covered for the first 3 months. We've also decorated our front room/living room/tv room (never know what to call it). Bravo to DH who did it single handedly, finally someone is taking my mad nesting urge seriously. Curtains have been washed, a hospital bag is half ready and I got the mil to clean under the fridge and the washing machine ;)

Over the last couple of days I have had a few 'signs' that things are moving along, you don't want me to gross you out with the details, do you? Yesterday went to bed feeling very funny and realised that I definitely do not want this baby to come early (well not by more than a few days). My willing the baby to hang on in there for a while longer was probably partly due to the fact that DH was away on business overnight and the mil was babysitting me, not exactly who I'd had in mind as a birth support partner.

Then this morning as D snuggled up in bed with me at 6.30 after announcing that he'd slept all night, I realised what precious short time we have left as just the 3 of us and how drastically everything is about to change. How are we (or more precisely how is D) going to cope with such a big change that will literally happen overnight (well it could be during the day, hope it's not just as I'm tucking into my turkey whilst listening to the Queen's speech on the BBC world service)? I think having a sibling is such a wonderful thing, and I should know I've got four of 'em, that will enrich D's life in so many ways. But it's going to be scary and unsettling and upsetting. All our relationships will change again as we adjust to the new dynamics in our family. I don't want my little boy to feel jealous or pushed aside and I hope I can continue to provide him with all the love and security he needs.

On a different subject. D has decided he wants to use the potty. He is nappy free at home now and has had very few accidents. He is refusing to wear pants (that's underpants) though, prefering to put them on his head and go commando.

IWI Christmas bazaar

2008-12-03T03:12:00.000-08:00

No matter how long you've lived abroad there are times when you get homesick. The thought of being here at Christmas has always slightly depressed me as I love Christmas so much and it's just not the same here, no matter how much you try to make it so. And this year I'm definitely stuck here, no chance of any last minute 'oh sod the expense let's just hop on a plane' splurges. I'm beyond the point where I can travel by plane. I suppose I could do it by land.....

One of the things I do to make myself feel a bit more Christmassy is attend the IWI's Christmas bazaar which this year was held yesterday. The IWI is often a topic of derision amongst my peers as its members are perceived to be rich ex-pat wives, living off their husbands' fat salaries and exploiting the local labourforce, whilst living in ivory towers and not attempting to integrate. Funnily enough a lot of my peers are members. For some reason, mainly thrift (no thrift is not the same as meanness), even though I take advanatage of a number of IWI activities, I've never become a member

Anyway I thought that the organisers, sponsors and volunteers deserved a pat on the back for once again organising a great bazaar from which the proceeds will go to various charities dedicated to helping women and children and for providing people like me with a nice opportunity to get into the Christmas spirit.

Pre-partum blues

2008-11-25T03:09:00.000-08:00

If there is such a thing, I think I've got a touch of it. I've reached the point in this pregnancy where I've had to accept my limitations. I remember having the same feeling with D's pregnancy. There's so much I want to do and I just can't. When I feel good and energetic I try to get so much done but soon regret it as the back pain flairs up again and (more worryingly) the Braxton Hicks increase in frequency and discomfort. On Saturday evening I thought I'd really overdone it as I seemed to be having at least 4 contractions an hour for a good couple of hours. How had I overdone it? Running round after D at his friend's birthday party while DH watched the match in the bedroom, only offering to help when D was fully in tears, downright upset and in his mother's arms. Like thanks for the offer but he's really going to go to you now!

I feel bored, restless and frustrated. I go from resenting having to keep this ship running, thinking 'hey I'm 9 months pregnant, isn't it time someone started to look after me' to feeling 'I wish people wouldn't treat me like an invalid, I'm only having a baby'. I always seem to be tidying up, the house always seems to be a mess. I never seem to have enough time to myself, then when I do have free time all I do is veg. Nothing is ready for the baby yet. My hospital bag isn't ready yet. I haven't even got any nice pyjamas to wear in hospital :(

At my check up today the doc has started saying that if the head hasn't engaged within 2 weeks we should think about scheduling a c-section. And just in case that doesn't scare me enough, the cord is wrapped round the baby's neck. Both bullshit, imho. But this is just how my other ob started working away at me with D's pregnancy so that you're convinced all these terrible things are going to happen if you don't schedule a c-section. Thing is this time round, I'm not scared. I know she's talking crap but I'm just so disappointed. Do I change docs now? Do I contradict her and insist on a trial of labour (she has to have my consent for a c-section)? I know one thing, there's no way I'm going to even consider scheduling a c-section at 37 weeks because the head hasn't engaged. What do I say to her? Doc, I don't believe you, I think you're wrong. Where did you study medicine cos I can find reams of stuff on the internet that contradicts what you're saying. That would really make for a trusting doctor/patient relationship. We've been screwed by the insurance company as we thought we had full cover but it turns out that we'll end up paying for a big share of the birth ourselves, which is going to amount to around 7000ytl in total (roughly around 3000 pounds). It would have been cheaper to fly to England and hire a private midwife AND get some sort of value for money and satisfaction!

Then to top everything off. Just as I was (assuming that I'm not going to put any more weight on in the last month) congratulating myself on not putting on as much weight as I did with D (16kg), I find I've put on 4kgs in just over 3 weeks!!!!! How is that possible? Came home and ate 2 pains au chocolat to make myself feel better. Do I really have to switch to skimmed milk and give up cake and chocolate in these last few weeks where small comforts are few and far between?

6 weeks to go!

2008-11-21T00:03:00.000-08:00

35 weeks now and even though DH's colleague who's due date was a good few weeks after mine, has just given birth, I'm assuming I'll carry to full term. I'm hoping I will as I'm nowhere near ready yet. I don't mind if she comes a few days early though, then we can get our Christmas dinner on the actual day!

So, how am I feeling? Apart from looking like I've swallowed a pilates ball, as I was told by a (fortunately) good friend last night, I feel pretty good. The pelvic pressure comes and goes. I'll have a few days respite when I feel totally normal, then it comes back again. A couple of people have commented recently that I'm carrying low, don't know if that means anything. I feel worse at night. The only position I'm comfortable in is lying on my right side. I've done something to my back which causes agonising pain when I try to manoeuvre myself from left to right, meaning that I try to avoid using those muscles but the stomach muscles are kind of out of action too, needless to say it takes a bit of concentration. These bedtime three point turns leave me feeling like a turtle that's been placed upside down and often result in long periods of wakefulness. But don't worry, the dead of the night is not a long and lonely place chez nous. I often have D to keep me company as he has his little 'up/down half hour'. On the nights when he does sleep through, he bounds triumphantly into our bedroom and declares 'mummy, I slept all night!!', usually around 5.30am. I try to just get on with things and not think about how much worse nights are going to be very soon.

Am I ready for the birth? My doula said that giving birth is the equivalent to an 80 km hike, I struggle walking to the top of our street these days, so that doesn't bode well (WRONG, WRONG, wrong attitude, positive thoughts, scrambles around for birth affirmations I trust my body, my body knows what to do, birth is a wonderful.. ). I've had my first cup of raspberry leaf tea today, and was surprised by how nice it was. Think I can stomach that a few times a day for the next few weeks. I haven't prepared my hospital bag yet but think I should think about making that a priority now.

I haven't actively avoided talking about my birthplans but neither have I volunteered any info (apart from with friends). This is because I know people believe that you have to have a repeat c-section once you've had one. Everyone I know who has more than 1 child here has been told that by their doctors. So for a while, I didn't want to have 'that conversation' with people. Inevitably as my due date approaches, people have started asking me about my birthplans and while surprised that I intend to have a vbac most people have been receptive to the 'new' fact that a vbac is actually safer than a repeat c-section.

The little one is as active as her brother was, maybe even more so. I've been having much stronger and regular contractions this time around but I guess that's normal in a second pregnancy.

Wierd dreams about the birth are a common feature of this stage in pregnancy. I haven't had any but I did dream I had a wonderfully easy birth, so fingers crossed. I also had the same dream that I had with D, in the dream I go out somewhere to meet friends and by the time I'm miles away from home I realise with horror that I've left the baby. Doesn't take a genius to work out what's going on in my sub-conscious

Right way up (or down)

2008-11-13T09:44:00.000-08:00

Last night was spent acutely conscious of every movement, was that a foot or a hand, what the hell was that great protruding lump, is there really only one of you in there? This morning while getting dressed after a shower, and admiring my pregnant belly in the mirror, yes I do look like I could model underwear in the Mothercare catalogue (with the right lighting, lol), trying to work out whether the shape of my bump has changed, I swear I saw a hand pass across the top of my bump as if waving, here I am mummy, up here. I've spent every spare waking moment when not in anyone else's vision doing cat/camels, also known as pelvic tilts but only when you're pregnant (I think they're the same thing, either that or I'm doing it all wrong). I even considered resorting to propping the ironing board up against the sofa and lying on it but I couldn't figure out which way to lie and it looked more like some kind of setup for a stunt on jackass neither mind something a middle-aged expectant mother should be doing.

Somewhere deep down inside me was the lurking feeling that deep, deep disappointment was just round the corner. I was not to get my vbac after all. I wasn't even going to get to the first hurdle. If my baby was breech, there is no doubt in my mind that the docs here wouldn't consider anything other than a c-section, especially with my unproven, scarred uterus.

Then, by lucky coincidence, today is 'pregnant and newborn group' day. And the doula was in attendance. She kindly agree to have a feel around as it were. Now she says she can't be certain but she thinks the head is down, and that hardness I can feel is probably the baby's back. I've now just had a look at this site and from what I can tell, she does indeed seem to be lying as the doula suggested, in a left occiput anterior position, which by the way happens to be the best position for birth (I think, or perhaps I've got it all wrong and I'm not quite as ready for the Midwife exams as I think I am). Anyway, still plenty of time for shifts from front to back (those I don't mind). But I have to say that my mind is definitely much more at ease than it was 12 hours ago. AND I feel so so much less pressure in the pelvic region, I've cancelled my order with Tena Lady, and the old Barnsley waddle is not quite as pronounced as it was, so, good news all round.

Ohhhh nooooooo

2008-11-12T11:53:00.000-08:00

I've just had hiccups under my ribcage. I've spent the last half an hour trying to work out what is what bumpwise, how do people do that? It all just feels hard to me, I definitely cannot distinguish back from limbs, head, shoulders or anything else. I've prodded, poked and squeezed (something I've never done before, well would you like it?) trying to encourage some movement in an attempt to work out where the limbs are. I've frantically searched for ways to turn a breech baby, they all seem to involve standing on your head for more time in a day than I've got to spare. The doc told me there was only a 3% chance of her turning at this stage, 3%! I don't fall into 3% groups, I'm totally average. Now it should be bedtime but I'm all tense and worried. Where's my own personal midwife when I need her?

Oh the relief!

2008-11-09T09:47:00.000-08:00

She moved!! Up or down, I don't know and I don't care as long as it's not head up (which I'm sure it's not). The respite from the continuous pelvic pressure has been absolutely wonderful, it's like being on holiday from pregnancy. I felt like running a marathon today. D was his usual wonderful self, happy to potter round the house after me or play on his own whilst making up songs and having conversations with himself using made up words (a new thing), occasionally seeking me out for a hug, a tickle and to say 'you happy, mummy'. Was it coincidence that this dramatic move coincided with a strong nesting urge, meaning that for once I could actually get more than a couple of things accomplished before needing to put me feet up. I whizzed around the house today feeling as light as a feather.

I can proudly say that I have just about finished my decluttering mission, just one more cupboard and one more drawer (the worse ones of course, the 'oh no visitors, look at all this junk, I know I'll just shove it in here and deal with it never' ones)to go. Then all that's left to do is a thorough up and down, top and bottom clean (might pay someone else to do that though, the old nesting urge and the put your feet up with a snickers urge often conflict, no prizes for guessing which one wins), before I get the baby things out for washing and setting up. I need to feel ready for this baby by week 37 (that's 4 weeks from now) even though I realise that everything will most probably have grown dusty and need redoing when she finally makes an appearance sometime in 2009.

oh the pain

2008-11-06T02:53:00.000-08:00

10 things I've found painful recently:

1) Turning round in bed, yes that time has come when bed no longer feels like a friendly place, more like a battle ground to get comfy, fight for space with all the extra pillows cramping us in, and as for getting in and out, anyone who's btdt will know what a struggle that is, the words 'beached whale' really do seem appropriate here
2) Having a full bladder
3) Watching the mil 'help' D do a jigsaw. It's got to be her eyesight..
4) The realisation that if this baby weighs 2 kilos now (ultrasound estimate) and D weighed 4 kilos at birth, assuming this one will be a similar size, she's still got to double in weight. I can barely walk as it is and I'm not sure how much more pressure my pelvic region can take before I have to resort to nappies (frantically starts doing Kegels whilst writing)
5) Picking D up from his new playgroup this week to have him tell me 'I can't play here mummy, I just crying'
6) Accepting that D is not going to be the independant, easy to manage, mummy's little helper that I'd hoped he'd become by the time the new baby arrived.
7) Sharing the birth ball with a toddler while he bounces up and down to the Hokey Cokey occasionally missing the ball and bouncing on my tummy
8)The thought of all the things I've still got to sort out before I will feel ready for this babe.
9) As the due date approaches without any firm offers of help (apart from the usual which is more of a hindrence) and no confirmed visits, the slowly dawning reality of what life with a toddler and newborn will mean.
10)Accepting that the recurring yeast infection is probably aggravated by caffeine, sugar, pasta, bread and lots of other tasty things that seem to make life worth living, and seriously cutting down on them (you didn't expect me to give them up altogether, did you?)

Attitudes and perspective

2008-11-05T02:51:00.000-08:00

Sometimes in life we need a bit of a wake-up call to put our life in perspective. That happened to me when I first came to Turkey in 1999 just after the big earthquake in which thousands were killed and yet more thousands left homeless. Surrounded by evidence of the death and destruction caused by that disaster made me rethink my 'problems', making them look pretty trivial.

This past year or so as I settle into my new role in life I've been getting involved in iwi groups as they are a good way to meet other international women with young kids. A lot of the women you meet are quite wealthy and household staff like housekeepers, nannies, drivers etc are essential to keep their 4 story villas/luxury apartments running smoothly. As most of the iwi group activities take place in rotating mothers' homes, when it comes to my turn to host, even though I'm happy with my lot in life and even consider myself to be quite priviledged, I can't help but be a little self-conscious of my humble abode. I've even considered dropping out of groups that I enjoy because of this. I know that I've lost perspective a little here.

One of my current bugbears (you may have realised) is the lack of satisfactory maternity healthcare available in Turkey. Today though, I got a short sharp dose of perspective when I read this article (I wouldn't normally go by anything in the Daily Mail especially when it comes to portraying 'foreigners' in a bad light, but it was the first thing I found in the British press after hearing about it from different sources in Turkish, besides, if you watch the report, I'm sure the footage speaks for itself). Basically, if you can't be bothered to read it, it's about Sarah Ferguson's (look at photo of Fergie, why do women working in western media feel the need to wear a headscarf a la Jemima Khan, loosely thrown over one shoulder in a way that covers nothing as if a nod of respect is being given to the customs of the host country even though it would definitely not be considered appropriate headcovering in the religious sense and in the case of Turkey where many women choose not to cover it's not really culturally appropriate? All or nothing I say, it's not supposed to enhance your appearance!)recent undercover visit to a number of orphanges in Turkey for a report to be aired on ITV on Thursday evening. The report uncovers scenes of terrible neglect and abuse, including children being tied up, confined to their beds and fed lying down and worse. It had me in tears which I won't blame on pregnancy hormones this time. As well as feeling great pity and horrible despair for those poor, poor unloved children, deprived of any emotional comfort or intellectual stimulation. I also felt ashamed for ever thinking myself hard done by as I go for my monthly checkups in my plush private hospital whilst I live in the same country as these unfortunates, and I, along with the majority of other people live our comfortable lives complaining about all the things we don't have.

Want to know the response of the minister under whose responsibilities orphanges lie? Nimet Cukukcu, minister for women's affairs (?!), claims that it's all part of a campaign to blacken Turkey's image as the date of Turkey's EU progress report draws near. I'm tempted not to comment on this as it speaks for itself. I can't resist saying that with attitudes like hers prevalent here, it's totally unnecessary for people like the Duchess of York (well known for her work with children's charities) to go to such great lengths to make Turkey look bad. It's particularly annoying when you consider that Britain has openly backed Turkey's bid to join the EU.

In very cynical moments, I can't help wondering at the irony of the fact that there are so many fertility clinics springing up all over the place now too. Couples having difficulty conceiving are paying thousands of pounds for fertility treatment to have babies that they desperately want. I'm not criticising those couples but it is ironic that somebody is making shedloads of cash by enabling these births while unwanted children are being born who are in desperate need of cash that would enable adequate care for them. Something's wrong here.

Halloween

2008-11-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

Can you read this?

2008-10-25T03:03:00.000-07:00

If so consider yourself very lucky. I don't mean that you're lucky to be able to read random details about my wonderfully interesting exsistence, though there is that. I mean you're lucky enough to be somewhere where freedom of speech is respected.

Any readers in Turkey will have experienced the same disappointment (maybe not the same degree) I did yesterday when I tried to log in, only to find that blogspot has now been banned. Access to all blogs on any subject from anywhere has been blocked. Why? I don't know but someone somewhere is most probably writing about something that someone doesn't like, if you know what I mean. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may remember I talked about a wordpress ban last year and youtube is often banned (I think it is at the moment)I did wonder for a split second if I'd inadvertently compromised national security in some way, before reminding myself that it's not all about me.

Anyway, where there's a will there's a way for us resourceful people. Though, I must warn you that if there is an unexplained long absence I've either gone into labour prematurely or been uncovered

Here's an article about the ban http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/yazarDetay.do?haberno=156988

Some facts and figures on c-section rate in Turkey

2008-10-23T03:23:00.000-07:00

I've just found this interesting article about the rate of c-section births in Turkey.

Most of it is spot on imho. They don't mention the lack of support that women get in preparing for labour and during labour though, which I think is an issue that needs addressing if the c-section rate is to fall.

Note the response of Prof Turgay Şener, head of the Turkish Perinatalogy Association. It's a typical, weak, defensive 'well they don't do/do it so why should/can't we' response that DRIVES ME MAD.

The elusive good night's sleep

2008-10-21T01:51:00.001-07:00

At this point I've given up all hope of getting a good night's sleep any time this decade and possibly well into the next one if the newbie is anything like her big bro.

Pre motherhood I was always a good sleeper. I've never really had trouble relaxing before bed, dropping off to sleep or suffered from bouts of insomnia in the middle of the night. Now though, I'm plagued by two familiar friends from my first pregnancy, the nighttime bladder (I'm up at least 3 times a night), and middle of the night insomnia. Then there's the thought of the fast approaching night feedings.

But that's not all, D, despite giving us a taste of what it would be like to have a child that sttn, by doing exactly that for most of the summer, has decided not to anymore. This following pattern has developed over the last 10 days or so: around 2.30am I'm awoken to the sound of D walking down the hall shouting 'mummmmmeeeee, I'm hot', so I put him back in bed (minimal talking and interaction), cover him lightly and say go to sleep, leaving the room, go back to bed myself, and drift off when I don't hear a peep out of him. Just as I've dropped off the same thing happens again. Then it is repeated every 10 minutes until he is wearing nothing but a nappy and no covers (btw, it's not hot, his room is around 20 degrees c) and he finally settles at around 3.30. By which time I am wide awake, and panicky about getting back to sleep because I know DH will wake me at 5.50 (if D isn't awake by then anyway) when he gets up for work and that will be it.

I've been here so many times before I know I have to be stoical about it. You just have to get on with things as best you can. It's just that I'd so so hoped to have one less thing to do during the night when the newbie comes. So you plod sleepily through the passing days which seem to be spent waiting for the next nap or bedtime, then someone sickeningly tells you that their four month old twins are sleeping through, but that they wake at 7am which they find a little early, you sneer cynically and resist the urge to tell them that that may well not be IT as far as sleeping thorugh the night is concerned, let them wallow happily in ignorance and enjoy it while it lasts (which it probably will for them **@@x*x@x). In a bid to make myself feel slightly better I occasionally visit the nighttime subforum of motheringdotcom to read tales of 18 month olds waking 1000s of times a night and 2 year olds spending the entire night latched onto their mother's breast (when they're not having night terrors).

Finally, unable to passively accept that there's nothing you can do about this issue you come up with a plan. This week is operation play along with him. This involves the usual routine when he wakes up in the middle of the night (I don't see what else I can do that I'd feel comfortable with) but getting him up as soon as he wakes in the morning (no matter what time) and starting our day then. No more desperate attempts to get him to go back to sleep at 5.30am. The (my) theory is that he'll eventually get tired enough to sleep that little bit longer and if he can get up and play whenever he wants it will no longer be a contentious issue so it will lose its appeal. Next week's plan, if this week doesn't work, is operation bribe him :) 30 weeks and getting desperate.

A rose by any other name

2008-10-20T02:25:00.000-07:00

Our little girl (I'm apparently making a great assumption here, as our religious neighbour reminded us that even though it's been confirmed by ultrasound more than once, allah belir) finally has a name.

The weeks just seemed to be whizzing by without much thought being given to a name. Well that's not strictly true, I've consulted books, the internet, friends, made lists, discussed names with DH. Nothing was jumping out at us. The names that we both liked seemed to be the ones that are common in Turkish/non-Turkish families like Yasemin, Aylin (pronounced like Eileen), and Eda. But we weren't getting the 'yes that's it' feeling for any of them.

Then last Friday morning, without really thinking about it, a name came into my head and I felt so strongly that it was right that I burst into tears (a regular occurence these days, at least once a day some post on some forum or other has me in floods). I looked down at my bump and I can't say that I named the baby because I didn't feel like I came up with the name, I'd just realised what her name was, and said hello baby xxxxxxxxxx.

I felt a bit nervous about telling DH. What if he didn't get the same feeling for the name as I did? What if he said no outright? I couldn't imagine it happening nor could I imagine having to pick out another name if that one was rejected. So with tears in my eyes, I turned to DH and said I know the baby's name, please don't say no (what kind of a husband can say no to his pregnant wife with tears in her eyes). His eyes also filled with tears and after a few moments silence he nodded, that would be her name.

We're not telling what it is yet though.

List of lists

2008-10-14T01:55:00.000-07:00

That time has come.The time I'm sure many an expectant mum experiences. The time when you are happily meandering through your pregnancy, looking forward to the happy event that's going to happen way way off in the distant future. Then someone asks you 'how many months now', you want to answer 6 but feel like you've been saying 6 for far too long, quick mental calculations and you realise you're over 7. 7 OMG THAT MEANS ONLY 2 MONTHS TO GO. I've go so much to do and so little time left. I've never really thought of myself as one given to procrastination but yesterday evening, in the time I'd set aside for exercising, I found myself making a mental list of lists I've got to make:

1) Girls' names, (still no nearer deciding, DH asked me to name my top 5 last night and I couldn't commit to any)
2) Things that need doing around the house
3) Meals to make and freeze
4) Things to include in my post D's bedtime birth preparation hour
5) Things to pack in hospital bag
6) Things to buy for new baby (will be a short one)
7) Birth plan
8) Labour aids
9) Things to include in my post-partum self pampering pack ;)
10) Dos and Don'ts when looking after D (Slowly but surely I'm conceding to the fact that I'm going to have to let someone look after him at some point even if it's just while I pop the other one out, at least if I get things down in writing and people still do evil things like fill him full of crappy sugary snacks, sit him in front of the Disney Channel all day then devise a hilarious, raucous game right after his bedtime, and give in to him every time he cries, I will feel slightly more justified in getting more than a little irate with them)

I think that's enough to be getting on with. Once that's all sorted I have to work out how to celebrate Christmas in a non-celebrating place, when most of my friends will be away and my edd is right about then.

Aging meme

2008-10-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

Gosh, another long absence, after me promising no more. And I can't use the excuse that I've got nothing to say, what with the excitement of me entering the third trimester, and D becoming a proper big boy (we went to Sultanahmet for dinner and a exhibition opening this evening, yeah I know, not the ideal environment for a 2 year old, taking him along just seemed easier than getting a babysitter and he was still in bed by 9pm, and he behaved perfectly, sat at the table throughout the meal, used a fork, held our hands in the street without making a fuss, didn't knock over any of the fancy ceramics in the cramped, crowded gallery), and our recent trip to the UK for my brother's wedding.

Until I get round to composing something else, here's a meme that I've been tagged for by the noble savage

At a certain age women should stop living according to others beliefs

At a certain age men should stop worrying about what their parents will think

When I was a kid I thought I would show them all

Now that I am older I wish I hadn't waited that long

You know you are too old to go clubbing when the music sounds too loud, you start yawning at 10pm and you can't understand why everyone is out without a coat

You know you are too young to stop getting money from aunts in your birthday cards when you still really appreciate the cash

When I was in high school I listened to the music of The Smiths, U2, Erasure, ok I'll be honest, Spandeau Ballet, Rick Astely, Kylie Minogue, Sonia, I'd better stop there

Nowadays I find I like the music of being honest again I don't really get time to listen to music much, but am open to suggestions.

On my last birthday I had brunch and celebrated mother's day with some very good friends

On my next birthday I want to have the day to myself and not have to share the celebration with millions of mothers, and only get one present

The best birthday present I ever got was gosh this is harder than I thought, I thought I'd just be able to tap out a quick post then relax, now I'm racking my brains for original, well thought out, sentimental gifts that I've been given over the years and I'm sorry but I just can't come up with anything and I've got a hot chocolate and half a toblerone beckoning me just as soon as I get this finished

The first time I felt grown up was when I went on my first pub crawl of our local pubs with my cousin and got absolutely blotto on bacardi and coke, aged 15. Yes, the sight of that toilet door spinning and swaying really marked my entrance into the adult world

The last time I felt like a kid was when I was unable to resolve a disagreement with a family member without raised voices, and slammed doors.

When I read To Kill a Mockingbird (aged 15) it changed my life
Last year was a turning point, at times frustrating, at times exhilarating

Next year I hope to continue to be a good mum

I tag Renai and Stranger (if she's not too busy touring the great American Southwest with toddler in tow ;))

Facing my tigers

2008-09-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

So I spent another couple of hours in tears on Julia the doula's couch yesterday morning. It was wonderfully cathartic, as well as being slightly embarrassing. I'm sure she's made a mental note to stock up on kleenex for our next session.

I think the aim of the session was to help me work through D's birth and face up to some stuff I've been carrying around but haven't really dealt with, and to work out how that experience can influence the upcoming birth.

STEP 1, BEING HONEST I first tried to pinpoint what was really bothering me. One of my keywords about D's birth was 'out of my control', but these sessions with Julia have made me think about this belief and question it. There were countless times when I could have taken control and didn't. Why? Because I didn't want to confront the doctor or go against her or I didn't want to offend or upset any family members. So what does that say about me? I'm a doormat, I'm easy to push around, I'm weak, I'm not assertive enough. How does that make me feel about myself? Angry. Bloody furious actually.

STEP 2, LETTING MYSELF OFF THE HOOKWere there times during the birth and afterwards where I did feel strong? Once D was on the scene, I found it imperative that I be assertive on his behalf. It was okay compromising myself but now I had a little mite who was relying on me to give him the best start in life. I think despite all the setbacks I coped with the newborn period calmly, doggedly persevering and holding it all together for his sake. The issues I had with breastfeeding and the fact that I carried on with it in spite of the lack of support, bad advice, searing pain, and worry about D's weightloss, is one of my proudest achievements.

STEP 3, ACCEPTING THE THINGS I CAN'T CHANGE (and making them work for me) There are things I can do to feel more empowered during this birth experience. Doing this course is one of them. But there are things that are going to be the same and I have to accept that. I'll be surrounded by the same people and birthing in the same birth culture. I know that none of the people I feel so negatively towards for their involvement had any evil intentions towards me. They just wanted to help. I need to communicate better what I need in terms of help. I also have to face up to the fact that I may end up with another c-section. Even if my doctor is supportive and respects my wishes, I think the slightest complication will throw them. Docs here just aren't experienced with vbacs, they barely have enough experience with vaginal births for first timers. If something does happen, it will be down to my determination to go through with the vbac that will be the deciding factor. And I have to admit, even though I've done my research, that very small possibility that my scar will rupture and the baby will come through the scar rupture to fatal results if I'm not close enough to the emergency room, does scare me, especially if it comes down to me going against all advice to the contrary. One of the things I have to consider is how to make a repeat c-section birth a more satisfying experience than the first one.

STEP 4, VISUALISING THE FUTURE However this child is born the experience will be mine. I will do whatever I can to get the most out of the experience. People around me care for me and want me to be happy, I can work with them and not against them by communicating my needs clearly. I will do whatever I can to protect the safe, happy, secure, healthy environment I have created for my children.

I am mother to one, as we speak (or I write and you read), I am creating another human life. I feel the kicks inside and know that there are two hearts beating in my body. I am a part of the amazing force of nature that goes on creating and re-creating itself. I can and will nuture another being with my body. With all the ups and downs of pregnancy and parenting, it is an incredibly positive journey that I feel privileged to have experienced and to be experiencing again. So when people say things like never mind about the birth you have a beautiful healthy baby if I know that I've done everything in my power to get the birth I want, even if it doesn't turn out the way I want, I know that they'll be right.

socks, pants, belly bras and other support

2008-09-23T02:52:00.000-07:00

We've had to fish out our long forgotten socks and shoes this weekend as we experienced the first rainy weekend in months. All the rain made D's need for new shoes (he only had a pair of sandals that he's been wearing all summer) an imperative rather than something I'll get round to eventually. We also needed to take D shopping for his Bayramlık (new clothes that he will don at Bayram, that's eid, and go visiting his relatives in, so that he can kiss their hands and be given money in return, I love this concept, pay kids to be affectionate). I also needed to buy some sort of fancy tent for me to wear to my brother's wedding in a fortnight. So we set off on a rainy Sunday morning to our local Mothercare outlet.

I tried to steer clear of all the cutesy newborn stuff. Pink is really starting to grow on me, and frills, and those cute teeny weeny little shoes. No no, get away you've already got plenty of stuff that's before any gifts, and you know how ludicrous it is to put shoes on a baby. The three of us seemed to home in on the pants (that's underpants) at the same time, D had spotted the Thomas the Tank engine and Bob the Builder motif. Look we'll be needing these for D one day soon, we started to say then we both seemed to be struck by the same thought hey what if we buy him the pants with his favourite characters on and tell him he can wear them if he uses the potty. Brilliant, so we rooted around until we came up with a 3 pack of Bob the Builders and a 3 pack of Supermans (no Thomas in his size).

I then found my buy of the year, a two pack of supportive vests to wear to sleep in. I can't tell you how long I've wanted something like that and I'd finally found them at the bargain price of less than a tenner. I've also recently discovered the comfort offered by what I call the belly bra. It's a thick band of lycra, not unlike an certain article of clothing I used to possess many moons ago and call a skirt, that you wear to support your bump. Now Dh's 'deepest question' from birth class which he has to keep mulling over and acting on is How am I supporting my wife. So support on all sides for me.

As for D and his pants. We got home and cleaned him up after his after dinner bowel movement and left him nappyless as usual. Then I said in a voice like hey I've just had a great idea. Instead of your shorts, shall we wear your new Bob pants. His eyes lit up, yeah yeah. So I got out the packet and he chose the ones he wanted. I attempted to put them on him he started shouting No no wear it, hold it. Ok, I was prepared for a bit of coaxing, look you're going to wear them instead of a nappy, remember what nappy duck says, no more nappies for Ducky, not anymore. No more nappies for D, now he's got pants and he's going to use the potty etc... I eventually gave up on the pants when D said in a little voice Mummy I'm scared. He does like holding them though.

Short memories

2008-09-17T02:43:00.000-07:00

The older D gets, the less people and especially random strangers, try to tell me how to look after him. Although I am getting rather too many comments about his progress on the potty (apart from the rare tinkle, none). I mean, what am I to do. He knows what the potty is for, he knows where it is, and he doesn't used it. I can only conclude that he's not ready. And I refuse to go down the make him feel dirty route that seems normal here. Anyway, two conversations I had the other day whilst taking D to the park got me to thinking.

First of all, I saw a neighbour who I haven't seen for a couple of months. She lives across the road and we've never actually introduced ourselves but we always stop and have a chat whenever we see each other. She has a daughter the same age as me, so I'm guessing she's in her late fifties. She expressed great surprise at the fact that I was pregnant again, so soon. She said she couldn't believe her eyes when she saw me and thought I must have put on a lot of weight but realised I was obviously pregnant. Why was I having a baby again before D had grown up. I said that we wanted our kids to be close in age so that they could grow up together. 'Oh like twins' she said. With a two and a half year age gap, I don't think so lady, said I to myself. Anyway, it will be difficult, may allah make it easy for you she said before going on to explain that they'd been at their holiday home all summer, that's why they hadn't been around....blahblahblah. Then once we'd got to the park, another teyze type asked me how old D was, who looked after him and who would be looking after the new one. She was greatly concerned when I told her that I am responsible for looking after my son and will also take on the role of primary caregiver to my daughter too when she lands. I was told it would be çok zor (very difficult) and again allah was called on to make it easy for me.

These two conversations in the space of an hour got me to thinking of what I am about to take on with a new baby. Is it really going to be that difficult? Sure, it'll be hard work, but come on, it's not like when they were having kids. It's not so long ago that much bigger families were common in Turkey. I remember the day when central heating and constant hot water were a luxury here. DH remembers the day when running water was a luxury here! We have so many things that make our lives easier than the mothers of a couple of generations ago. I have a washing machine, a dishwasher, a fridge, a car. A husband who knows his way round the ironing board and is not adverse to cooking the odd meal. A vacuum cleaner. What a godsend that must have been, no more lugging heavy carpets round, hanging them out the windows and beating the dust out of them (though I have to say, far too many women seem to prefer this method). In fact, all I really have to do is look after 2 kids. May allah make it easy for me :)

2008-09-15T01:40:00.000-07:00

It came as quite a surprise to me yesterday at my birth preparation class to find myself in floods of uncontrollable tears.

The exercise was one in visualisation where we were asked to visualise our worst case scenario happening for the birth and post partum period. The second part of the exercise was, as anyone familiar with this technique will know, to visualise the same scenario but this time you are coping with your worst fears.

My starting point was the fear that things will move in such a way that I will lose control of the situation and my wants and needs will not be heard. It was only as I started to visualise this happening that I realised that my fears were all based on what happened at D's birth and the 10 days or so afterwards. I didn't feel at the centre of that experience whatsoever. Everything that happened, happened because someone else wanted it to. The doctor wanted me to have a c-section because it was more convenient for her, DH wasn't present for the birth because it was easier for the hospital, D was taken away as soon as he was born because of the hospital policy. When I left the operating theatre and saw DH waiting outside, the calm demeanour I'd maintained throughout the operation left me and I wanted to breakdown; in relief that we had a healthy baby, in sadness that we hadn't held him yet, in regret that we hadn't shared the experience, in loss for my pregnancy. I suppressed all that emotion because someone was waiting to push the guerney upstairs and someone else had a camera in my face. No time to lose for you to lie in a hospital corridor and cry, people are eagerly waiting for you in the maternity ward so that they can see and hold D. Everyone wanted a piece of the action. The hospital stay, the stifling heat, the first sweaty uncomfortable attempts to breastfeed, always accompanied by the fear that someone was about to walk into the room and tell me I was doing it all wrong, or just watch my fumbled attempts to make mouth and nipple meet. Once we got home it was more of the same. The first few weeks post-partum are sometimes refered to as a babymoon. The word conjures up images of intimacy, endless days spent getting to know each other, a time away from the pressures of daily life to ease the transition from one stage of life to another. We had 6 adults staying in a two bedroomed flat (1 bedroom is ours and the other is D's). Constant comings and goings, constant meals, constant cleaning up after meals, surrounded by the constant clutter of 4 houseguests who don't have their own private space, dirty socks on the living room floor, pillows and blankets lying around everywhere. So many, what should have been precious moments were taken away from me and I just let that happen because I was afraid of the conflict I might cause or the upset to others. Constantly feeling a mixture of guilt and resentment for wanting to keep D to ourselves, knowing that there was always someone just waitng for their chance to get hold of him. Constant visitors with their unwanted advice and personal comments, don't pick him up you don't want him to get used to that, you've still got a big tummy why don't you wear a corset. And then the heat, the never-ending, breath-stealing heat.

None of these recollections are new to me, I've been over them again and again. What was new to me was the realisation that I haven't dealt with it all. I couldn't do the second visualisation. Yes, should this birth be a repeat of D's birth, I know I'll cope, because I did cope, but I don't want to have to. And again anyone familiar with visualisation will know that through visualising yourself coping with your worst case scenario, you can come up with a positive 'I am' statement. I couldn't do it. My starting point was 'I am not in control' and my end statement was a sarcastic voice in my head saying 'I am a fool' 'I am a saint' 'I am a martyr'.

Obviously I have a long way to go with this. Fortunately the doula who runs the course (which I can't recommend highly enough for anyone hoping to have a vaginal birth in Istanbul) has offered to work some more on helping me deal with this unsuspected boulder in my path.

To be continued....

2008-09-09T02:31:00.000-07:00

It's 11.30am. D is asleep and so far today I've managed to:

iron a basket of laundry (D played with playdough), wash and hang up another load (D handed me the pegs), make soup and stew for tonight's dinner (D sorted a bag of blue and green straws into two separate containers), go shopping for groceries (always fun for D anyway) vacuum and dust the living room (D made a tower and a church with his bricks, and had a few moments of hilarity when he realised the vacuum cleaner offered a new system of picking up toys from under the furniture), and had some one on one time with D (jigsaws and books before nap).

Not bad for 6 months pregnant, eh? Making me wonder if I do really need that army of (untrained, ever-disappointing, increasingly unaffordable) domestic staff I've been considering taking on towards the end of the pregnancy.

And on top of all this, as if I didn't feel virtuous enough anyway, I weighed myself this morning to find that I'd lost a kilo. Yes, I know the idea is to put on weight when you're preggers and I'm usually very good at this. But in the 6 weeks between my last ob visit I'd put on 4 kilos. I think I managed to get away with it, as she didn't bat an eyelid, but even I have to admit that 4 kilos in 6 weeks is a bit much. I nearly weigh as much as dh now, for the first time ever, so losing a kilo (not that I've been trying, ;) you know me and me food) does feel good. It must be a combination of the heat, and getting back into a routine of fulltime housework and childcare. Either that or just fluke. I'll probably weigh myself tomorrow and find that I've put on 2 kilos.

2008-09-08T02:12:00.000-07:00

The unusual sound of pop music blasting out of someone's radio this morning as I was hanging out the washing, made me wonder whether it was one of the millions of stay at home mums rejoicing today as they sent their offspring back to school. Yes, thousands of school sound systems all over the country will be blasting out the Istiklal Marşı onto crowded playgrounds that have been empty and silent for the past 3 months. Time for the toddlers to reclaim the parks, the kids have gone back to school!

So, everyone has returned from the mass exodus from Istanbul that takes places every summer. That means, for those that have stayed in Istanbul all summer, no more light traffic, no more empty shopping centres, and no more quiet neighbourhoods. The beginning of September typically marks the end of summer, it also coinciding with the beginning of Ramadan this year has made the summer's end more definite. Or it would have, had it not been for the weather. It's still hot and sticky here by my standards. And although the temps have definitely been more comfortable recently, there is still not a hint of that longed-for chill in the air. We're still in our summer clothes, and articles like socks and bedcovers haven't been used in so long, I can hardly imagine using them again. I know I should be making the most of the end of summer by going to the pool as often as poss or at least getting the paddling pool out for D to have a splash around. But to be honest when your summers last from May to the end of September, it does get a bit boring (she's not even been back a month and complaining about the weather, after spending a month complaining about the weather in UK).
Chez nous, it's the first day of operation Abandon D at Bedtime ;). All summer I've been explaining his long drawn out journeys to the land of nod away, as down to the fact that we're in an unfamiliar place, or we've been moving around a lot, or he's got a mosquito bite, too hot, been over-stimulated, not enough time to wind down before bed etc... I finally had to admit to myself after being home over 2 weeks, having a quiet hour before bed, consistently putting him to bed at the same time, that it just takes too long for him to fall asleep with me by his bedside. It takes at least 30 minutes (sometimes up to an hour) with me sitting next to his bed waiting for him to nod off. This is after a quiet hour, then books, bath etc. If it weren't for the discomforts of pregnancy and the knowledge that I won't be able to devote that much 1 on 1 time to him at bedtime when the newbie comes, I think I would be happy to go on like this. However, I have to be realistic. So I read around, asked some questions and decided the best thing to do would be to explain to him that mummy can't stay in his room but she'll just be doing some jobs in the other room, to put him in bed as usual, then leave him in bed with the door ajar and put him back to bed as many times as it took. It took 1. To my great surprise. What also surprised me was that he stayed in bed and cried and called out to me (and yes I felt horrible, guilty, unnatural, upset and lots of other things I can't identify) but he settled down after 10 minutes, I went into him a couple of times and reminded him I was just in the next room doing some jobs, and I think he's fast asleep now. Fingers crossed

Hoş geldiniz Ramazan

2008-09-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Or Welcome Ramadan. Ramadan, as it's known in the rest of the islamic world, the holy month of fasting started today in Turkey. For the millions of observing muslims in Turkey that means abstaining from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. That's no easy task anyway but at this time of year with temperatures still around 30 degrees and sunrise being around 4.30 and sunset at 7.45, it's definitely a testing time for the faithful. Although people do seem to have the same affection for this season as we back home have for Christmas

What it means for me is (yet more) nocturnal disruptions. As people's eating patterns change so do their daily routines with people becoming very lethargic during the day, even sleeping a lot more than usual if they don't work, and becoming more lively at night once they have broken their fast. Then there's the noise of everyone getting up to eat before dawn. And the drummer, don't get me started on the drummer. It's a sociable time when people eat together every night. We're invited out to eat more than usual and we often used to (before D) have guests for the meal that breaks the fast, iftar.

People often wonder what it must be like to experience Ramadan as a non-muslim in a predominantly muslim culture. In Istanbul, whether you fast or not is entirely up to you. You can generally eat out at lunchtime as normal even though places will be quieter than usual. No-one frowns upon you if you're caught eating. I used to feel guilty eating in public during the fasting times until I realised that a lot of muslims who are not fasting for one reason or another (through choice or for health reasons) don't experience the same anxiety about eating in public. You are always welcome at the iftar meal whether you have fasted or not.

Ramazan mubarek olsun

2008-08-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

All this travelling around has meant that more time has elapsed than should have between my monthly check ups. I wasn't so concerned that over 6 weeks had gone by without me seeing my doctor as the baby's movements are quite strong now and I feel pretty good. Also based on my first pregnancy I sadly don't have much faith in maternal care here, and know what your average prenatal check up includes; weight and blood pressure, then it's hop onto the examining chair for an ultrasound and hey look, there's a baby in there, well we knew that, yes but look it's got arms and legs, and look, what's it doing with its hands, ahhh, it's sucking its thumb etc etc. Have you been taking your prenatal vitamins, can I prescribe you some more? something else? It's just that I've been promised a new laptop by my (insert name of well known pharmaceutical company) sales rep....What's that, you're suffering from chronic back ache, oh that's just part and parcel of being pregnant.

So even though I think it's all a bit of a waste of time and money, I can't help but feel reassured and positive after my prenatals. I also have a bit more faith in this doc than the one that delievered D, coupled with a greater knowledge of pregnancy and birth, I have more trust in myself not to just accept what the doc says. Anyway the lowdown is, 'it' shall henceforth be referred to as 'she', the doc confirmed that the lack of boys parts meant that it was a girl !? Name suggestions welcome, especially ones that work in both languages, but keep it serious, no Arsal or Titiz please. She is measuring 1 week ahead of the dates I gave the doc (slightly played around with to avoid the pressure I was under with D as soon as my due date was up to produce, be induced or be reduced to the only possible option available with a big (8lb8oz/4kilo) baby, being sliced open on the operating table). So as far as the doc is concerned the edd is 29 Dec, according to the ultrasound measurements the edd is 21 Dec, according to me it's somewhere in between. Needless to say it will definitely arrive over the Christmas period, talk about bad timing.

At one point during the examination the doc switched from the usual scan picture to the one that is more highly defined allowing you to see a clearer image. It's strange to admit now that I was rather surprised that this baby looks totally different to D. At this stage in his development D already had the cutest button nose, and he does actually look like he did then. This little one has more of a straight nose and I fleetingly wondered if I could love it as much without the cute little button in the middle of a Casper face , before quickly going through a mental checklist of the noses on both sides of the family, satisfying myself that noone has what some might call a character nose.

So the upshot is, we're both doing well. The doc used phrases like 'tombiş' and 'maşaallah' when describing the baby. I found out that the pain I've been suffering from in the lower right hand side of my back is sciatica (exercise, rest and a support belt). I left the surgery to smiles, handshakes and free of prescriptions.

Apart from our initial discussion about vbacs we haven't discussed the birth yet. I sort of want to but know that docs here prefer to leave the birth discussions till further into the pregnancy. I am determined to at least try for a vbac, I haven't even considered the possibility of having a scheduled c. There is that horrible negative barely audible inner voice that from time to time reminds me I'm living in cloud cuckoo land. But then, I know vbac in Turkey is possible because I recently met someone who's had one. And she had an epidural. And there is a shorter time gap between her pregnancies than mine, so there, take that you horrible little pessimist you.

We're back

2008-08-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

It's been so long I'd almost forgotten my password! But now we're back in Istanbul, back to normal and (hopefully) back to regular blogging.

We were in the UK for a month, where I considered for the first time whether that oft-repeated phrase 'great British summertime' was coined sarcastically, returning on the 12 August with just a couple of days to unpack and repack before we were off again to Bodrum for a week. D has had a wonderful summer packed with exciting days out and in. I can't believe how much he has changed in such a short time. When we went to England he was using a handful of nouns and adjectives in English and ocassionally managing a combination of the two. Now he's a right old chatterbox and seems to be able to communicate his needs and converse very nicely. It was great yesterday when he was able to say 'ear hurting' to let us know why he was crying, instead of us having to try to work out what was wrong. He's made lots of new friends over the summer. He's been to zoos, parks, farms, beaches, pools, parties, barbeques. He's driven a tractor, a fire engine, been on a water ride, ridden on Thomas the tank engine (all of which he talks about all the time). He's nearly got over his obsession with cds and dvds and replaced it with an obsession with churches, clocks and bells. Easier in some ways as it means he doesn't wreck everyone's cd collection when we go visiting but churches (especially the ones with clocks and bells) are not as easy to come by in Turkey. A big thank you to everyone who has accomadated us so well and made us feel welcome, I really appreciate you all.

I'm feeling pretty good. I think I'm around week 23 now (never can keep up with that). I don't feel as pregnant as I look, I even forget sometimes, even though to look at, I am undoubtably preggers. I've got a nice big bump and a lively kicker (this week anyway), but somehow it hasn't thrown off my sense of gravity yet.

As soon as we got home I felt a very urgent need to get the house in order, yes I know, it's called nesting. I desperately need space and organisation in my home. Last year's decluttering cull seems mild in comparison to what I have in mind now. I'm going to go through this little house ruthlessly chucking, or giving away anything that isn't earning its shelf space. On top of that I have to start focussing on this pregnant body and considering how I'm going to avoid a repeat c-section in this environment of c-section obsessed obs who want to intervene in every possible way in the natural process. I also intend to get D as self sufficient as possible, that means no more spoon feeding. I am slightly embarassed that I still spoon feed him, even though he can feed himself, he likes me to do it 'mummy do it' and it means less mess but it's got to stop. I'm also toying with the idea of having him out of nappies by the time the new one arrives, though I don't want to rush things.

My mind is busy with things I have to do. All this in the week that Istanbul experienced the hottest day of the summer!

Istanbul summer

2008-07-09T02:04:00.000-07:00

Before we head off for cooler climes (phew), thought I'd get down some typical aspects of our life in Istanbul in the heat:

*Days spent indoors avoiding the heat
*Afternoons in the paddling pool in the garden
*Days at the pool. Once upon a time, long lazy days spend navel gazing whilst having the occasion dip in the pool to cool off. Nowadays a couple of hours at most, mainly spent being splashed by other people's kids in the toddler pool.
*Great big abundance of juicy, sweet, cooling, thirst quencing fruit, like melons, watermelons, apricots, peaches, cherries, strawberries. Dinner is often replaced by watermelon and feta cheese eaten in our shady garden in the cool evening.
*Barbeques
*Vegetables in olive oil
*road construction
*Hot, sticky cars, even with the aircon on
*Trying to get any chores done as early as possible before the midday heat.
*Being reminded that it's impossible to get that much done very early as nothing opens before 10am
*Green and blue views all around
*Lizards scurrying across concrete
*The usual summer crisis, this year it's the killer flea (or something)
*The ants attempt their annual invasion of our flat (and fail miserably)
*Golden Bosphorous sunsets

2008-07-08T02:15:00.000-07:00

As every teenager knows, parents are embarrassing. As every parent knows, this is a sort of revenge for all the past embarrassments caused to them by their offspring over the years. I can't say that I'm embarrassed by D's behaviour yet but I can see things going that way. For example:

*I won't go into detail here but let's just call it the poo in the pool incident
*As the time to potty train approaches, D is becoming more and more aware of his down below parts and what comes out of them. He has words now to talk about his bowel movements and his bottom and pee-pee. All well and good, I think. Until he starts pointing up my skirt in public and saying 'poo-poo'. Another day, he pointed up my skirt and said 'pee-pee' (a childish word for penis in Turkish) so I said 'mummy doesn't have a pee-pee. The next time we had guests he started saying 'mummy no pee-pee'.
*After D's recent tummy trouble, he learnt the word 'sick'. He likes to refer to this incident, mining how he was sick and repeating sick, sick. Again, all good for me, except that there's a word in Turkish, an expletive meaning the same as F**k, also a crude word for penis that's pronounced in exactly the same way. I can only imagine what D singing 'sick, sick, sick' from Miss Polly had a dolly, sounds like to a non-English speaking Turk. Likewise, it's going to be funny when we go to England and D starts referring to things as 'piss' (dirty).
*Thanks to the mil's refusal despite repeated requests to speak to D properly, he now points out headscarfed women in the street and shouts 'allah, allah'. (This is because when she prays she wears a headscarf and instead of saying that she's going to pray, because that would be too difficult for D to learn, she says that she's going to say 'allah', so D has the connection, headscarf = allah)
*There's a dog in DH's village called Ateş (fire). Ateş has been a great help to me because whenever D is asleep Ateş comes along and 'takes' all the things that I don't want D to play with, like cds and keys. D quickly caught on to the fact that Ateş is a mischief maker and according to D, Ateş is responsible for things like crayoning on the furniture, water spilled on the floor. Ateş also made all those nasty scabs on his legs that were once upon a time mosquito bites. So when we were at the shop the other day and the assistant said 'what happened to your legs', D answered Ateş (fire), then said Anne (mummy). Well I don't know what he thought but I know what I would have thought.
*D's continued affection for my tummy has grown stronger now he knows there's a baby in there. He likes nothig more that to pull up my t-shirt, pull down my waistband put his arms round my waist and lay his head on my slowing expanding tummy. This is wonderful I think but am aware that it may embarrass others. Though I still haven't got my head around the fact that we live in a place where friends, family, neighbours, workmates etc may spend all day together at the beach wearing nothing more than what amounts to underwear but as soon as we get off the beach everyone reverts back to being modestly covered up and is embarrassed by a bit of mummy tummy.

round up

2008-07-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

Well D had a great birthday. Anyone who thinks that birthday celebrations at this age are all for the benefit of the adults is wrong. D totally knew it was his special time from the moment I picked him up from playgroup at Friday lunchtime when he bounded out, beaming and wearing a cardboard, glitter and tinsel birthday crown till the end of the weekend when the celebrations accumulated with candles and ice-cream after dinner.

We celebrated at DH's parents' holiday home which is about 90 minutes to the west of Istanbul, on the way to Greece. D very much enjoyed his cake, balloons and presents. First thing the following morning he woke up and said 'Larry Lastik toy?' (where are my new toys), then when he was a bit peckish, it was 'Larry Lastik cake?' Watching D happy and thriving was a great source of joy to me. It was the first time we'd been at the beach this year and D loved playing in the sand and the water. However it wasn't the most comfortable of long weekends for me but I tried to be good natured despite the heat and other irritations.

By Tuesday morning I was well and truly ready to come home. Especially after D's vomiting fest on Monday (started at 2pm and lasted until 6pm). His stomach got cold you see, from the icecream I'd given him 20 hours previously (should carry a government health warning, ice-cream). Neither of us got much sleep while we were there for one reason or another (well I didn't get much sleep because D wouldn't sleep). Already bored, irritable and sleep deprived, as if things couldn't get any worse, on our last night the mosquitoes had a midnight feast on me and D. I think they prefer D's fresh, plump skin to my old wrinkly bod as he definitely came out worse off. He has at least 20 bites on each limb, about 10 on his face and horrible clusters of them on his feet which have been rubbed raw by his shoes. He's been a little trooper though and hasn't done much scratching, he does keep shouting for more keem, keem (cream). These two unfortunate but fairly common mishaps in a young child's life have been engulfed in a sea of panic and drama with repeated pleas to take him to the hospital. Being the only voice of calm and reason does wear one down too, especially when pregnant, suffering from the heat, and sleep-deprived. Needless to say coming home was like returning to an oasis. The difference in temperature between our flat and everywhere else in Istanbul makes coming home feel like going back to England after a holiday in the sun. We can sleep at night without waking drenched in sweat, and NO MOSQUİTOES! I don't care what anyone says there's a lot to be said for having a basement flat (also known as a garden-flat if you are an estate agent), apart from the scorpions in the bathroom.

This weekend, in comparison has been filled with fun and relaxing activities. I had so many opportunities to sit in the shade of the trees and admire the beauty of this city in summer to the background noise of D enjoying himself. I discovered two new places, thanks to friends. On Friday afternoon I met an old workmate who suggested an open air cafe at the top of a hill (nice and breezy) with a fantastic Bosphorous view AND a kids' playground. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that friend for suggesting we meet somewhere childfriendly. Then on Saturday we spent the day with a couple of good friends and their two small children at a pool/park, surrounded by greenery, a pleasant 20 minute drive from our house, that was half empty and cheaper than other pools in Istanbul at the weekend. You don't expect me to post a link do you? What, and have you all turning up there and crowding it out and ruining my fun? Ha!

Larry lastik to you, larry lastik to you

2008-06-26T23:22:00.000-07:00

Don't recognise the words? Neither did I but the tune was unmistakably Happy Birthday to you. It was what D was singing when I picked him up from playgroup on Tuesday. It must have been someone's birthday. The song made an impression on him and he's been singing ever since. That means that he'll recognise it when we all sing it to him today, on his 2nd birthday.

A real reason to celebrate

2008-06-26T02:08:00.000-07:00

Last night while I finally got round to watching Shall we Dance what seemed like the rest of Turkey was watching Turkey play Germany in the Euro 2008 semi-finals. When I say what seemed like the rest of Turkey, that was the way it sounded at 10.10 when Turkey must have scored and I'm sure my entire street (and most probably all the other 70 million people here) screamed in unison. Absolutely no need to watch the match, should I have the remotest interest in it, as you can make a fairly accurate guess at the score just by the shouting and screaming. Therefore when I was awoken at 11.30, (around 15 minutes after I'd gone to sleep) to such an almighty screaming and roaring, I knew that there'd either been another earthquake and I was in such a deep sleep that I hadn't felt it, or that Turkey had gone through to the final. Any small happiness, joy or sense of pride I might have felt, quickly diminished when my neighbour started playing some kind of Turkish anthem at full volume (on some powerful equipment). If the music player had been in the same room as me, I would have jumped up to turn in down, as it was, we were separated by two floors. Anyway, it turned out, a couple of late goals made a dramatic finish to the match, which Turkey lost. I have to admit, I sort of felt glad because it would mean no more (well not for this year anyway) late night eardrum bashing. Turkey did well to get so far and that's something to be proud of. Ulker have cashed in pretty well on all this nationalistic fervour too.

Yesterday I had some news which gave me reason for my own personal celebration(for which I won't be disturbing my neighbours in the middle of the night). A couple of weeks ago I was screened for the risk of Downs Syndrome (I mean the baby of course). In pregnancies in women of my age there is a 1 in 250 chance of having a baby with Downs Syndrome. The good news is that based on the tests undertaken I have a 1 in 3000 chance of having a child with Downs Syndrome. That's as good a figure as a 20 year old would have. So hurray for us older mothers. This means that I won't be offered an amniocentisis. That just means I've saved myself an argument with the doctor and possibly others as I think I was going to refuse it anyway.

And, after as near a perfect day as you're going to get with a toddler something quite surprising happened. For the most part D has been a happy little thing all day. He held my hand when we were out and about, got into his carseat without protesting, went to sleep on his own in his bed for his nap. Then this evening, he had his usual after dinner bowel movement. I cleaned him up and as it was only half an hour before bed I left him nappyless but said to him (just out of interest to see what would happen rather than any real intention to start potty training), 'if you need a wee or poo, sit on the potty'. Guess what? He did, and managed a wee! WOO-HOO! He was so pleased with himself and sat back down and started straining but I guess if you don't gotta go, you don't gotta go.

The same but different

2008-06-25T01:47:00.000-07:00

So I'm well into my second journey into motherhood (over 15 weeks already, yikes!). What's it like second time round?

*I've been lucky enough with both pregnancies not to have experienced morning sickness. Although this time round I did have about 2 weeks of feeling absolutely icky, around weeks 6 and 8. However just I was planning a trip to IKEA to buy some ginger biscuits and relishing the thought of getting up at 5am to eat them (on a friend's advice), it miraculously lifted and I went back to feeling completely normal again, not pregnant at all in fact (which brings its own worries). So it would seem that although I have the same onslaught of hormones that cause other people to vomit for 12 weeks solid, I can take it. I am too hard for pregnancy.
*With my first pregnancy I wouldn't lift anything heavier than a handbag (I don't know why, it was just that whenever I tried to pick anything up, people around me started screaming 'no, no' and rushing to my aid). This time, I spend a great deal of the time lugging around my 12kg toddler and letting people know that it's ok.
*First time round, I followed my doctors orders to a T. This time I'm doing my own research, so don't give me any of that crap doctor thank you very much.
*Last time I had a healthy, intact, never been used before uterus. This time I have a scarred uterus, it may rupture. I feel tweaks and twinges where the scar is causing me to worry (probably unnecessarily) whether it is up to the job of all that growing and stretching and supporting the baby and everything else that's in there.
*At the 12 week scan with Deniz, he looked like an agitated fish on speed. This baby was just lying there, ocassionally stretching its legs, with its hands behind its head.
*I was drowning in my maternity clothes at 16 weeks, not believing that they would ever fit me properly. This time, as soon as the news was out at 12 weeks, I happily dug out, and borrowed maternity clothes and cosily snuggled into those elasticated waists.
*Last time round I 'craved' cheese, tuna, and hot chocolate. Same again please. Plus loads of iced coffees (I know I try to limit them but they taste so good and it's so hot and they're so refreshing).

Driving in Turkey for novices

2008-06-18T03:30:00.000-07:00

I learnt to drive when I was 18 and I've always considered myself to be a steady confident driver (some friends and family members may disagree, a certain incident with a dead sheep in the Lake District springs to mind). I was taught well, perhaps too well my dad thought as he was the one paying for the lessons and thought they lasted a bit too long. I'm not a reckless driver and driving has only ever been about getting from a to b in the safest possible way for me.

When I first started driving here I realised that my (and probably your) 'road rules' are not necessarily the road rules of the majority of drivers here and so in the interests of safety and sanity you have to adjust your way of driving to fit into the traffic flow here. Friends have given me some good snippets of advice. Here are a few of them, along with some of my own personal observations:

*The traffic flows like a river. The cars are the water. Forget about getting in your lane and staying in it. You have to follow the ebb and flow. Someone cuts you up, you cut someone else up. This doesn't annoy people. On the contrary if indicate and wait for someone to let you in, you'll be waiting a while and annoying all the drivers behind you in the meantime.
*Forget all that mirror, signal manoeuvre crap. All you have to worry about are what's in front and at your sides. If anyone bumps you from behind, that's their problem
*(Apparently this is an official rule) if you are driving along a two-way road and there's only enough room for one car to pass (due to all the double-parking), the person driving downhill has right of way.
*You know how when you're driving in the UK and someone flashes their lights at you to let you know that they're giving you right of way, then they wait patiently while you pass, then you both wave and smile at each other. Well forget that, here someone flashing their lights means 'I'm not going to give you right of way so get OUT OF MY WAY, FAST'.
*When looking for a parking space don't feel that you are restricted to carparks and other places where parking is permitted. Feel free to park wherever you need to. Some of my favourites are: on a roundabout, at a traffic light, double parking at a traffic light, and at the top of a t-junction.
*Don't assume that pedestrians have the same love of life that you do. Just because we live in a metropolis of 15 million (and counting) doesn't mean we have to change our village ways. Expect pedestrians to mosey along in the middle of the road oblivious to the traffic, walk out onto the road without looking, carry on walking at a snail's pace even after they've realised that that big metal thing travelling at speed could rase them down dead in a flash. Oh and one more thing, just because you're on the motorway, doesn't mean you won't encounter any pedestrians meandering across the road.
*If you get fed up of waiting behind a line of traffic at a red light, feel free to use the opposite side of the road to get to the front of the line. This is an especially good skill to master if you aspire to be a taxi or dolmuş driver one day. This method has two flaws though 1) When traffic from the other direction can't go anywhere either because you're in their space and 2) If noone will let you in
*Never get into an altercation with a bus. Always let buses pull out. They're bigger than you and you won't win in a fight with them. Think of them as the school bullies of the road. You know what they're doing is not fair but you're smart enough to give them a wide berth.
*Never enter into an argument with another driver, don't shout, swear or make obscene gestures (no matter how much you are tempted). Keep your doors locked anyway but especially if things look like they're about to turn nasty. You may end up shot, or severely beaten.

Oh and how could I forget:
*When you are parking or reversing for any other reason expect a herd of men of a certain class who probably can't drive and don't have a car, to stand behind you, obstructing your view, waving their arms furiously whilst repeatedly shouting 'gel, gel, gel, gel, gel' (gel means come)
*Traffic light behaviour: If the lights change to red while you are approaching them, ignore them and go straight through. While waiting at a traffic light, if you are at the front of the queue, when the lights turn green, sit staring into space for several moments before moving. If you are not at the front, as soon as the light turns green start blasting your horn furiously. If you are stuck in traffic at a traffic light and you can't see what the holdup is, beep your horn repeatedly.
*Horn etiquette: beep your horn as much as you can, not matter when or where you are. If you are a taxi driver, beep your horn every and I mean every time you see a pedestrian. Every pedestrian is a potential customer and they might have forgetten that they're looking for a taxi so the horn will act as a gentle reminder to them. Little anecdote: I was once on the dolmuş (a minibus/taxi) from Taksim to Bakırköy (about a 30 minute ride) and the driver beeped his horn every 15 seconds without fail, it was a sort of nervous twitch

It would appear that we have a leftie

2008-06-16T02:28:00.000-07:00

The evidence has been there for a long time now. I've observed D show a preference for his left hand from about 12 months. I couldn't be certain at first because he'd also sometimes switch to his right hand and I think that babies under a certain age can use both hands equally. Then I noticed he'd always eat or draw with his left hand but wondered if that was because he always holds his precious objects (credit cards/keys/round things he calls cds/occasionally a soft toy) in his right hand. However as he approaches his second birthday and he consistently seems to prefer to use his left hand I think we can conclude that he is one of the 10% of people who are lefthanded.

What does it mean? I wondered. Oddly enough, we don't have any lefthandedness in our families (apart from my very dear cousins) so I don't really know much about it. After a quick glance at wikipedia I've learnt the following interesting facts. There's a genetic link to lefthandedness and this gene is also responsible for psycotic mental illnesses. According to one theory lhers are more prone to learning disorders. It's not all bad though. Lefthanders are more likely to have highly developed spatial awareness. Historically an above average quota of LHers have been high achievers. The LHers' brains are wired to enable a wider range of skills. LHed men are 15% richer than right-handed men. Famous left-handers include: Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Leonardo da Vinci, Nelson, Aristotle, Churchill, the late, great Richard Whiteley (yes I know he died), Nicole Kidman etc...

journeys

2008-06-13T02:15:00.000-07:00

A while ago I embarked on a journey. I didn't feel particularly ready when the journey began. It was as if one day I'd casually said 'hmm x, wouldn't mind going there', then suddenly the next day I was being packed off. No time to check that I'd packed the right clothes or if my passport was up to date. But I haven't....but what if.....what's going to happen to...? Hey, wait a minute I thought, we can't go yet, I'm not ready, I protested as the plane taxied towards the runway to take off. Too late now, hang onto your hats, we're off!

Despite the sudden start that journey turned out to be the most rewarding and positive experience of my life. Who wouldn't want to do it all again? This time I was determined to be ready before setting off though. After weeks of checking and researching and getting things ready, I arrived at the station feeling excited and eager to be off again. As I bought my tickets and sat on the train I knew I was going to appreciate every moment of the journey this time round. But then we seemed to be sat in the station for ages, the train was full, we were ready, but no one was going anywhere. Oh damn what's the holdup I thought while frustratedly looking around. Why aren't we going anywhere? What's going on? Just as I was starting to get worried, the train juddered to life and we were off, hurray

Is any of this making any sense or does it just sound like the mad ramblings of a pregnant brain? Oh yes, I knew there was a point.

2008-06-03T02:08:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write something for a while about the fact that it's been two years since I left work. I think it's quite a significant milestone that deserves some thought. I've gone through different stages of transition in relation to work and my old life.

When you first leave work on maternity leave, you just feel like you're on a little holiday. You're still part of the workforce but you're taking a break. You keep in touch with your old workmates regularly and are well-informed of all the office gossip. You're still on the email list and check your emails daily and smugly smile as you notice that tomorrow is the end of year exam and xyz is invigilating at xyz and think, ha rather them than me.

Then baby comes along and everything gets a bit hazy and chaotic. You feel like an alien when your old mates call you or come round to visit. They're going on about summer school, and repeat students and appraisal meetings while you're in a numb, shell-shocked state, wondering if the baby will sleep for longer than 20 minutes and can we please go at least an hour before the next feed so my nipples at least have a hope in hell's chance of healing in the next 6 months.

Then there's the hibernation period. The, I can get this cracked and come out unscathed if only I can establish a feeding and sleeping routine, stage. The stage that involves planning your day around feeding and putting your big eater, little sleeper to sleep every 2 hours in a bed in a quiet dark place (a la HSHHC*), thus making it impossible to go anywhere or see anyone. It also makes you discourage guests as less than every two hours you have to spend at least half an hour feeding and trying to get your LO to sleep. Then once asleep there must be no noise whatsoever. A lonely time where you could do with a few friends but you're willing to sacrifice your social life for a while until THE ROUTINE is established. You also feel sort of guilty for neglecting certain friends, realising that you having a baby is not the most important thing in everyone's life and that they might be dealing with shit too that they might want to share.

Then there's the time to get back out there period. You finally realise that all that routine crap is not working and is just making you miserable. When the time spent trying to put baby to sleep is longer than the time spent asleep, you start to wonder whether you should just lighten up a little. You accept that your big eater is a big eater, and that means that you're either going to have to start nursing in public or never go out again. You call people up, you make lunch dates, you lug your baby, nappy bag, etc onto a bus, then a mini bus, then a boat, then a taxi to go to another continent to meet someone in a smoky crowded cafe at lunchtime. As they complain about the boss and the students you wonder if lo will latch on and stay on thus keeping you covered or will be too interested in the conversation and keep popping off to have a look around. As the conversation turns to this year's coursebook and you catch a look from your friend and wonder if that was embarassment at you nip. Around this time you might also have to pop into work for some admin and you proudly lug baby along too for everyone to coo over.

Suddenly a year's gone by. You no longer receive the work emails and quickly forget about them. During your spring wardrobe clear out you catch sight of all your workclothes and wonder if you'll ever get back into them or if you'll ever need to get back into them, what a waste of some lovely clothes you think, but you still hang on to them, no yet willing to give it all up. You're still in touch with a few workmates that you manage to see on a semi-regular basis but the vast majority of them you haven't seen for months and months. When your baby is 1 and you're still being promised the 'newborn' visit by some people you finally admit to yourself that that friendship has come to an end.

Release. Most of your friends are mummies. You get together and talk about night wakings and breastfeeding and milestones and work and politics and the world around you. You can happily change lo's nappy whilst still holding a conversation and not worry about your companion wincing at the sight and smell. You have a routine that includes things like playdates, shopping, trips to parks. You value the old friends who are still around so much and try to make time for them. You also acknowledge to yourself that not everyone finds the topic of motherhood as fascinating as you do and that you do still have other things to talk about.

The full circle. LO is now pretty big. You can confidently leave him with a sitter or at playgroup. You can leave him for a full day without constantly stressing about when you'll be able to get back to him. You can go a whole day without gushing about how great motherhood is. You can actually imagine yourself going back to work. But deep down you know that being at home is so much more fun.

* Happy Sleeping Habits Healthy Child,Weissbluth

A taste of life as a working mum

2008-05-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

This month it's two years since I left work on maternity leave and funnily enough I have been working more or less fulltime for the past 10 days or so. I'm an oral examiner for the Cambridge exams and as we all know May and June mean exam season. This time last year I was still breastfeeding so I only accepted half days in locations that were closeby but this year, desperate to earn some decent cash I've accepted everything that'S been thrown at me. This week has been the worst, I'm working everyday plus Saturday and Sunday, and then Monday!

So all this work has given me a little insight as to what it must be like to be a woking mum:

THE LOGISTICS: Who's looking after D, when and where? How can I drop him off, when will I be able to pick him up? What will he eat? For some reason I feel obliged to have a proper meal ready for the babysitter to give him for lunch, even though often lunch is just a cheese sandwich or something. Has he got enough clean clothes? How will he cope with someone else putting him to sleep? etc etc etc

THE WORRY: How will he manage without me? D is totally happy at playgroup now but he only goes for a couple of hours three times a week. Suddenly, he is with other people for up to 9 hours a day. I find myself wondering if he's missing me and if he's confused about where I am and when I'll be back. Then there's the 'are these people really trustworthy, have they really got my child's best interests at heart', answer: no, they just need the money. One day I came home and asked D what he'd been doing with the babysitter, he started roaring like a lion, omg, I thought, she's been shouting at my little boy, how could she. Another day I picked him up from playgroup when he'd recently woken from a nap, he was so dopey and unresponsive I convinced myself they must have drugged him to get him to sleep (D is not always easy to get to sleep for a nap, especially not in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by 20 other kids)

THE GUILT: Every tantrum and crying episode is suddenly my fault for neglecting my son.

THE LACK OF TIME: So I think life is tough as a sahm sometimes. You can never get everything that needs doing done, and as for things that you want to do, well forget it. However when you're working you have even less time to yourself because that time when your little angel is in bed is no longer your 'veg out' time. You have to make sure you've got clean, ironed clothes for the morning, do a round of washing, cook something for the following day....

THE PLUSES: Having a leisurely meal, well a meal where you get to sit down, eat and converse until you have finished eating and are ready to get up. None of the usual coaxing D to the table, encouraging him to eat what he should be eating, getting up to bring water, getting up to get a cloth to wipe up the water, frantically trying to eat 'my share' of the melon (this is only partly greed on my part as D loves all kinds of melon and would eat it till he burst, not good news when it comes to nappy changing), doggedly trying to finish my meal despite D trying to push me off my chair shouting kalk, kalk (get up), hug, hug. Having normal conversations with normal people about normal topics (to my fellow mummy friends, we also have good conversations but we don't see each other anywhere near enough, and they're invariably interrupted as someone has to jump up and prise another child out of their child's grasp). Being with people who knew me before I became a mother and who don't know me as a mother, it's a nice reminder that I'm a person in my own right. And of course, the MONEY.

Overall I am quite enjoying working but this is partly because I know it's only temporary. I consider myself very lucky to be able to devote myself to my son in his early years and I don't regret giving up work for a minute. I suppose I've got the best of both worlds as I can do bits and pieces of work here and there, choosing when and where to work, earning a bit of cash and exercising the old grey stuff (not that this work is taxing or anything). Better go finish the ironing, another 6am start tomorrow.

Unravelling speech

2008-05-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

One of the many skills you pick up when you teach English as a foreign language is working out what the hell people are trying to say. A knowledge of the student's first language is a big plus point here. When a French speaker says to me 'I have envy of an ice-cream', I know they're not really jealous of the ice-cream or when a Turkish speaker tells you he ate a brush, you know that he's been up to no good. D has developed quite a few of his own little phrases that I'm sure only me and his daddy understand. Anyone up for a challenge? What the hell is he going on about?:

1) CHERsin (tr)(said repeatedly whilst climbing in and out of his highchair or a swing)
2) KADet (TR)(said in similar circumstances)
3) dapka (tr)
4) chebbies (eng) something he likes to eat
5) opudu (tr)
6) korkubar (tr)
7) kalkabar (tr)

Incidently, he has just learnt to say 'no' which should have been his favourite word at 16 months according to thebabycentre newsletter. Well it might be a little late but it's certainly his favourite word now, ie. Let's put the toys away, no, Shall we have dinner, no, time for bed, no etc. He now knows all the colours in English except for orange, brown and green (my least favourite colours), which I think is pretty impressive for a not-even-two year old

Summer's here and the time is right...

2008-05-20T02:40:00.000-07:00

...well I won't be doing any dancing in the street. Wow, it's been quiet around here recently, hasn't it? Sorry about that dear readers, hope you're still out there.

I sort of had a period a while ago where I wasn't my usual, practical, easy-going self. It was the constant feeling of never having enough sleep coupled with always feeling a little bit under the weather. I had a bad couple of weeks where I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to do anything other than the bare minimum required to get through the day. I let things slide, which is never a good idea when you feel a bit depressed cos shuffling around an untidy, disorganised house all day is only going to make you feel worse. When I say 'I let things slide', I don't mean to the extent of having days of dishes piled up and bins overflowing with takeaway cartons. It was more like opening a jar of pasta sauce for dinner more often than is really appetising. Coming from a nation where pasta and a jar-sauce is considered homecooking, I know things weren't really that bad. Likewise, running round with the hoover a couple of times a week is still pretty good considering I know people who haven't even seen their living room floor for a couple of years, let alone hoovered it. It was more like 'how am I going to keep D occupied while I get this ironing done?....oh sod the ironing'.

Well, I'm glad to say that little fog seems to have lifted but then things seemed to conspire against me so that I still couldn't get any blog posts out. Computer viruses, electricity cuts, constant comings and goings of inlaws and all the extra housework that makes for and doing a bit of paid work here and there, I just haven't had chance.

Things with me seem to be back to normal and I have loads of reasons to feel positive:

* It's summer. 19th May (youth day) always seemed to mark a change in the weather here from pleasant, sunny spring days to hot summer days. I finally feel it's time to get out my summer wardrobe (yes, in Turkey we have a summer wardrobe and a winter wardrobe, whereas in the UK in summer you just take off your coat*).
*Summer fruit; cherries, strawberries, melons. It's so easy to eat healthily in summer
*Our garden is alive. The honeysuckle and jasmin are in flower and the linden tree is just about to flower, all giving off the most wonderful smells. There are little unripe figs, and tiny grapes on the vines. The geraniums are in full flower. All this in spite of us inexperienced, neglectful gardeners that we are.
*I have my own car. At the ripe old age of 37, I can finally say 'my car' 'I'll pick you up' 'shall we go in my car or yours'. As I was driving around last week, it dawned on me that I should fill the car with stuff like other drivers do and mark my territority as it were. What to put in a car I thought? I've never liked things dangling off the rear view mirror, I hate those smellies (why do you need air freshener in a car, it's not like you cook or do anything else smelly in there, well D does sometimes but rather the smell of a full nappy that those awful, nausea inducing artificial smells). I decided all I needed was music for D, and crackers and water, also for D.
*Please don't let me have to bite my tongue on this one as I have had to so many times in the past but it seems that D (starts to whisper in case fate hears and is tempted) has started to consistently sleep all night. Yes I think it'S been about a week now with no midnight bed hopping. He still has the last four molars to come though, and I suppose we'll be sleeping here, there and everywhere over the summer, so maybe a little more disruption ahead.

Have a great summer everyone.

*Not an original joke

In celebration

2008-05-12T03:02:00.000-07:00

Last night we got one of those middle of the night phone calls. As it turns out, it was only 11.30 but when you've been snuggled up since 10pm, 11.30 feels like the middle of the night. When you're roused from sleep by the phone, a little alarm bell always goes off, something terrible must have happened. More often than not it's just some absent minded night owl who doesn't seem to take seriously your constant recounting of night wakings and early morning disturbances and thinks that you're likely to be awake at the ungodly hour of 11.30. Last night though, I realised it wasn't the absent minded friend as I heard dh say 'allah rahmet ederse', I realised someone must have died, I also could tell by his tone of voice that it wasn't a great shock to him, so before he'd put down the phone I knew it must be anneanne (DH's maternal grandmother).

There's some confusion about anneanne's exact age but she was well into her eighties, bedridden and helpless for over a year and suffering from Alheizmers, the end must have held some relief for her daughters who have cared for her so selflessly over the past year. In our culture when we get that phonecall, we have some time for the news to sink in. You get off the phone and don't actually have to do anything (unless it's someone very close) except think about the person, say a prayer, shed a few tears or whatever. So that by the time of the funeral a few days later you've had time to look at your old photos of the deceased or reminised about you're shared past. Here, according to religious tradition, the deceased should be buried within 24 hours. So as soon as dh got off the phone, he started scrambling around, putting things in a bag, trying to decide whether to make the 6 hour journey by car, bus or train. As he did this, I have to admit that I shed a tear or two. It wasn't a tear of grief, I once read somewhere that you only grieve people who you'll miss, and that's why we often feel guilty when someone dies and we don't feel as much grief as we think we should. I shed a tear because of the cruel reminder that everyone's life has to come to an end.

I only knew anneanne as a frail old lady. But even in her eighties there was still evidence of the formidable matriach she must have been. Seeing an 80 year old woman shout at her 60 year old son, certainly is a sight. Mother to 8 children and countless grandchildren and great grandchildren, her legacy will be in evidence today at her funeral as her sons, daughters, their children and their children's children gather together to pay their last respects. There's always been a communication barrier between us, but she has welcomed me into the fold in her own way. When she first met me, she gave me a hearty pat on the back and said 'jendarma, jendarma' (a type of soldier), indicating that she recognised my strong constitution and sturdy physical frame.

I'd gone to bed last night, happy to have celebrated the end of my 37th year. As I embark on my 38th year, I'm aware that this year should be a significant one for me as my mother didn't make it to the end of her 38th year. The last time we saw anneanne was 2 weeks ago, when we'd made the trip to Eskişehir to see a cousin's new baby. Life gives and life takes away. Life goes on with or without us. How wonderful that we are here today, how precious life is, don't let me take it for granted.

yaaaawwwwn

2008-05-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

D's in bed, Dh is at the last match of the season, so here I am with an evening to devote to updating my blog. I'm drafting 3 posts simultaneously in my head but none of them feel ready yet. The truth is these days I feel very tired. I don't know if it's the weather, or D's increasing sense of independence and determination (resulting in loads of crying, tantrums, picking up the pieces, and hugging), or the fact that I've been carless for a while (sold one car, just bought another). But around 5pm, I delight in the fact that it's nearly dinner time, which means after dinner, it's quiet hour, then the golden time, bedtime. Yes, a full two hours before bed, I'm looking at the clock and counting down the time until D goes to sleep. And what is it that I'm so looking forward to doing once our little dirty-faced cherub reverts back to his angelic innocent self? Vegging out in the living room until it gets respectfully late enough for me to retire. Around 9.30, I deem it late enough, even though I can here the primary school aged children of neighbours still up, about and wide awake, and announce that I'm off to bed to read. Once in bed I fully intend to read, I prop up my pillows and put the reading lamp on but somehow my arms just feel too heavy to lift and reach out for that book. I decide I'll just lie still for 5 minutes, then the next thing I know, it's 4.30 and D is wandering round the house shouting 'ann naaaayyyy'. It's 8.15 now, do you think I could....? well nobody would know and I have got that book to finish, it's so much more comfortable reading in bed.....

Another job well done

2008-04-24T11:14:00.001-07:00

Cos it was just too easy before to get out and about with a little one in a pushchair, we now just have that narrow bit of unworked on road to share with two way traffic and our fellow pedestrians

Observations

2008-04-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

*Why do Starbucks give you 5 'less napkins, less waste, more planet' napkins with one order?
*Can anyone explain how novels are shelved in DNR, Capitol? You quickly realise that the 'a-z author' sign doesn't refer to the author's surname so you try to workout if it's the author's first name, it's not, title of book?, no, first word on first page? ok, forget the a-z thing, colour? size? You are left wondering if they could possibly have been stuffed on the shelves randomly.
*Why do certain bescarfed women of a certain age have a thing about getting on escalators? I used to think it was because they were from such a rural setting that they'd never used one before but ever since I've known the mil (nearly 10 years) she has to have someone hold each elbow and tell her when to step on, she must have got used to it by now. How hard can it be? One foot in front of the other and all that, not so different from walking is it? I secretly think that they're putting it on in a bid to draw attention to themselves. It's got me particularly piqued at the moment as one of this crew, nearly, in the midst of all this 'argh, how am I supposed to put one foot in front of the other and step onto this wonder of the modern world that I have no place in, that's moving at about 2 mph' attention seeking, fell backwards onto D who was innocently sitting in his pushchair (all right I know you're not supposed to take pushchairs on them but you try waiting til all the schoolkids hanging round shopping centres during school hours have finished riding up and down)
*Why is it, when I'm having a brisk walk in the park in jogging pants and a t-shirt, I find myself sweating, needing to drink plenty water and regetting not putting sunscreen on, while my fellow walkers/joggers seem quite comfortable in coats, fleeces, headscarves, hoods up and I even saw a runner wearing a woolly hat the other day.
*Conversation overheard at the hospital: One women: Get well soon. 2nd woman: thanks, same to you. First woman: What's wrong with you? 2nd women procedes to explaing health problems to the other woman who goes one to share her complaint.
*A while ago, some men were praying outside the mosque for Friday prayers. They were all lined up uniformly facing mecca, with prayer mats on the floor, kneeling, getting up etc in unison. The scene struck me because there were a group of Jewish men standing by watching them. Then I quickly swivelled round to see if I could spot any buddists watching me watching the jews watching the muslims.

More words, more tantrums and (a litle) more sleep

2008-04-22T01:59:00.000-07:00

Well I'm glad I got that post about language out when I did. It seems that the very next day, D had something of a language spurt, producing up to 5 new words a day every day in both languages.

At this point, I'm sure it would be rather difficult to get down all his words. In English he's still mainly just using one word at a time and mostly using nouns and a couple of adjectives. He knows four colours now, purple, blue, black (back) and pink and three numbers, 2,8 and 10. In Turkish, his speech is more grammatical. I think there are 3 reasons for this. Firstly he has more exposure to Turkish. Secondly, Turkish grammar is easier than English, for example 'yok' means 'there isn't, there aren't, x isn't here, no' so in Turkish 'baba yok' means 'daddy's not here' which doesn't need a conjugated verb or preposition of place. Thirdly Turkish grammar is easier to learn as a lexical chunk, which are much easier to store in the memory, such as 'geldim', it means I'm here or I've arrived/come or I arrived/came, no need for a subject as it is implied in the -im ending, and no need for an object. It was wonderful to hear him run down the hall the other day shouting ‘hala kalk’ (get up auntie). Mostly at the moment he doesn’t distinguish between the two languages but now he has two words that he says he both languages: ball/top and black/siyah.

D is really enjoying his newly acquired skill, he will point to something and repeat the word for it over and over, nodding his head and making 'um, um' sounds when he gets clarification. It's interesting for us too, now we are beginning to relate on a different level. Previously when he woke crying in the middle of the night I had to try to work out what was wrong, now when he wakes in the middle of the night, pointing to the door and saying 'bahçe, bahçe' I know he wants to go out in the garden.

Tantrums, we are entering a new level. I thought the worst was over with, I thought I'd proved myself in terms of what a patient person I am. Little did I know that the approaching terrible twos would not only push my patience to the limit, but that we would go beyond the limit so that I now feel like I'm on borrowed patience, I'm using my credit card patience. Big cook Little cook is not on TV, tantrum, can't get the keys in the door, tantrum, the little 'objet du jour' that he insists in clutching in his sticky little hand all day, gets sticky, tantrum, songs are playing in one room but he wants them on in the room where we don't have a music set, tantrum, it's time for stories before bed, tantrum, it's time to finish stories before bed, tantrum, bathtime, tantrum, time to get out of the bath, tantrum. You get the picture. I had my first experience of a public tantrum the other day. We went to the park and for some reason unbeknowst to me, he had a 10 minute crying, screaming, flailing, running away from me episode. That was fun. And is it me or do others not understand the fact that a tantrum is perfectly normal toddler behaviour? One woman in the park asked me what was wrong with him to which I just said he's having a bad day, she said he's tired, I said no actually he'S just woken from a good nap, she said he must be tired. I was trying to explain to one of the teachers at playgroup that I thought we were entering tantrum territory and she said, he's probably ill. Then there's always the standard response to any undesirable behaviour 'şımarıyor' (he's spoilt) or 'çok ayıp' (shame on you, said to the child). By way of coping, I’ve found that with a lot of things in life it’s just a question of altering your expectations. If you expect something to happen you feel more equipped to cope with it when it does. I’m trying to be aware of things that trigger tantrums and trying out different ways of dealing with them when they do. Things have already improved a lot since I first started writing this post (over a week ago).

Sleep is much better these days. Want to know how I did it? Well you can buy my book and read all about it :) . Just kidding, but I do feel like I coud write a book on dealing with nighttime issues. One thing I don’t recommend is asking for advice on a certain forum which generally I love and find the other posters to be supportive and even inspirational. However when it comes to sleep you wonder if it 'mothering' should be replaced by 'martyring'. I asked for advice on the sleep association thing, ie is D waking up frequently because hand-holding or touching my face have become props that he needs to get back to sleep. At the point I wrote, he was waking up on average 5 times a night. Responses went along the lines of: ‘My child wakes, up to 50 times a night’ ie think yourself lucky ‘I’m offended and insulted by the idea that anyone would not parent their child at night’ as if I was suggesting putting him away at 7pm and not tending to him again till 7am. What we have actually done is put a mattress on the floor next to D’s bed, when he wakes I go and lie down on the mattress as if going to sleep. At first he kept trying to touch me so I kept giving him his current love objects, shey and waa waa (or pussy cat and rabbit) and saying hug pussy (that’s going to invite some unwanted traffic from the search engines), hug rabbit, put your head on the pillow. He repeated hug, hug, dark, pillow, pillow. I said yes it’s dark, sleep time, look mummy’s pillow, you lie on your pillow etc. We've had three whole nights of sleep but usually he wakes up about once a night and goes to sleep again quickly when I lie on the mattress. It actually has all the benefits of co-sleeping without being kicked and crawled over all night. It’s working out well at the moment. I think his being increasingly verbal has helped this time round.

Intercultural communicative competence

2008-04-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

Sounds good eh? It's actually one of the many terms bandied around by my peers in the efl world who are so fond of such terms because they sound good but you're never quite sure if anyone knows what they mean. Being fluent in 2 languages other than my mother tongue and having 'notions' in a couple of other languages, coupled with the fact that I teach English to non-native speakers, I have had both a personal and a professional interest in language acquisition for some time now. I find the whole process of learning a language fascinating. Initially an unknown language is complete gobbledegook, there's nothing to hold onto, it's just a series of sounds. Then gradually little by little, chunk by chunk with the right combination of patience, hard work and willingness to look silly when you get it all wrong, suddenly one day it all falls into place so that no effort is required anymore. As an Erasamus student I went to study in Belgium. Even though I'd been studying French from the age of 11, I could neither understand nor make myself understood. All my studies had been of the 'read this and answer these questions' or 'translate this' or 'do these 10 exercises on the subjunctive' variety. I learnt something at that point that would become relevant to me as an efl teacher: the importance of authentic communication and oral and aural skills. Because of my large grammar and lexical base in French, it did all quickly fall into place. One day I couldn't understand or speak and the next day I could. It was as if I'd been given a key, something had been unlocked.

It's also fascinating as a teacher to watch language developing in a student. There's a real satisfaction when a complete beginner approaches you after a couple of lessons and says something like 'teacher, no homework'. It's not grammatical but it's understandable, it's communication. As the weeks go by it becomes 'teacher I no do homework', then 'teacher I don't do homework' - wow, you think progress. I would like to say that you find yourself being approached towards the end of the course with a 'sorry teacher, I haven't done my homework' but that rarely happens. Maybe if they'd done their homework occasionally it would.

Now I'm lucky enough to watch with fascination as my own little boy acquires language. Or I should say languages as he'll be bilingual. We are all language teachers in a way because our sons and daughters learn from us. Now I know there are certain things that I believe about learning and teaching a language that have been carried over from my studies and experience. I do wonder if it's just because of my language background that I find myself getting annoyed at other people 'doing it wrong'. I'm talking about things like always giving a correct model. The learner copies the instructor so it's vital that the model be correct. I get really annoyed when people talk babytalk to D or copy his attempts. For example one of the first words that D started saying was 'goal' which he used to refer to 'ball'. So everyone around him (all Turkish speakers) started calling a ball a goal, except me who always said 'ball'. D quickly leant ball but still doesn't know the Turkish. Another example is 'amca' meaning uncle. At around 15 months D started looking at his amca and saying aca, that means that for 15 months he's been hearing that word, he's worked out what it means, he's stored it in his memory, he's attemped to say it in the right context. There's just one more step left in this little learning process - learning the correct pronunciation. So what happens? Everyone else starts saying aca instead of amca! Another thing - this goes back to authenic practice - when D learns a new word, people repeat it ad-naseum, out of the blue and out of context. Like 'bye bye', this was an early word and people were waving and saying bye bye all over the place, then not leaving. Thus making the words just sounds without context or meaning. Others delighted when they got D to repeat stuff not seeming to realise that they were treating him like a parrot.

I'm sometimes amazed at the words D comes up with when I think about how he must have learnt them. There are words that he hears again and again that he just doesn't say like 'cat' but then he'll come up with something like 'dark'. He must have learnt that from a book that we've only read about a dozen times 'he's lost him in the woods somewhere, it's dark and horrible in there'. He also learnt 'hug' from a book. Which just goes to show you how important reading is, even if the books usually end up ripped, eaten or thrown across the room. D also has some amazing ways of communication. The word 'church' is packed with meaning for D. When we're in the Uk his grandparents usually take him for a walk every morning on a grassy lane where there's a church with a clock that chimes every 15 minutes or so. He loved listening to the chimes. The last time we were home the lane was full of daffodils. So now for D 'church' means 'clock'. The other day we saw a photo of some daffodils and D said 'church'. Isn't that incredible, just in that one word he was saying, remember in England when grandad and Yvonne took me for a walk and there was a church and some daffodils. Similarly one day I said to D, remember when grandad and Yvonne took you for a ride on your bike and he said quack-quack, in other words, yes and there were a lot of ducks there too.

D is 21 months now and understands most simple commands and everyday language, both English and Turksih.His speech is not very developed but we assume that is because he's bilingual. The past week he seems to be going through a language spurt and he seems to have doubled his vocab just in a week. Here, just for the record is what he says:

Turkish:

koy (dum/ cağam)
aç (tim)
Kalk (tim)
ağaç
dede (yok)
baba (yok)
anne (herzamam var tabii ki)
beş (pronounced eş)
lamba (pronounced namba)
çiçek
çik
sıcak
kedi
kar
tuvalet

English:

chicken, dark, hug, pillow, dirty, poo, cook, Bob, cd, blue, purple, car, park (pronounced parb) pencil, ball, bye-bye, two, ten, turtle, cheese, meat, fish, cake

D's own language:

niyu (water), sh (cat), baa baa (star), boo-boo (bee)

ETA, said for the first time yesterday (9 April): bahçe, dog

I'm sure there's more, I'll probably add as I remember

Bliss

2008-04-05T11:30:00.000-07:00

Our latest bookclub book is Bliss by Turkish writer, composer and politician, O.Z.Livaneli.The plot centres around three main characters. Irfan, a professor who has married into money and become part of Istanbul's rich elite. The reader finds him in the throes of a midlife crisis as he questions the meaning of his life and his achievements, and is gripped with the fear of death. He runs away from his life, cutting himself off completely. He hires a boat and sails aimlessly around the Aegean hoping to realise metanoia (to transcend one's self and be transported to another existence). Then there's Meryem, a naive, sheltered, motherless 15 year old from eastern Turkey. Meryem, raped by her uncle and terrified to reveal her attacker is sent away to Istanbul for bringing shame on her family. Ostracised and locked in a barn, life couldn't be much worse in Istanbul surmises Meryem. Unbeknowst to her 'being sent to Istanbul' is a euphemism used for girls and women who fall victim to honour killings. The third character, Cemal is Meryem's cousin. Recently discharged from the army, he is given the task of taking Meryem to Istanbul to dispose of her. Cemal's dilemma is how, where and when to do the deed so that he can get back to the village and lose his virginity in the only righteous way possible, by marrying his beloved, Emine. The 3 characters' lives intersect as they try to resolve their own personal conflicts.The plot content and the narrative style combined make this a real page turner. The 3rd person narration flicks from the viewpoint of each character in turn from chapter to chapter. You find yourself unable to stop reading as you're gripped with suspense wondering if Cemal will kill Meryem and if Irfan will kill himself.Not only is it a ripping good yarn with universal themes of love and relationships, patriotism, patriarchy, and personal responsibility, it is also an interesting portrayal of the great diversity of lifestyles in Turkey. The writer makes some really astute observations about Turkish society. A word of warning though, it does not always paint a pretty picture of the lifestyles it portrays. For me, this makes a refreshing change as it is so much more interesting to read a realistic portrayal than a romantic one. As the plot unravels you learn more and more about the conflicitng political, religious, social and national viewpoints typically found among the Turkish people. For the most part, this enhances the plot. However you do sometimes get the impression that the author is trying to tell the reader too much about the current state of life in Turkey. During the train journey for example there are characters that don't really add anything to the plot but are used as a kind of literary devise to inform the reader about some aspect of life in Turkey. One such example is the American journalist who attempts to quiz his fellow passengers on how they feel about political islam, Turkish nationalism and the Kurkish issue.Here’s a quote from the book, these are Irfan’s thoughts on the plane as he flees Istanbul:'All reference points are lost in this society, deprived of its Eastern and Islamic roots and far from being united with Western values. No one is happy. The unwritten rules that keep a society together are nowhere to be found. We are going through a nihilistic period, in which everyone is longing for a better life, but no one knows what form it should take'.

Gold days

2008-04-01T10:22:00.000-07:00

Some may say that I'm lucky in that I have a mil who is ready and willing to babysit whenever we need her. The only thing that would stop her rushing over here at the drop of a hat, is if she has a 'gun'. The 'gun' is something that Turkish housewives love as it's a chance to socialise, and yabancı gelins (foreign brides)try to avoid like the plague.

'Gun' means day in Turkish, and these days are regularly held get togethers where a group of women visit each other's homes and take it in turns to host. They are sometimes called 'altın gun' (gold day) as each visitor gives the host a small piece of gold (this is a type of savings club really as each week you buy your gold, then get a lump sum of gold every time it's your turn to host).

The reason foreign gelins try to avoid these days is that they appear to be very formal and can be a bit daunting if you are not totally familiar with the culture, and it may take a while (like years) before you feel comfortably knowledgeable about the culture. No matter what the social status of the host, no matter the state of the building or the neighbourhood she lives in you can guarantee her house will be scrubbed spotlessly clean. It will be so clean that you may feel like you're in a museum even though the artefacts may be plastic, made in China and have a company logo on them. Again no matter how rich or poor the host, the best tableware and linen will be in use, lots of gold trim, sequins, crystal, and shiny stuff. There's a general sense of a lot of trouble having been gone to. Then there's the who to kiss and how to kiss issue. Culture dictacts that people of an older generation should be greeted by kissing their hand then pressing it to the forehead (now coming from a culture where we rarely touch close family members, you can imagine how comfortable new brides feel with this). People of the same generation should be kissed on each cheek. This kind of greeting is reserved for people you feel familiar with. In a more formal or professional setting, a handshake will suffice. The dilemma for a yabancı gelin is, if you only kiss people you are familiar with but you're meeting your husband's relative for the first time, do you kiss or shake hands. Then there's the 'what if I inadvertantly kiss someone's hand who's too young to have their hand kissed' issue (some of these women have been married and living in domestic slavery from the age of 16, they kind of look older than they are). Then there are some older women who don't want to have their hand kissed, which I take as a form of humility. So you go to kiss their hand but they may pull it away. Once in a fumbled attempt to kiss someone's hand who didn't want their hand kissed I ended up with a split lip where her knuckleduster ring caught me as she pulled her hand away. I had to spend the rest of the day pursing my lips in case anyone noticed and asked me what I'd done and would have to reply that Şukran teyze had belted me in the mouth. The language barrier, the unfamiliarity with how to serve the food, and the scrutiny that you come under because you're foreign all make the experience a lot more stressful than your mil may realise. For example, one way I find of making myself feel less awkward at social gatherings is to offer to help out. You may think serving tea is straightforward, it's not. First of all you have to make sure you get the right quantity of tea and hot water, then you have to work out how a glass full of boiling hot tea should be handled, then you have to extricate a little table from a nest of tables so that the tea drinker doesn't have to move, then hold out the sugar bowl while the teadrinker helps herself to sugar. And so on, for every aspect of serving food and drink you suddenly realise that your 25 years' experience in doing it no longer suffices, you need training along the lines of a silver service waiter but this training is the Turkish hostess service.

My mil attends days regularly with her sisters in law and their daughters and brides. I'm always welcome at these gatherings but rarely attend. I find them boring, unnecessarily stressful and frankly I've got better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than sit round drinking tea and eating cake. Occasionally I'm told directly that it would be really appreciated if I'd attend and in the spirit of maintaining good family relations I prepare to grit my teeth and smile through an afernoon of nosy questions and unwanted advice. Last Saturday was such an occasion.

When we arrived, the normally spotless house seemed to be impossibly cleaner than usual. All the everyday cushion covers etc had been replaced by the nylon ones with gold and shiny bits on. As the guests arrived they took off their shoes before entering and replaced them with fancy slippers, again lots of sequins, shiny bits, and even high heels. The kissed greetings over with, each newcomer asked every person in the room in turn how they were. So it went something like 'How are you yenge (sister in law), fine thank you, How are you abla (older sister) fine thank you, how are you teyze (auntie) fine thank you' Occasionally the answers varied with a çok şukkur (thank god). All the women are asked individually how they and their kids and husbands are, this happens at every meeting. Shortly after everyone had arrived coffee was served (in the best crockery, on a silver tray) and while the women were drinking, they took out their embroidery or knitting. One of our guests was crocheting a flower trim for some towels while dh's auntie was knitting baby clohtes for the grandchild she doesn't have.

On this particular day, the Quran was to be read as it was the anniversary of the death of DH's grandmother. Of our group, only the older women cover their heads and do so in the loosely tied 'village' fashion, rather than the tightly bound, covering the neck, not a hair out of place, religious fashion. A lot of Turkish women don't feel it necessary to cover their head in order to be a good muslim. However when it comes to prayer, the head must be covered. So as headscarves were distributed from my sil's stash and abulutions completed I decided to make myself scarce. Off to the kitchen for me, giving me the opportunity to avoid the prayers and do what every good gelin should be doing anyway, getting the food ready for everyone else.

Praying finished, food was served. Our menu was: stuffed vineleaves, cheese pastries and mince and potato pastries (typical Turkish fare made by the mil), oregano and feta cheese muffin loaf (my contribution) and pomegranite, bean and dill salad and chocolate and cherry cake (made by sil). We drank tea from small crystal glasses. While eating, the food was discussed and recipes exchanged. At one point my ears pricked up as everyone seemed to be scandalised by a certain person's behaviour, but they were just talking about someone off the telly.

As the afternoon wore on the atmosphere became more relaxed. There was some gossip along the lines of 'she said this and I said that and she said this and I said that'. Then the inevitable reference to women's problems (no I don't mean their husbands), the downward glance, the slight inclination of the head, the knowing look, the elbow to bossom nudge a la Les Dawson.

As the afternoon turned to evening the menfolk of the household wandered back home. After enquiring after everyone's health they started picking at leftovers. The guests started to leave in dribs and drabs realising that their menfolk were probably also wandering home, wanting their dinners served. As for me, as far as 'guns' go a relatively painfree experience

from honey to spices

2008-03-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

I've recently discovered a blog written by a French woman living here in Istanbul. She has a knack for relating all the quirky things about life here but she maintains a positive stance. Even if you don't speak French, her photography is wonderful and really captures the beauty of life in this city http://dumielauxepices.net/

15 kisses and a smile

2008-03-28T06:49:00.000-07:00

The lack of comments on the previous post is making me paranoid that you all think I'm an unfit mother who shouts, swears, beats and locks her child in a room. I'm not, honestly. It's just been one of those weeks. I recognised the fact that I needed a little breathing space and had the babysitter round a couple of times this week. Dh put D to bed last night (for the first time ever, with no major incident, no one fell apart without me, the slight change to the bedtime routine didn't send D into a Rainman like frenzy because Dad wasn't doing things right,.... maybe I'm not all that) while I had a night out with an old workmate.

When I was woken at 6am this morning by Dh'S alarm, I felt much better, knowing that I'd slept solidly for 6 hours. Dh and I swapped beds, well he got up and started getting ready for work while I snuggled next to D for an extra hour's sleep. When D roused himself around 7, instead of starting the day with the usual 5-10 minutes of fussing and crying, he started to kiss me over and over on my face. He hasn't really got the pucker right yet, so it's just pressing his mouth against my face really. He then looked me in the eyes and smiled. Of course I just wanted to cover him in chocolate and eat him up. Things like this make everything else seem unimportant.

2008-03-27T03:02:00.000-07:00

D's sleep is worse than ever. I have tried everything bar drugging him or just shutting him in his room and leaving him to it. Believe me the last two have crossed my mind and sometimes it seems that the only thing stopping me doing the first is I want a long-term solution and the only thing stopping me doing the second is he will probably wreck the room and hurt himself in the process. Monday night things sort of reached crisis point for me. After the third waking and spending an hour in bed with him kicking, pushing, shoving his hands in my face, I sort of lost it. I got hold of him quite roughly, straightened him out on the bed, gave him a cuddly toy, held his hand and almost shouted 'just go to (f******g) sleep'. Didn't use the expletive but was sorely tempted. Amazingly he went to sleep then. Every time I sleep with him I vow not to do it again as it seems to make him more restless. The alternative is sitting on the floor waiting for him to drop off, not much fun anyway but after 30 mins when you're doing it for the third time in one night you kind of lose any sense of resignation to the facts. We had a bad couple of days. D seemed to be crying more than usual, was it that or was it just that I didn't react to him in the same way as I usually do? I don't know. Whilst changing his nappy, he has this thing where he likes to kick me in the face, it's annoying, this one time I got so fed up of saying calmly 'don't kick mummy, it hurts' whilst trying to firmly grasp his legs and avoid getting poo everywhere, I had this urge to hit him. It's a feeling I've not had since I was a child when things with my siblings were solved in a physical way. Of course I would never hit him but it was the desire to make him stop kicking coupled with the feeling of helplessness to do anything other than hit out and make it stop. Last night I woke in the pitch black to realise the nightlight we keep on in the hallway must have gone off. I was totally disorientated. I couldn't see a thing and had no idea where I was. I could hear someone breathing but didn't know if it was D or DH. When I finally worked out where I was, it turns out I was asleep on D's bedroom floor. Imagine how zonked I must have been to fall into a deep sleep on a cold, wooden floor. As I've said before though, you get used to the lack of sleep and somehow your body gets used to it. It's all the other aspects of your life that are affected. Things get started then never finished. The house becomes more and more disorganised. D seems to be watching more TV than ever. For the first time ever I wondered if I'm having a long term negative effect on D.

Tuesday it rained on and off all day. D doesn't go to playgroup on Tuesdays. We were stuck at home alone together all day. I knew that if I wasn't going to go stir crazy I was going to have to use my imagination and keep us both busy. I made a tent with a blanket and two chairs. D loved it and started saying 'tent tent tent' straight away. He made me stay in it while he went in and out bringing things in then taking them out again. While I was confined to the tent, I got to like it in there. It felt all safe and the lack of stimulus had a calming effect on my wrought nerves. Somehow my perspective started to change. D is such a wonderful boy. I'm not doing such a bad job. I'm calm, patient and attentive 90 percent of the time and when I'm angry I rarely show it. On the odd occassion when I have screamed into a cushion or thrown something across the room while swearing at the top of my voice, D has found it hilarious so I don't think I'm scarring him for life. Last night he had me and DH in tears of laughter as he made his toys kiss each other then shared his milk with them. He's bright, lively, friendly and fairly easy to manage. We are so lucky to have him. So now it's back to the state of resignation. I can't do anything about his sleep other than just accept that that'S the way it is and hold out until it changes making sure that DH does his fair share of nighttime parenting.

Concrete jungle or nature haven?

2008-03-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

Of all the cities I've lived in, Istanbul is the only one I'd describe as a concrete jungle. It was only when I came here that I understood where that expression came from. Other cities I've lived in have generally felt quite spacious, with wide pavements, visible sky and plenty of wide open spaces. I read somewhere the other day that 38 percent of London was parkland and I have to say I wasn't really surprised by this statistic. I came to Istanbul after living in London for two years and the lack of clean, green areas was one of the things I found difficult to get used to. I always used to love popping into a nearby park in my lunch hour and reading a book while having a sandwich and watching the world go by (weather permitting, of course). The alternative here seemed to be having a picnic on a grassy traffic island in the middle of a busy road or the grassy bank of the side of the motorway.

Now we are lucky enough to have our own little garden. This seems like such a luxury especially in spring and early summer. We're overun by stray cats but that's about all we see in the way of wildlife. Deniz actually thinks that the word for bird is gark (the noise a crow makes in Turkish, yes foreign animals make different noises, did you know for example that a Turkish dog says how how and a donkey doesn't say ee-or but or-ee). We see plenty of pigeons and of course being right by the sea, there are seagulls all over. And of course the sea seems to yield an impossible number of fish, in it's dirty, overfished waters.

Very occassionally, this over-populated, badly organised, noisy, polluted city presents a reminder of the natural life that's trying to carry on regardless of all the construction and 'development'. I have on a number of occasions been lucky enough to see dolphins in the Bosphorous. One time I was on a Bosphorous cruise with my dad and stepmother when a herd (is that the right word?) of dolphins seemed to be following our boat, diving out of the water then disappearing again, only to reappear 100s of metres away, as if delighting in teasing all the spectators with their cameras at the ready. I saw a robin once. I even think I saw a kingfisher but now I'm wondering if I haven't just made that up.

The other day D and I saw such a rare sight, it all seemed a bit surreal at first. We were having a walk, enjoying the mild weather in our secret green place, when there in the middle of the park, was this sight:

I took it with my phone and I'm not the best photographer anyway. I also didn't want to get too close and scare them away so I zoomed in, but I hope you can make out that they are a group of storks! I'd never seen one before in my life, and here was a gang of them hanging around my local park. This is what D thought of them:

A couple were walking around the park too and asked us if we'd seen them. The woman told us that if you see the storks in spring it means you'll travel a lot in the year to come. Well, our passports are up to date...

The potent wizard

2008-03-20T02:57:00.000-07:00

'Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years that you have lived' Hellen Keller

I've always thought smells are so much more powerful at evoking memories than photographs. You have to be careful though how much you use them to evoke a memory. If you use them too much their power fades so that the smell loses its association with the time you're trying to conjure up. There are certain perfumes that I know will carry me back years in my life and the recollection brought on by the smell will be accompanied by old friends' faces, I feel how I felt then, and I can even see what I was wearing.

Sometime last year we must have inadvertantly changed washing powders (no brand loyalty, you see). Last week I, again inadvertantly, bought the old washing powder. As the laundry dried around the house, the whole place was filled with this powerful smell. Did I notice the smell first or the memories? I don't know. I was transported back to a time of breastfeeding and mushy food, pulling up and cruising. In my mind's eye, I could see D crawling down the corridor for all he was worth, head down, going full speed like a charging bull. The five am feeds. The joy and the wonder at the rapidly reached milestones. The isolation, the loneliness. The daily walks by the sea when D would nap in his pushchair. The inability to get anything but the bare minimum done. Why is it, when you look back you always seem happier than you remember being? We've come a long way in a year.

I wonder what other smells I'd associate with pregnancy and the newborn stage: Stretch mark cream, lanolin (I didn't go anywhere without it for at least 6 weeks), nivea nappy cream, breastmilk poo, the flowers we were gifted when D was born that mil put outside in the hall because they smelled. And how could I forget, fennel tea.

eshy eshy esh esh

2008-03-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

Or in other words beşy beşy beş beş (fivey, fivey, five, five). That's what can often be heard ringing out of D's pushchair as we walk around and he points out all the fives he can see. Sometimes he changes the song to eshy boo eshy boo. And sometimes he sees two fives together and points and starts screaming eeeeessssshhhhh, esh, esh esh esh. So it's rather appropriate that I've been tagged by the noble savage to do this meme:

1. List 5 things you do for yourself
2. List 5 things you do for your closest friend, partner or child
3. List 5 things you have done for a stranger
4. Have fun
5. Tag 5 people

Here goes....

For myself (this is going to sound really sad):

1. Make a nice coffee and spend D's naptime reading or on the internet. I absolutely refuse to use this time to get chores done.
2. A couple of times a week I take myself off to bed early with plenty or reading matter, maybe a book, or a newspaper I haven't had chance to read, close the bedroom door and snuggle down for an hour of reding. Just closing the door makes me feel so much more relaxed, like I'm in my own private haven.
3. This is very Flylady, but I try to end each day with everything clean and tidy. It makes it so much easier to switch off and relax. And there's nothing worse after a bad night with little sleep to wake up to a sink full of dishes
4. Joined a bookclub. This is one of the few things I do that is just for ME.
5. Write this blog

For D:

1. I do my very best to understand his attempts at communicating
2. Let him have dessert first. He usually goes on to his main meal and everyone's happy, no stress, no food battles
3. Let him slap my face occassionally, when it's the gentle repetitive pat type slap as opposed to the whacking great smarting slap
4. Recently I've let him choose what he wants to wear. Don't know if I'll start to regret this soon. Yesterday he wanted his Japanese pyjama/shorts suit and rabbit socks. I had to draw the line when he wanted to wear his Thomas the tank engine shorts to playgroup though
5. Share his enthusiasm and delight in what is to me the everyday and mundane

For strangers:

1. Given money to someone who had had their wallet stolen
2. Separate the rubbish for the gypsies so that anything they might find useful is easy to find and they don't have to go rummaging through all our household waste
3. Leave places as I find them
4. Smile, nod and respond to people ranting in the street (seems to happen to me a lot)
5. I let other drivers overtake, cut in front of me, and give them way when the road is too narrow.

I tag anyone who wants to take up the challenge. I also challenge everybody to come up with 5 things they do for themselves. If you have trouble doing this, as I did, you may want to consider why you don't make more time for yourself (yeah, yeah, I know chance would be a fine thing, right?)

ever have trouble getting out of bed?

2008-03-14T03:48:00.000-07:00

I can't say I've experienced this much in the past couple of years. Chance would be a fine thing, in fact. Even when there is someone else around to get up and look after D around dawn, I still feel the need to get up, change his nappy and clothes before I'm happy to abdicate responsibility to someone else for a couple of hours. If you ever do have trouble dragging your sorry ass out of bed of a morning, I know 3 sentences guaranteed to get any mother out of bed faster than a bat out of hell. I know because I heard them the other day when I was enjoying a rare languish in bed after 7.30am . Deniz was downstairs playing with his grandparents and although he'd been running a fever for the past 24 hours, the fever seemed to have gone down and he hadn't had any calpol since 2am. It was 9am, I was awake and debating with myself whether to get up or roll over and go back to sleep for another half an hour when the dreaded sentences were uttered 'put him in the recovery position' 'he's having a fit' 'I'll call an ambulance'. I can't say I was panic striken, I can't say I was scared, I can't say I was upset. I seemed to have been taken over by my instincts. When I got downstairs, D was in my dad's arms, his cheeks bright red, his eyes half closed and unfocussed. While my stepmother called for an ambulance, I took d and laid him in the recovery position while simulantaneously stripping him of his pyjamas. As he seemed to immediately come round and stand up, we cancelled the ambulance but decided to take him through to the hospital anyway to get him checked over. My emotions seemed to return when I realised he wasn't in any real danger and I felt like bursting into tears but didn't for some reason (stiff upper lip and all that). After he'd been checked over by the doctor we all felt much happier. It was potentially one of those situations you hope never to experience but still can't help wondering what you would do if it did.

Happy Mother's day

2008-03-02T12:40:00.000-08:00

On Thursday morning at around 5.30, we drove over the Bosphrous. It was lit up green when we got on and changed to blue as we were driving. The lighting up of the bridge must have started since D was born because I used to travel across the Bosphorous everyday and I don't remember it being blue, purple, red or green. I decided it was a totally stupid waste of electricity as it's such a wonderful view anyway, day or night, and the rest of the city is so well lit up.

Wondering why I was driving around at 5.30 in the morning? No, it wasn't a desperate attempt to get D to sleep, we've never had to resort to that. Well not at night anyway. No, we were on the way to the airport to fly back to the UK for another little holiday, hurray. I just love the freedom that not being in fulltime employment gives, and I'm sure it won't seem like long until D's at school and the pace of our lives is dictacted by an imposed schedule. So as DH is away on business and we decided to make the most of it and come home.

On arriving here, it was a nice surprise to realise that today was Mother's day and I was to be taken out to lunch. It was sort of like my first Mother's day as last year for the March one I was in Turkey and for the May one I was in the UK. I don't really buy into the Hallmark days but today was quite meaningful for me. Today I was able to celebrate, albeit internally, motherhood on this day for the first time in years. Having lost my mother to cancer at a young age, as a child and adolescent I grew to hate mother's day. It only seemed to heighten the absense and sense of grief, as well as making me feel isolated as everyone around me seemed to be harping on about how wonderful and important their mothers were. It embarrassed me at school that I had to explain to the teacher that I couldn't make a Mother's day card as I didn't have a mother, and annoyed me when the teacher suggested I make one for my auntie. Rather than protest that my auntie was not my mother or ask the teacher which auntie I was to make a card for as I have quite a lot of aunties, or risk annoying the teacher further by obliging her to find some other activity to do while the rest of the class made cards, I'd just make a damn card anyway and it would get shoved to the bottom of my schoolbag till the end of the year, then thrown away. As I grew older, it was easier to ignore it, colleagues and friends would remind each other, ask what to buy etc and I just wouldn't comment, saving embarrassment all round. Now that I am a mother, I think it should be a day to assess all that being a mother means and to consider all the ways in which it has enriched my life. It will also be a day to remember and talk about my own mother without fear of embarrassing others. Happy Mother's day to all you Uk mums out there.

Now I intend to spend the rest of the evening looking up all those wordpress blogs that I've been unable to read because of the wordpress ban in Turkey. I rather feel like I'm about to do something illicit, ooo-er.

Hot topic

2008-02-27T09:52:00.000-08:00

Any blogger from Turkey worth their salt has to give a couple of lines blogspace to a topic that has been causing a lot of controversy here for a while, the headscarf issue. More specifically, the ban of headscarves in universities and the much disputed lifting of that ban. I have a draft post which I started on Monday but then got side-tracked by the scarypoo and lack of sleep. And now it seems that I've been pipped to the post (no pun intended) by Stranger, a fellow expat mummy blogger living in Istanbul. This may seem like a reciprocal plug, which I suppose partly it is. It's also partly laziness on my part, why should I repeat what she's said. I'm also doing you dear readers a favour because she says what I would say but she seems to have a gift for writing that makes everything more entertaining, as opposed to me, who just hopes that by writing any old crap, one day it might get better. We have so many things in common we often find that we've written about similar topics, so you might just decide to abandon my blog altogether as hers is the same only better. I do have one advantage over her though, TIME, yes with D being weaned, in playgroup and I suspect a better sleeper than Stranger's little one, I do seem to be able to get more posts out than her. So, who's going to get round to Headscarves Part 2, first?

Sleeplessness and poo-fear in Istanbul

2008-02-26T09:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know I promised not to keep harping on about how D doesn't sleep, but last night's marathon has to go down on record. Also, I have to be true to the title of this blog, so I feel I should tell it like it is. D woke around 10pm last night, he didn't go back to sleep until after 2am. Yes, I spent 4 hours in a dark room, sitting on a cold, hard, wooden floor, willing him back to sleep and dreaming of snuggling back into my nice warm bed. (I should explain that DH is not totally lame and is willing to help out at night, for a long time D only wanted me at night but now he doesn't mind who goes, but last night DH was really suffering from a bad back and could barely move (or so he says)). At a certain point I gave up the dream of snuggling back into my own bed and resigned myself to sleeping on the cold hard floor with the blanket and pillow that are always handy in D's room for when we end up sleeping with him. I eventually gave up that dream and pacified myself with the knowledge that he would have to sleep eventually, even if we slept all day today. He did actually fall asleep several times but as soon as I moved his hand from my face or my hand from his, he would wake up crying. I already had a crick in my neck from bedtime, when I'd been leant over at an odd angle so that he could put his hand on my cheek while he fell asleep for 4o minutes. I decided that he had to go to sleep without any body contact with me. You can imagine how well that went down. He was just about calming down from a little tantrum when dh shouted 'shall I come to help', setting him off on another tantrum. I thought about the neighbours and was grateful that they are empathetic. He spent 15 minutes lying still, breathing heavily as if asleep but with his eyes open. 15 minutes after that I carefully tucked him up and crept back to bed, only to have him wake up again minutes later. He eventually crawled out of bed, onto my blanket on the floor and fell asleep there. I have to confess, that I crawled into his bed and fell exhaustedly into a deep sleep. So yes, I let him sleep on the floor. He had a thick blanket under him and there was NO WAY I was going to pick him up to put him in bed and risk waking him. The worst thing about the whole sleeplessness stuff is not the lack of sleep, you soon adjust to that, it's the frustration of not being able to do anything about it. Can you imagine trying to do anything without success for four hours solid, especially something at night, in the dark, with no one to share your frustration with.

Anyway, we got through the day (he woke up at 7.30), had quite a nice day actually, once I'd got over being annoyed at him. Then at bathtime we had a little incident. I apologise for the subject matter here, but this is a mummy blog so the subject of poo was bound to crop up sooner or later. D likes to watch the water go down the plughole and he squats in the shower tray after he's been rinsed off saying bye to the water. Tonight for the second time while he's been squatting there he's started straining and well, you know the rest. The first time, I managed to wrap the poo up and put it in the toilet before D saw it and considered it a good sign that we're approaching potty training time. Tonight though, D stood up to take a look at what was going on. When he saw that ugly, brown unidentifiable object, he jumped out of his skin and started screaming, crying and shaking. I know babies and toddlers may find a lot of everyday situations frightening and I try to empathize but tonight I really got why D was scared. It all got a bit horror filmy for a minute, as I realized he doesn't know what it is, or where's it's come from, what it will do or if there will be more of them, appearing apparently out of nowhere. It got to the point where I was a little reluctant to pick it up myself, I got that feeling you get when you're moving a spider from the bath, you know you're not afraid of spiders but the moment when you have to touch it, you sort of flinch as if something terrible is going to happen. Anyway we played with the hairdryer and the toothbrush for a while and he soon forgot the scary old thing in the bath. But I'm left pondering what next? He's going to be faced with this again and we have to show him it's nothing to be afraid of. Now I feel slightly ashamed at the hilarity we made of my cousin's husband telling his son what a lovely poo he'd done in his potty and inviting others to see it at a family Christmas party. I'm also slightly mortified at the possibility that that will be me next Christmas.

warming up

2008-02-22T02:56:00.000-08:00

After 2 days of snow and a couple of days of thaw the weather is sunny, springlike and decidedly warm again. My cousin (in law) explained to me yesterday about 'cemre' when I commented on the lovely weather. I'd heard the word 'cemre' before as it is a Turkish name but I had never considered what it meant. I looked it up on an online dictionary and the definition was 'the warmth of February'. Apparently there are 3 cemres: the warming of the air, then the warming of the soil, and lastly the warming of the water, and these signify the end of winter and the coming of spring and summer. February 20 was the first cemre. So I guess that means spring is just round the corner