Picnic

The Muslim Sacrifice Holiday was at the beginning of this month, so we got a 5 day weekend and tons of family togetherness. I'm pretty impressed by how much we maximized our time. The big highlight for me was our picnic on Monday. There is a picnic grounds out by the zoo, and we had never been there, so we decided to check it out, keeping in mind that it could be a great place or fairly creepy place, but there was no way of finding out without going ourselves.

It turned out to be full of families and pretty fun, although I'm thankful we didn't have to use the "facilities" there. That may have been not so fun.

Moonpie had a great time discovering her independence with her new walking skills and exploring nature, which were mostly eucalyptus leaves and sticks on the ground.

She even made a little friend names "Asia" who came over to steal some of her toys, but ended up staying to play. They were talking back and forth in some really expressive baby language and seemed to understand each other perfectly. So, so cute. I even did a really Turkish thing and gave someone else's child a cookie. The parents didn't seem to mind since they were happily swinging in their hammock and paying us no mind at all.

After lunch we took a walk and found a grove of these trees. They are "oleaster" or silverberry, or wild olive trees, but are being cultivated as agricultural research next to this picnic grounds. They look like olives and taste kind of similar to dates, but not as good. They are common in the Mediterranean region, and through my research I learned that they are probably the trees mentioned in the Bible when Paul talks about wild olive trees in Romans 11. I still have lots to learn about Turkey!

                                     

And that was our picnic!

Raising a baby in Turkey - Part 2: Baby love

My last post about an American raising a baby in Turkey was about a diametrically opposed culture clash between Turkish and American ideas of what's best for a baby, so I thought I'd look at a more positive difference this time.

Turks love babies. I mean, pretty much almost every Turk goes gaga over every baby. It's amazing. They don't seem to lose their enthusiasm. When I go out with Moonpie I get stopped probably at least 10 times by people who just want to oodle over her. I can't just run into the grocery store "real quick" because the cashier will literally stand up, walk around the register and kneel down by Moonpie's stroller to play with her and try to get her to smile for a few minutes before checking me out. I am not even kidding, people.

Kids barely older than Moonpie come over to look at the "baby". Yeah, I don't like it when two-year-olds are touching her face, but hey. At the park last week a pair of 10-year-old twin girls wanted to slide with her down the slide and push her around the park by themselves (I said no, for the record). It's just hard to explain the universality of the baby love in Turkey. 20 year old men go crazy for babies. Moonpie's sock once fell off in an Adidas store and once one staff member realized what we were looking for we had 5 guys looking through the whole store. We couldn't find it, so we left, but then one of the guys came running out after us waving the pink sock and put it back on Moonpie's foot, all the while raving about how cute she was. True story.

We went to a restaurant with my parents and I wish I had taken a picture of the three waiters hovering around Moonpie's highchair, occasionally reaching in to give her a spoonful of food if I was otherwise occupied for a second. I think my parents were both mystified and horrified. People (friends and strangers) have given her chicken, cookies, pudding and ice cream without my permission, and a woman on the metro tried to give her a chocolate bar when she was like 5 months old. In America people would hesitate due to the possibly presence of allergies, or, I don't know, respect for the parents, maybe, or common sense? I digress.

I'm not even going to mention the over 50 female crowd. There is a word in Turkish - "Mashallah" - that basically is meant to protect the person spoken to from evil powers and such, and it's said to babies and kids (and me, not sure why, usually seems to be because I'm tall). Anyway, Turkish women say that word often and go absolutely nuts for my baby, even when they have their own grandkids. They just can't get enough. I think it's so sweet. I love it when people oodle over my baby.

The hard part about this for me is that strangers try to hold her, as in try to rip her out of my arms. Random woman at the bank, random woman in the checkout line, cleaning lady at the hospital, just people everywhere. This is the hardest part about this cultural difference. I know they aren't trying to be creepy, but it still creeps the heck out of me. I just say, "No, baby doesn't want you to hold her. She'll cry." They usually back off.

I'm not saying Americans don't love babies, but it's a different kind of love. Americans definitely don't go as crazy over strangers' kids. There's not really a concept of "stranger danger" for kids in Turkey, for better or worse. Americans admire kids from afar, with words like "cute baby" or "oh, look at the baby". There isn't a lot of reaching into the stroller, touching the face, giving of chocolate bars or grabbing out of the mother's arms going on in America. 

Sure, I feel protective about people touching her face (germs!) and giving her food, and we decided as a general rule not to let strangers hold her, but it feels great to have people making such a fuss. She looooooves the attention, too. She's such a flirt. Even at three months she was flashing her toothless grin around seeing what kind of reaction she could get. I just chalk it up as part of our multi-cultural life!

DIY Toddler Sleep Sack

This is going to seem a bit contradictory after my previous post about the struggle to keep my baby from becoming a hot, sweaty mess here in Turkey, but believe it or not, this American does try to keep her baby warm in the winter. Moonpie is now 13 months old, wearing size 24 months/2T clothing. She had a size 18 months sleep sack from last winter that I thought I could squeeze her into, but no, it wasn't working out.

So, I went back to the baby stores to find a size 2T sleep sack. The problem is that they don't seem to sell many of them. My hypothesis is that most children wearing size 2T use those handy little things called "blankets" when they sleep. Interestingly, my little Moonpie hates the things. I have tried covering her with a blanket after she falls into a deep sleep, but this child will throw off the blanket even in deep sleep, and usually wake up as well. 

As I was wondering around IKEA (my last stop, and where I get many of my good ideas), I stumbled upon a huge pile of cheapo fleece blankets, and I got an idea. Instead of buying 2 yards of fleece, which would probably also be cheapo quality, why not buy a 6 dollar IKEA blanket and sew my own sleep sack? Yes, why not indeed? So, that's what I did.

Here is the blanket. 

I laid out her old sleep sack and drew new pattern pieces on baking paper. I didn't measure, but made them a generous two inches wider and 8 inches longer than the old sleep sack.

It also didn't occur to me to take pictures until after I was done, so I don't have many process pictures. I basically cut out the pieces leaving a roughly half inch seam allowance, sewed in my zipper, then sewed it all up. 

I added the flower and reinforced the arm holes and neck hole with a baste stitch, then used my new pinking shears (which I am disproportionately excited about) to give the edges a nice finish. No need to hem fleece. I also added a flap over the top of the zipper to keep it out of Moonpie's sight since she's just discovered that she can open zippers. She can also open velcro, but she doesn't know that it's there, so don't tell her, ok?

She likes this sleep sack, and it's nice and big so she can roll all around in bed without getting stuck or cold and waking up, so I figure this 8 dollar project has bought me hours of sleep. Hooray!

Raising a baby in Turkey - Part 1: It's getting hot in here. Take off those clothes. No, really.

Turks and Americans have some different ideas about raising babies. I thought I would share some. I'm going to be using sweeping generalizations, so please note that not ALL Americans and ALL Turks may be represented in my observations.

Turks believe that being cold, slightly chilly, or even barely warm will make you ill. Touching a cold wall will make you ill. Moving air will make you ill. If you eat ice cream in any month besides July or August you will probably die. You should not walk on exposed tiles in any weather at any time. They could be harboring a temperature below 90 degrees Fahrenheit and make you ill. I've also heard that stepping on an exposed tile floor will injure a woman's reproductive health, but I don't know how widely that is accepted.

Americans, on the other hand, believe in moving air. Oh, we love it. Especially people from Phoenix. We move our air around as much as possible. We set up fans upon fans upon fans strategically placed near air conditioning vents to accelerate already moving, cold air to make it faster and colder. We hate stagnant air, closed windows, and heat in general. Just move that air, baby. We also love, love, love cold tile. It keeps us cool, after all. We don't cover it up. We don't place a barrier between it and our feet. We lie down on it and roll around on it and generally try to transfer our body heat to it and other cool things.  All of these things are considered insanity for Turks, ways to insure a quick and sudden death.

In Turkey, sweat is bad because if air moves across it, YOU MIGHT COOL DOWN! Americans (at least in Phoenix) soak ourselves in water and then sit in front of moving air, preferably cold moving air. You get the idea.

So, Turks believe that babies should be wrapped in blankets. Lots of blankets. Fleece blankets. With hats. And socks. And multiple layers of clothing. In the summer. Or winter. Doesn't matter, really. Americans believe that babies should be kept as cool as possible without being freezing cold. Americans believe that being too warm can cause health problems, contribute to SIDS and just in general be very, very bad for babies.

This clash can cause problems for the American (and British person, I've heard) raising their baby in Turkey. Both groups are trying to do what's right, but the understanding of what's right are very, very different. Thankfully, doctors in Turkey are increasingly trying to educate people on the dangers of keeping babies too warm, so I've just been able to say, "The doctor said to keep the baby cool." Thank you, doctor, for saying that.

Re-thinking my daily routine - what really matters

I have felt inspired by a common theme lately – one of simplifying and prioritizing my life. I suppose becoming a mother has made me look harder at what is really important to me, and what I had just been doing out of habit. And yet, I’m now finishing up an 8 hour work day and getting ready to make the hour-long trek home on public transport (which I actually prefer to driving here in Turkey) where I will have about 30 minutes to do as much of the roughly 2 or 3 hours of housework waiting for me as I can before my husband and Moonpie come home, shortly after which I should have a hot dinner on the table, which first will need to be cleared off from all the stuff we dumped there yesterday, and, well, you get the idea. I feel overwhelmed a lot, and we don't have any huge issues. It's just LIFE. And I suspect that a lot of people are in the same boat. 

And yet, I found two sewing projects that I’d really like to do, but I don’t seem to have time. I have a few blog posts in my mind I’d like to write, but can’t find the time or mental clarity to bring them together. Other writing projects have been on hold for at least a month. Reading the Bible happens sporadically (I’m glad I have my verse-a-day calendar on my desk!), and more often than not I’m too tired and zoned out by the time Moonpie goes to bed to have any quality interactions with anyone.

Yay for verse-a-day calendars!

This post on The Art of Simple got me thinking, and this together with my continued goal of decluttering have inspired me to re-think my daily routine.

I’m going to commit to not looking at the computer at home, unless there is a really, really good reason. I already stare at the computer all day, and it’s just a bad habit. In my heart I’d rather look at the faces of my husband and daughter.

I’m also going to commit to keeping my morning quiet and simple. No checking of emails or news. I had the intention of doing Bible and devotional reading in the morning, but found myself watching a video about ISIS this morning. Not a great tone-setter for my day.

I’ve also decided that I’m going to give myself a 30 walk after lunch a few days a week. My mind is so cluttered most of the time, and the best way for me to clear it is usually walking, which is also great for my physical health.

The thing is, I have already purposed to do these things, but it’s so hard to change my routine. This morning I automatically reached for the ipad so I could read the news during breakfast, and I had to stop myself and say, “No, not gonna do that.” Today after lunch I’ll have to get my derriere off the chair and rip myself away from my coworkers’ conversations to go take a walk. I’m not really a list person, but I thought of making a list just to give me something to motivate my change. We’ll see. Maybe a list is a good idea.

Have you made a change to get out of a bad habit or simplify? What worked for you?

Baby update - We have a toddler!

Nearly there!

Moonpie is a walker, people, and I don’t mean that in “The Walking Dead” sense. Although she does try to bite me, we’re working on it, and she shows many signs of not being a zombie.

She was taking a step or two for a while (a month), but I refused to call it walking since it was just a more organized way of falling into my arms. But a week before her birthday she summoned enough coordination and balance to take 4 steps across our living room rug from me to her daddy. I started screaming, but then she was trying to understand if mommy screaming was a good or bad thing, so I had to tone it down a bit. She repeated that process many times, and has increased her steps to about 7 or 8. She can also walk without an adult there to catch her at the end, so I would say she’s officially walking now! Granted, she did a face plant last night, but I figure those are inevitable in her quest for independent movement. Thankfully, I was able to convince Mr. Stitches that we didn’t need to cover all of our hard surfaces in padding after said face plant as well. I love how he wants to protect her, though. So sweet.

She’s continuing to speak fluent baby – she uses very convincing intonation, though, so people have already started asking me what she’s saying, and I’m like, “Your guess is as good as mine, but I think in this instance she is referring to Newton’s First Law of Motion, as in ‘Let’s get this stroller moving, people!’” Or something like that.

Fun at the park

Anyway, that’s what we’re up to these days. Her sleep is still royally dysfunctional, so we are quite tired, but I hesitate to mention that for fear of sounding like a broken record. She’s also hard core teething some molars, so that is probably the reason for the sleep problems. Or any other of the 1,407 reasons babies don't sleep through the night. Sigh.

Decluttering, Take 2

I just wanted to update people since my decluttering post was by far my most popular post ever. Apparently lots of people are in the same boat as me, standing in their living rooms, thinking, "Who sneaked into my house and dropped a bunch of stuff off? Reverse burglary!" I saw this article in the New York Times that also caught my eye. There apparently is a trend of people having to pay people to help them get rid of their stuff before they downsize.

I'm actually really happy with our decluttering. Even after the four suitcases of stuff for Moonpie arrived, we are in good shape in terms of space. We had to rearrange a bit, and I am continuing to declutter little by little, so we are surprisingly a-ok. My latest declutters have been our bedside drawers, which we never open or use but were stuffed full of who knows what. Got rid of most of that. Turns out we had 3 cell phones that didn't work. Why we threw them in there is beyond me.

I also made a difficult decision to get rid of some hand-me-downs given to Moonpie. They were all so cute, but for older children, minimum 5 years old, so I realized that I would be storing them for at least 4 more years, but we need space now. We're also tentatively planning on moving in the next 2 years, so the thought of storing and moving things that she may or many not use in 4 years was sounding more and more ridiculous. I sorted through everything, kept some things that she could use now, tossed some random things, and passed on most of it to a little 5 year old girl who REALLLLY appreciates it. Toys should be played with, clothes should be worn, and I felt a little selfish keeping these items for my daughter who already has more toys and clothes than she really needs. However, I also felt bad knowing that they were given to us for Moonpie to enjoy, but we passed them on. Oh well.

So, after the dust settled I decided to make the bathroom my next goal for decluttering. I had a sneaking suspicion that I don't use 90% of my makeup. I use 4 items every day, but had to scratch and claw through a huge pile of other things to find them...everyday. It was time. Here was the result:

What I had:

What I usually use daily:

What I kept:

I still have too much eye shadow, considering I don't really use it. At least I've pared down, and I can revisit that later.

So, there's my decluttering update. A few of you let me know that you were inspired to declutter after reading my post and The Simple White Rabbit.

How is your decluttering going? Updates, please!