Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

But they might put her in a bathroom.

After a few rough nights of a screaming, jet-lagged baby, and a few days of said baby not napping well (seriously, why do my children not like to sleep, even when exhausted?), we decided that maybe if we moved Noel's bed somewhere where it was darker that it might encourage better naps during the day, which would encourage better sleep at night, and so forth.

Well, our apartment isn't really that big. And there weren't that many options available. So...to the back bathroom it was! We haven't really used that bathroom in four or five months, but Shannon had cleaned it while I was gone and begun to use it, so we just moved all the shampoo and stuff back into the other bathroom, moved the pack-n-play in, and viola! Noel has her own room!

Snoozin' away!

Haha, well, not really. BUT. I think it did help. It's quieter back there because it's got an extra wall and an extra door between that room and the rest of the apartment. It's darker because there are no windows. I don't think she hears us when we crawl into bed or roll over anymore. She hasn't slept through the night in a month now, partly due to jet-lag and partly due to growth spurt (and probably partly due to habit now, which we'll work on breaking in three weeks [more on that later] if she's still doing it then), but the night after we moved her into the bathroom she began going right back to sleep after eating in the middle of the night. And her naps improved.

I'm going to call it a win, even if it is a little unorthodox.

Filter Check

In Turkey, the tap water is not safe to drink. Everyone either buys bottled water or uses a high-grade water filter. Since we lived in other peoples' homes for a year, we got to experience both, so when it came time to get our own apartment, we opted for a filter (especially since we bought a used one from someone else leaving the country, so we got a great deal on it).

Having the filter has been great, because it means that we never run out of clean water. We never have to wait on water delivery. I can use filtered water for things like soup or rice (that would be boiled anyways and technically probably ok to drink) without feeling the slightest bit like I was using our clean water unwisely.

A few weeks ago I mentioned to Shannon that I thought our water tasted funny. He didn't think so, so I let it go. Then a few days later, Shannon said that he thought our water tasted funny. So we decided that maybe it was time to change the filters.

Yeah...I think it was time.

See those two clean, white filters? And see the two yucky brown ones in the dish behind the white ones? Yeah...gross.

The one with the blue top is filter number 2 out of a five filter system, and the new one looks about the same as the old one...as far as we can tell. We figured that if numbers 1 and 3 looked as bad as they did, surely number 2 needed to be changed as well!

Our elaborate water filtration system.

The tank on the left is the holding tank for clean water, and it travels through a hose up toward our sink where we can get our clean water out of a spigot. The three filters on the right are the first three filters (the three that you can see in the first photo above), and then there are two smaller filters on top of the three larger filters.

Taking the filter apart...

So Shannon and I spent an hour or so one afternoon with lots of towels, wrenches, our box of new filters, and the instruction manual taking the thing apart and putting it back together, trying not to throw up as we thought about how brown the used filters were.

And you know what? The water tastes normal again.

Maybe Shannon should listen to me the first time when I say stuff like that the water tastes funny!

Someone Loves Me

A couple of weeks ago Shannon came home and brought me a pin. He said that another friend gave it to him to give to me because it would mean something to me.

The apostrophe should be over the "S"..."Ktoś Mnie Kocha."

So, he handed the pin over and I looked at it and thought, "'Someone loves me.' Ok...well, it's Turkish and since Shannon doesn't speak Turkish, I guess that's why she gave it to him to give to me."

Shannon then asked me if it meant anything to me and I repeated my above thought. He replied, "Oh. She said it was Polish."

Then I looked at the pin again and realized that indeed, it was written in Polish. Is it sad when you have so many languages in your brain that you can look at or hear something that's not in your native language and know that you understand it, but you're not sure which language it is? My poor brain...

Sure enough. Polish indeed.

Daylight What?

Surely I am not the only parent who loathes Daylight Saving Time.

I can't even remember if we're "on" or "off" of Daylight Saving Time. Does it actually save daylight? Does it really matter if in the winter the sun comes up an hour earlier? It's still dark when you go to work whether the sun comes up at 7:30 or at 8:30! I just really don't get it. I like the longer days that come with summer, I really do. I like the sun not coming up at oh-dark-thirty. But the confusion that amasses...oh, the confusion.


Sunset as seen from our living room window.

First off, there's Fall Back (I don't know if Fall Back is going on to or off of Daylight Saving Time). To combat Fall Back we very gradually moved Lane's nap and bedtimes later by five minutes each day for about two weeks, so by the time Fall Back Day came, she went to bed at her normal time and woke up at her normal time, so she didn't wake up an hour early. It worked pretty well, I suppose.

But now it's Spring Forward. And I have a toddler who's eating real meals and snacks and is only taking one nap a day. She's been waking up in the 6 o'clock hour for the past couple of weeks and ready for her nap by 10:30 or 11:00. We've been eating meals ridiculously early for the past week, lunch at 10:45 some days and dinner before 5:00, because Lane's been waking up so early that it throws our whole day off. I decided to embrace it a couple of days ago so that when tomorrow comes, our schedule will be normal and we'll be getting hungry at "normal" times and Lane will be ready for her nap at noon or 12:30. I will be glad when the sun comes up later.

Europe/Asia does Daylight Saving Time at a different time than the U.S. does it, a week later for Fall Back and two weeks later for Spring Forward. So when normally my mom in Alaska is 11 hours back, for the past two weeks she's only been 10 hours back. And then there are the states that don't do Daylight Saving Time at all, and if you need to call someone in one of those, you're never sure what time it is. Then there are individual countries (ahem, like TURKEY) that decide they don't want to do Daylight Saving Time on the same day as all the other countries in the area, so they choose to do it a day late (and a dollar short?). Apparently university entrance exams were scheduled for today and they didn't want students to miss out on their extra hour of sleep last night (so instead they're going to make all "real" workers miss out on their extra hour of sleep tonight). So we do Daylight Saving Time tonight at 3:00 a.m. Can you imagine the mess at airports? Today, for one day only, Turkey was on the same time as the majority of Europe. Tomorrow we'll be back to being an hour ahead.

Seriously, why can't the clocks just stay as they are? Why can't we stay on Spring Forward Time? Nobody really cares if the sun comes up earlier in the winter: we all would rather have that hour of daylight in the afternoon, not in the morning. It's not helping anyone get out of bed any earlier! And it's screwing my kid's sleeping schedule up. It's one big mess, I tell you, one big mess. And I don't like it one bit.

***Did you know that it's Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight Savings Time? 'Fess up...who's been saying it wrong? ***

What I Learned Today

Did you know that butter can mold? Did you? Well, it can. Ask me how I know.

I dare you.

Today in the midst of making a lasagna, cleaning the kitchen, and baking a chocolate cake, I found out firsthand that butter can, indeed, mold.

Halfway through my chocolate cake adventure, I went to measure out the butter. I used the remaining couple of tablespoons from one package and opened the second, newer package (maybe a week or two old) to find…well, I’ll spare you a photo, but let’s just say…butter covered in mold.

Disgusting.

What on earth am I to do? Lane’s asleep and I’m making a cake because our language tutor and our babysitter are coming over in less than two hours. I can’t go to the store because Shannon’s gone and Lane is sleeping. So I did what any frugal, desperate, woman would do.

*Let me chase a rabbit here. Did you know that in Istanbul, real butter is $2-$3 per 250 grams (1/2 pound)? And while margarine is much cheaper it’s…gross. Hot water (and I mean, hot, boiling water) and soap won’t get it out of a measuring cup. It won't melt. I can’t imagine what that stuff does to your arteries!*

So, what did I do? I cut that mold off and used the middle, not-moldy, part. It was my only option, really.

What would you have done?

Seriously?

Does my child look like a boy? Today we went to a local mall (Lane loves the mall, by the way). She was wearing cute beige Mary Janes, brown pants, a long sleeved white onesie, and a green flowy top with big white daisies on it.



We got asked twice if she was a boy.

Before we had her, I really did not want a ton of pink stuff. I like green and yellow and white and purple, and pink too. But too much pink, I did not want. Well, as it turned out, I didn't buy most of Lane's clothes. Most of them were given to us, and the clothes I have bought have been boring things to make the cute things stretch into winter: tights, neutral pants, neutral onesies, etc. So guess what?



We have a lot of pink.

But here it doesn't seem to matter. I can dress her in ALL pink. Or purple. She can be wearing dress shoes, Mary Janes, a bow in her hair, pants with flowers or socks with ruffles and people ALWAYS ask if she's a girl or a boy.

SERIOUSLY? Does this look like a boy?:



No kidding, the day we took her out in that dress (and took this picture to go along with my facebook status that day), we got asked twice if she was a boy. TWICE. It's pink and ruffle-y and a DRESS for crying out loud!

I really, really don't understand it. I mean, when I'm out and about here, playing at the park, going to the store, whatever, I can usually tell if the child is a girl or a boy. I don't need to ask. The only time I wasn't sure was last week when the child had on pink shoes and a boyish green top.



But really. Some days I dress Lane and I look at her and I say to her, "If anyone asks me if you're a boy today I am going to scream." And then I invariably get asked 3 or 4 or even 5 times what gender she is. Pink socks with ruffles. Pink shoes. Tights with flowers. Pink skirt. Pink top with bows. Pink mittens. Pink jacket. Pink hat. Pink, pink, PINK.

No, my daughter is NOT A BOY.

It's a good thing she has hair. Goodness, can you imagine how bad it would be if she didn't? I'm thinking of getting her ears pierced, but having trouble convincing Shannon, darn him...

Anyone want to back me up?

Click below if you enjoy my posts, please! I jumped from number 598 to number 66 in just twow days...THANKS!

All it Takes to Get an Ikamet

Is a million trips to the Eminyet.

Ok, maybe not a million, but in our cases, it took four trips to the Eminyet. I'm not sure what the exact translation of "Eminyet" is, so how about "Residence permit place"? Anyhow, it all started a couple of months ago when we got an appointment for November 9th to go to the Eminyet and apply for our ikamets (residence permits). On November the 9th we got up super early in order to make sure we all got there on time, and since we'd never been there before and Istanbul is a typical big city of, oh, 18 million people, we figured we'd need lots of time.

Side note: a trip to the Eminyet is not a short trip, nor is it a piece of cake. First, we have to walk five minutes to the bus stop and catch a minibus. "What's a minibus?" you might be wondering. A minibus is a little blue bus. They have insane drivers, and the drivers are contracted out (or something like that), so they either fly like bats out of hell or they stop at a stop and wait forever in order to load up on passengers.


A minibus, pulling out of "minibus row."

Anyways. We take a minibus to end of the line and then walk to the ferry port, which altogether takes about 30 minutes. Next we have to board a ferry, wait for it to leave, and sail across the Bosphorus. This also takes about 30 minutes.


Chillin' on the ferry.

After departing the ferry, we walk to the tram stop (about 5-8 minutes) and wait for a tram. When a tram comes, we cram inside and ride it about 20 minutes. We get out of the tram, cross a pedestrian overpass, and walk another 10 or so minutes to the metro station. We then wait a few minutes on the metro, take it 1 stop, and come up from underground. We walk another few minutes and then we're finally there.


The Eminyet.

So, about 2 hours after leaving our front door on November 9th, we finally make it to the Eminyet. We apply for our residence permits and are told to come back on Friday and that they'll be ready for us. So we make the trek home: walk, metro, walk, tram, walk, ferry, walk, minibus, walk, home.


Riding on a minibus. No seat belts. No car seats. Pray fervently.

Friday we went back to the Eminyet, but this time we caught a ride with some friends who were hoping to pick up their residence permits too. So, we walked to this guy's office, waited a few minutes on him, drove with him to pick up his wife, and then drove to the Eminyet. Total time: about two hours. And we arrived to this:

An insane amount of people crammed into the waiting room.

Can you see the tiny door in the back right of the photo? You shove your way through the crowd, turn in a piece of paper, and wait for them to call your name. Yes, that's right. They call your name. From that office. And then they wait for you to come in and pick up your permit. So, after waiting nearly an hour we lucked out and they called our names and Shannon was close enough to hear. I was in the back trying to get some breathing room with Lane, so I shoved and pushed my way through the crowd and finally made it to the front. Things are looking great, we sign for our ikamets, and then they tell us that Lane's isn't ready yet and we need to come back in 10 days (after the week-long holiday) to get hers. "Do we both need to come?" we asked. "No, just one of you." Well, that was a relief, because each time we go to the Eminyet Lane misses at least one of her naps and is just a grouch. So we started the trek home, since it was rush hour and we didn't want to be stuck in a car at rush hour with our friends. Walk, metro, walk, tram, walk, ferry, minibus, walk, home. (And we made it home before our friends did.)


That night at least we got views like this on our ferry ride.

"Well," we're thinking. " Two out of three isn't bad. And at least we don't both have to go to get Lane's."


Waiting on a tram to take us to the ferry. Or to within a 10-minute walk, at any rate.

Wednesday the 24th, Shannon went back to the Eminyet with our same friend from before, who hadn't gotten his that previous day either. And guess what? We both did need to be there to get Lane's ikamet. Sigh.


Lane's first metro ride ever, and my first ride in Turkey.

So on Thanksgiving Day we all got up and left the apartment at 7 a.m. Walk, minibus, walk, ferry, walk, tram, walk, metro, walk, Eminyet. Fortunately this time we only had to wait about 15 minutes. We signed some paperwork. The lady thoroughly examined Shannon's passport photo against Shannon himself. And we got Lane's ikamet and began the trek home. Walk, metro, walk, tram, walk, ferry, walk, minibus, walk, home.

4 trips to Europe. 3 missed naps. 1 car ride each for Michelle and Lane, 3 car rides for Shannon. 5 ferry rides, 5 minibus rides, 5 tram rides, and 5 metro rides each. Approximately $60 in transportation costs. And approximately 19 hours of traveling or waiting at the Eminyet.

And we're legal to stay in Turkey until next October.

Hallelujah.

I'm Losing It

My hair, that is.

I had heard that after you have a baby your hair falls out. But I didn't believe it. I mean, while I was pregnant my gums didn't bleed, I never peed my pants, and I could always still put my own shoes and socks on. So I figured that this was just one of those things that people say but that doesn't actually to happen to anyone except a select few.


An average pull for my hairbrush.

I guess I'm one of those "select few."

Seriously, I should be bald by now. If I lose this much hair every day, how is it possible that I'm not bald? I brush my hair more often now, because I'm tired of finding my hair strewn about the house. I brush it in the morning when I first wake up. I brush it before I take a shower. I brush it after I take a shower and while/after blow drying it. I brush it before I go to bed. And my hair. is. everywhere.


The bigger picture: hair, hair, everywhere!

I've taken to brushing it over the bathroom sink, because at least that way I can gather it all up and throw it away. I pull it out of the shower drain basket-thingy (anyone know that that thing is actually called?). I find it on my clothes. I find it in my daughter's fists. And, heaven forbid, sometimes I find it in my food.

Oh my.

Has anyone else out there experienced this? How long will it last? Can I do anything to encourage my hair's roots to stay put? I'm usually not one to use a million beauty products, but this...this, I cannot handle much longer.

Maybe I should just get pregnant again. That might work.

The Color Purple

Last night, right as we were getting home from home group, Lane threw up all over me. She was strapped up against me in the Ergo and right as we got in the door, bananas and milk, all over mom. And all over Lane too, of course. We're still not sure what exactly caused her to upchuck her entire dinner, but we think it might have had something to do with the heat and the jostling from the walk home.

Anyways, we make our way into the bathroom and get me and Lane undressed and into the shower, leaving our banana-and-milk-covered clothing on the floor and in the sink. After getting cleaned up, more milk in Lane, and her in the bed, I went to tend to the banana/milk mess. I quickly rinsed the puke out of her clothing and mine as best I could and threw them in the wash, adding other clothes from the hamper to make a full load. I even set the wash on a longer cycle to make sure to get all the banana puke out. So, an hour later when I went to get the clothes to hang them to dry, imagine my chagrin (nice word, huh?) when I opened the washer door and out fell our clothes with a horrid, purplish tint to them.


The culprit.

Oh yeah, that's right, I hadn't yet washed the skirt I had been wearing.

Sigh. What was already a long night (I mean, with getting puked on and having to do laundry at 9:30 at night and all) turned even longer as I tried my darndest to get the horrible purple tint out of our clothes.


What used to be my favorite towel of Lane's. Now it's no longer pink, but instead looks like it was used to dry Barney off after he got caught in a downpour.

Success and I did not meet.


This onesie used to be green. The couch is beige. Now they match.

Lane's poor little socks are no longer a cute shade of pink but look like they were swallowed and regurgitated by the Purple People Eater. Her washcloths look reminiscent of rags used to dry hair after it's been dyed brown. My favorite bra is no longer beige, but instead is a hideous shade of pink. And Shannon's underwear...oh, the poor guy. They're not grey anymore, but look like they were on the losing end of a fight with Barbie.


I think this used to be green. Or blue. It's hard to tell.

And you all thought I was going to talk about the movie, I bet.

Diary of a Spider Bite

As some of you know, a few weeks ago I was bitten by a brown recluse spider. It was a Friday evening, and I didn't even know that it had happened. That night, in the midst of getting up four times to nurse Lane, I scratched the bite. Saturday morning the bite had swollen up a bit, but not enough for me to think it was anything more than a mosquito bite, since I swell up pretty badly when bitten by mosquitoes. However, by Saturday evening when we arrived at my dad's house, it had swollen up a bit more, enough to where my stepmom thought I should go to the ER. Well, I didn't want to go to the ER just to pay $1000 or so for them to write me a prescription, so I figured I'd wait until the next day and go to an Urgent Care place (the ones in Asheville were closed by the time we go there on Saturday night).

Sunday morning my leg looked like this:


The inner black lines are where I drew around the swelling on Saturday night before going to bed. The outer black lines are where it had swollen to by Sunday morning.

Sunday morning my leg had swollen even more and I was limping because the muscles surrounding the bite were extremely sore. I have a cousin who's a pharmacist that we'd be seeing later in the day at my sister's house, so I thought I'd wait until then and ask her what she thought. Well, the first thing she said was "you need antibiotics." So off to the Urgent Care we went. The doctor there gave me two prescriptions, neither of which I remember the names of, but one was an antibiotic and the other was a steroid. I took my first dose on Sunday afternoon.

By noon on Tuesday my leg looked like this:


The redness had gone down, as had the swelling. With the quarter there you can see just how much of my leg had been swollen!

I continued taking my drugs and by Thursday you could barely tell that I had been bitten:


Thursday morning. You can still see where I was bitten, but all the swelling was gone.

So, all this to say: if you're ever bitten by something and you start to swell up like I did, go to the doctor. Then you won't end up with a hole in your flesh. I thought about borrowing a picture from another website, but they're quite disgusting and I didn't want to make anyone puke. So...hip hip hooray for modern medicine for saving my leg!

You've Got Mail

Today when Shannon's mom and stepdad came over for dinner they brought us our mail. It included:

-A congratulations card and check for Lane.
-A notice from Blue Cross Blue Shield saying "your care provider may bill you X amount of dollars."
-A notice from Alaska Airlines saying that our annual fee of $75 would be added to our upcoming credit card statement. This account was closed two months ago.
-A bank statement from Wachovia. This account was closed one month ago.
-Bills for our health insurance for the month of April. We canceled our health insurance about three weeks ago since we'll have new health insurance through our new jobs.
-Tampon samples for Shannon. I mean, he is a 14-year old girl, right?

Anyone else notice a pattern here? Wasted postage! (Well, except for the card and the check...we appreciate that!) How much less could be charged for things like health insurance and annual fees if companies would not mail out unnecessary crap? I'm just saying...

And Today's Word of the Day is...

...hematoma.

Anybody out there know what it means? I'll give you a hint: it's a big, fancy word for a very common injury:

A bruise.

Who knew, huh?

Anyways, our daughter has a cephalhematoma, meaning some of the blood vessels between her skull and the membrane that covers her skull ruptured during labor. It's on her head, and it was probably caused when she got "stuck" at about seven cm during labor. Basically, this all translates into: our daughter has a great big lump on her head. It's soft and squishy but raised, making her look even more conehead-ish than newborns already do. The bruise should go down within another 4-6 weeks as her blood cycles through.


If you look closely you can see that her head is not round and that there is a bump stretching from over her left eyebrow to over her left ear.

Speaking of blood cycling through, did you know that adults' blood cycles through about every 90 days but that babies' blood cycles through in about six weeks?

As Lane's blood cycles through, the hematoma should go down. The blood will be reabsorbed into her brain, which is totally normal since that's where the blood came from in the first place. However, it will probably leave a very hard spot on her head where it was.

Interesting, no?

Midnight Munchies

Shannon always thinks it's really funny that I get hungry so late at night. What can I say? I have a high metabolism. So last night I got myself a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats and settled into the warm bed to eat them. And Shannon laughed at me.