An update post 4th birthday

We are nearing our trip to Australia and I have to say for 6 months Azra has been asking about it and anticipating it. I have been saying when it gets colder we will go to Australia and now for a coupel of months it has been getting colder and Azra has been saying, soon we will go to Australia and I will see my granma, then followed by everyone else. Note that granma is coming first now! Interesting. Here is the latest artwork that Azra did all by herself and is called 'granma- so this is ma'

And here is Azra with her friend Ali at our newly opened studio in Kalamis, Istanbul. Shall we exploit them and use them as our marketing tool? Who wouldn't want to come for a massage or yoga class at a place where even the kids are relaxed???

And here are some photos from Azra's 4th birthday 5 months later....

As there are daily protests in here and have been so for more than 2 weeks, Azra is nearing her 4th Birthday. I thought I should update with some recent photos!
Here is Azra's first costume day. She was excited to be Minnie mouse. Later though she shared the fact that she wasn't really happy that mummy had made her a red dress rather than a pink dress! 

 Taken at the tulip festival at the end of April.

 When she finally understood that she wasn't allowed to touch the flowers, she compromised with ripping up grass and sprinkling that on top of the tulips!

Azra  at a new park

Azra's 3rd birthday

It was Azra's 3rd birthday. Another year has passed. It is 2012. Another year of blindly finding ones way through parenting! What a year it has been. The major development is language of course. She is now pretty capable in both languages. I love it when she says things like 'If you like, I can get you some tissues, if you like' or 'My undies got wet, that is why I took them off, that is why'. I do wish though that she would sleep better at night. But I also think that even if I had a 1 night holiday that I would still wake up the 2 times (or more) that she wakes up now. Just think it has been another year of the depletion of my kidney energy. No wonder the last few months have been predominated with some level of illness for me. Anway way we had her birthday in the same park as we have done it before and this week her friend's 1st birthday party was held in the same place today. She had a great time at both parties! But today was a bit warmer (much) and she spent some of the time in the water as well! She was very cognizant of her birthday party this year and for 1 week beforehand was asking for an aeroplane cake. I was thinking how to do this and in the end I decided to just make a chocolate cherry cake, all organic. She loves chocolate and so I decided to compromise with her usual healthful eating seeing that it's her birthday, but also thought I would throw in many cherries as well so as to make it a little healthy. And I can't get her to eat fruit in it's normal form , except for icecream (yoghurt, milk and fruit and maybe a little cream and maybe even honey sometimes). Anyway as I got it out of the tin for some reason the cake decided to break up. I though oh no how can I use it now, maybe I have to buy a cake. But then though why not take the pieces and see if I can create an aeroplane. Well, she loved it and everyone else loved the cake itself! And she loved the cream that was used to write on the top as well!

Here is a little snippet from Azra's summer show on the weekend. She was a parrot. She was very quiet, especially if you consider that she is the only one whose English is her mother tongue. She was far more interested in looking at all the parents sitting watching. This was her first show whereeas the other children it was at least their second show if not more. She was probably trying to understand what was actually going on. It was nice how the date coincided with father's day. A nice father's day present for Azra's father and all the other dads there.

Azra is at school!

Azra is almost 3 years old and we decided that it was time she go to school. I am going everyday anyway and we want her to get used to going to school after the summer holidays, so we decided it was time that Azra start going to school 2 days a week. What a big thing for me. Of course it is always the mother who has to get the child ready, the child's bag, the child's breakfast, not to mention herself.... what happened to gender equity, well you could say that it doesn't actually exist, or at least not here! Anyway Azra is enjoying school very much. She loves the teacher, she talks about her friends and of course she loves going to school as we ride the bike, she's on the back watching the other people, or looking at the animals, the sea and whatever, or sometimes learning words from me like 'stupid' when there is someone who is walking on the bike track and then of course she repeats this word over and over to my chagrin. I realise that I have to keep my comments to myself about the people in our way! She has been going to school for 4 weeks now but the last week she got really ill, cold, fever, conjunctivitis, but we have been able to get her to heal naturally, but of course mum gets ill as well.
It is now one week later and I am able to write again! Azra is practising at school for the summer show which is on Friday. There are 5 more days of school left! Wow fantastic! Of course I will miss the kids though! I will post a photo here maybe of Azra performing! We also went to Bodrum a month ago to enjoy hot weather of course now here it is very hot! 

Azra is now 2 and 5 months

A long time has passed since I last wrote here. Almost 6 months which in anybody's life is a long time but in a 2 year old's life oh so much more. What developments we have seen in the last 6 months. She is now speaking 2 languages pretty well, forming sentences in both, being funny in both. The first picture is obviously of her 2nd birthday and now after a few of her friends having birthday parties she has a good concept of what birthdays are! And the second is of her third beach experience, although this one is in Singapore on the way to Australia. She was an absolute hit in Singapore. I thought she was regarded as such in Turkey but they relaly loved her in Singapore, young adult boys and girls even! The third and fourth are from our trip in Australia with family, her cousins, uncle and grandmother. Since our trip to Australia she has been cementing her friendships in the local park, developing her social nature, and getting on the back of my bike which she loves oh so much! She has been growing and developing her linguistic skills as well. She can count to 10 now in both languages, sing the ABC song as well as loads of other songs. She has really favourite books. Her current one is 'the tiger skin rug' which is a lovely storybook, on account of that one of her latest words is Rajah! Here she is wearing her favourite accessory: sunglasses, whoever is brave enough to give them to her! And there she is making friends on holiday. The photo on the lounge is one of the latest ones although it doesn't seem very wintery. She likes being clotheless! Although the difference is that now she is toilet trained. In the last photo she is playing with the sewing machine as she loves to do whenever she sees it out! I haven't got a photo but I bought her some rainboots which she loves going outside in and splashing in every puddle that she can find. Now there is no excuse for her not going outside in the rain. she wears her raincoat, rainboots and even takes her umbrella - every prevention. I now am at home a little more at least some afternoons, I usually have to do some work. At first it was impossible to do work but she is starting to understand explanations and now lets me work at home. This is a huge relief!
It's getting close to Christmas. We put up the Christmas tree and every day she has been taking it down redecorating it! Happy Christmas!

Azra is getting very close to her 2nd birthday, just one more month! Now adays she is spending alot of time outside in the sun, in the park or with the flowers as the photo shows, she is trying to blow the dandelions but actually just gets all the bits over her mouth. In the second photo in one of the parks we go to there is a dog pen and she loves nothing more than to go into that pen and pretend she is a dog, if there are dogs there than she spends all of her time just trying to talk to them rather than playing in the playground! Developmentally how is she doing? Let's see, linguistically she is still just saying words, words as varied from 'itchy' to 'chicken' and in Turkish she says acayim mi? alot- shall I open it. No stringing words togther yet. Physically she is a little monkey, climbing up chains in the park or going over the top of the monkey bars, holding on to the sides, she is far above the kids her age at the park, but that is more to do with Turkish parents than with Azra as they tend to overprotect rather than let their kids free. They always have plenty to say to me! She kisses alot. That is me and her father and her nanny but also other kids at the park, it is very cute! She has all her teeth but the very back ones. In terms of food she eats no fruit unless the apple has been cooked and we can maybe sneak some grated kiwi or something into it or she east dried fruit. Vegetables...well she will eat soups and things but only really peas, carrots or potatoes but also raw mushrooms. Her favourites are still fish, chicken or turkey or bread, bulgur or rice. She loves her food though. Apparently that is very cancer sign or so says my friend. She has the biggest belly of all her friends in the park! Now though she has learnt to touch and point to ours! Fair enough I guess, even if demoralising! She also loves putting our shoes on. I guess this is normal, her friend ali put on a show for her while wearing his mother's shoes a few months ago. I also remember a photo of me doing the same. Nowadays she is on her artistic phase, drawing over everything, in the hope of preventing that I put paper on the walls but it doesn't entirely prevent her from drawing elsewhere! She is great fun, laughing all the time, at us, at herself, crying, playing....