I have to say, Ozan is one lucky little camper. For one thing, he was born between snowstorms. Snow is a pain anywhere, but it really shuts down Istanbul, and we were sorely afraid that one would come when we had to travel between home and hospital (a 40-minute drive in zero traffic, lengthening exponentially when there is traffic – Meltem once got caught in Ramadan traffic and it took three hours – and don't even THINK about what it's like in bad weather). Happily, one snowfall came and went while we were in the hospital for his birth, melting in time for us to take him home, and another socked us this past weekend, when we were getting used to his needs and routine. I snapped a picture of a cool killer icicle hanging over our balcony:
So, while the snow made everyone else's life hell around here, we just hung around the apartment and got to know our new family member. Meltem's mom is staying with us for a while to help out, and let me just say GOD BLESS HER for it!! Here she is with our hero:
Since he is but a little critter, as yet undeveloped in too many ways to count, there is only so much we can do with Ozan besides feed him (seemingly endlessly!), watch him sleep, and clean his tuckus. Therein lies a tale (tail?). Having only recently exited his nine-month sojourn in Club Womb, Ozan, like all babies, really doesn't like being naked and exposed, making changing-time a bit of a noisy, struggle-filled ordeal. Enter a family friend, who heard somewhere about a trick you can do: While changing your baby, you aim a hairdryer at his exposed parts (on low power and from a safe distance, to be sure). Both the noise and the warmth have a soothing effect. It works like a charm on Ozan, to our surprise and delight.
Here's something else that's nifty. Meltem picked up a cool little "baby book" for Ozan. It has a dozen or so simple and bold patterns in black and white with some red highlights (spirals, checkerboards, etc.). Supposedly babies like to look at them because their eyes can focus on strongly contrasting simple elements like that. It certainly works for Ozan, because in the few minutes a day that he practices this new thing called Being Alert, he definitely likes to check out the book:
Last bit of news: Today we took Ozan back to the hospital to get circumcised. We were going to do it right after birth, but apparently his blood didn't clot well enough yet, so we put it off until today. All went well, and the nurse said he didn't cry at all. Now I wouldn't normally blog about such a thing (and you'll be happy to hear I have no pictures to post), but circumcision is a big deal here, a male rite of passage, and the whole family was very happy for our little patient. So I'm sharing.
2 comments:
I am becoming addicted to your blog now that Ozan is here. Years from now, I will run into him somewhere and tell him how from halfway around the world, I read all about his entrance into this world. And yes, he will be very happy that you did not post photos of his earliest male rite of passage.
Yeah, I could probably get arrested for that!
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