What's in that bottle again?

Photos linked

I've added a link on the Picasa page ("Get your O's on") to Hasan's public gallery, so that in addition to admiring Ozan you can check out pictures of Melek as well. There are also some priceless pictures of the two of them together.

Scary little man

Ozan's babysitter teaches him various cute things from time to time. The latest one is that when you say "Ozan, how do you scare me [nasıl korkutuyorsun beni]," he goes "Oooooooo." As seen here:



Sometimes he even makes a scary face, although not in this example. He does look proud of himself though.

Citizen Ozan (cont'd)

As we were promised, Ozan's passport came in about a week, and our hero is now a fully-documented U.S. citizen! He can't wait to start paying for the baby boomers' retirement.



His passport is much cooler than mine. The front cover has electronics embedded in it, and the pages inside have color pictures of American scenes (Mount Rushmore, clipper ships, etc.) and quotes from Important People. But mine expires next year, so I'll catch up in the passport-coolness department then. My picture won't look as good as Ozan's does though.

Citizen Ozan

Today we took Ozan over to the U.S. Consulate to file the paperwork to get him a passport and a Social Security number. I was nervous on many counts: would Ozan behave, would the bureaucrats be officious, would my various forms be in order, etc. But everything went smoothly. In particular, I was immensely proud of Ozan, who not only didn't squirm or cry, but rather proved himself the big hit of the Consular Services waiting room, flirting with other people, swishing a wet wipe along the floor as if he were cleaning it, and generally being cute. He was patient, too, given that we ended up staying well into his late-morning nap time. His passport should take seven to ten days to arrive (they'll UPS it), but the Social Security number could take up to six months. Annoying, but seeing the benefits will take even longer....

Melek in motion

Ozan's cousin Melek is more advanced in the locomotion department than he is. She can even walk a few steps unaided (!). Far cooler, though, is her trick of doing a bunny hop on her knees, as seen here:

Fearsome powers of concentration

When Ozan wants to look at something, boy, don't mess with him. Here the object of his scrutiny is the TV, and even maternal affection gets the brush-off.

California dreamin'

We've been laboring under a loooooong spell of rotten weather. Nothing like you poor souls on the East Coast have been getting, but just cruddy: gray, rainy and cold for weeks. (The sole benefit is that the public water reservoirs are now up to something like 77% full, meaning that unlike last year, we won't have a water-shortage scare if it's hot this summer.) Today, though, the sun finally made a convincing effort to shine and even (gasp!) warmed the place up a bit, perhaps to the high 40s, prompting my esteemed colleague from Southern California to observe that this type of weather was about as bad as it ever gets during their winters. Huh. Softies.

Just in case you don't watch the alert on the right, I've posted a bunch of new Ozan pics on the Picasa site, including a bunch from a recent breakfast we had with family. Meltem made pancakes from scratch, God bless her, and we even splurged on a bottle of maple syrup, only available as an expensive import. Oh, I was in heaven. Ozan and Melek had some quality playtime, as you can see in the photos. Now that the weather is turning, we hope to bring His Four-Toothed Majesty outside more often, to let him get acquainted with his realm. In the meantime he is unquestionably ruler of our little hole in the wall.