OK, now this is scary

So we're watching TV just now, and we decide that since we've seen this episode of How I Met Your Mother at least four times, we should turn the TV off. Which we did. Ozan, surprised at the sudden cutoff, goes up to the set and pushes one of the channel buttons, so the TV goes back on. Impressive, but that's not the scary part: I said "Hey Ozan, could you put on CNN for me?" and by God, he DID IT. This entailed pushing the same channel button two more times and then stopping. We've got a little genius on our hands. Or at least a CNN fan.

You like me! You really like me!

Today, I must admit, I Googled myself to see if there were any comments on my recent lectures floating around yet. Lo and behold, I actually found one! This person had very nice things to say about me and my course. Thanks to her.

I also solved a minor little mystery. In one of the lectures I gave in the first session I noticed a guy in the back furiously keying stuff into his iPhone with his thumbs. I figured he was just taking notes in a particularly ergonomically unfriendly way. Turns out he was "tweeting," i.e. posting a running series of comments to Twitter. You can see the results here. They're in reverse chronogical order, so keep scrolling down to get an idea of how my (third) lecture went.

What we're doin'

I came back from a very successful trip to the States last week. In fact, I would say it was one of the greatest achievements of my life – in a very real sense, I worked for 20 years to be able to give such lectures, and it was capped off by the awareness as I finished the very last lecture that this really was the best work I had ever done. (My good friend Dennis attended the lectures, and offers his own synopsis here.) Perhaps the greatest success, though, was when I came home and Ozan called me "Baba" with a clear understanding of what it meant.

The weekend after I returned, we headed off to our summer place on the outskirts of Istanbul. The weather was quite nice, so we took Ozan down to the "beach" (really a sand lot next to a concrete platform on the shore of the Sea of Marmara). That boy was one happy little merman! Meltem carried him out into the water a little bit, and he splashed around and squealed like crazy. He even cried when we tried to take him back to shore. Given his predilection for squirming around on land or sea (including an alarming penchant for throwing himself backward in a kind of attempted rear somersault), I'd say he is really turning into an athletic little guy. The intellectual within him will emerge at some point in the future... I hope...

Whatever else he is, Ozan is certainly independent-minded. He wants to do everything by himself and gets quite annoyed if you try to help out. (Wonder where he got that from.) Today, for example, when I was heading out the door to go to work, Ozan saw me going and decided he was coming too. So he took his own sandals and handed them to the nanny. As she stood there laughing at his cuteness, he lifted one leg way up to try to put his foot into one of the sandals in her hands. All accompanied by his stubborn "Uh! Uh! Uh!" noises. That just made my day.

Anyway, new pix posted on the Picasa page, and here's a video to keep you happy. When we can't take Ozan down to the sea itself, we fill his little inflatable pool on the balcony and let him splash away there.

More Ozan doings

We recently had the family over for either my birthday or Father's Day – I honestly can't remember which (!). Great fun was had when we broke out the bubbles, as you can see:



And this one I shot just today. Ozan apparently decided to play sandal delivery boy.

Bouncing back

OK, let me take a moment out of my busy schedule to fill you in. Ozan has now had his first childhood illness, to wit: exanthum subitum (just had to use that cool Latin name). Also known as "sixth disease," which is what the doctor here called it – and I thought, what the hell were the first five? –, this means our poor little guy had a high fever for about three days, then a blotchy rash for a couple more. He was also whiny and cranky for about a day or two after that. The most worrisome part was the fever, which breached the 40ºC (104ºF) mark. We kept going in to his room in the middle of the night to put cool cloths on his head and arms; very heartbreaking. But as I say, now he's over it, and let me tell you that for the past 36 hours or so he has been just unbelievably cheerful, all smiles and wanting to play. I am really coming to understand the joys of parenting.

Toddling and babbling

Sorry we've been out of touch. Maybe these videos of Ozan's latest antics will make you forgive us. Also, more pictures on the Picasa page now.

A walk in the woods

Today we went back to the Atatürk Arboretum, having discovered it when Dad and Susan were here. During non-trafficky hours it's only about a 20-minute drive, and it's really peaceful and beautiful. Ozan got to try out his budding walking skills amidst nature's greenery.

A nice visit

We here at MelbaBlog Central Command HQ recently entertained Dad and Susan in our humble abode. It was really very nice. They got to see Ozan, whom they last encountered when he was a mere seven-month old, not like his current mature self. After taking a little time to size them up, Ozan was as playful and happy as you could imagine (sometimes a little too much so!). We went together to see the tulips in Emirgan one day, visited the Bogaziçi campus another day, hit the new children's park in Bebek a third day, and generally turned Ozan into Baby About Town. You can see the photos we took on the Picasa page. Thanks for coming, Dad and Susan. (Other readers: You're welcome to drop by too!)

I'm too sexy for my hat

Catching up

Well, as I say, we've been appallingly busy lately. Which isn't to say things aren't going well – they're just jam-packed. I've been particularly pressed by the confluence of midterms at Boğaziçi and the impending May SAT. Thank heavens that both spring break and the aforementioned SAT are coming up, because I could really use the breather.

In addition to work, our free time for the past month or two has been taken up with searching for a place to live after our free ride in university housing ends next February. We're discovering that we have essentially two choices:

(a) Live around here, i.e. close to our jobs, and pay through the nose for a crappy old apartment.
(b) Pay a reasonable price for a more modern pad, and suffer the Istanbul commute.

We were resigning ourselves to (a), but today we ventured over to the Asian side and saw a couple of places that looked nice enough to make (b) worth it. There's a new thing called Metrobüs which zips you across the Bosphorus in less than fifteen minutes, and it has a stop right near a nice neighborhood with decent prices. So stay tuned, we may be moving to Asia.

Fun in the park

To make up for lost time, here's a couple of videos from a recent outing in the park (Emirgan, which you may remember). First, Ozan shows what a swingin' guy he is:



And second, bask in the look on his face as he reaches the bottom of the slide:

More pix posted

Sorry for the long silence – it's been hellishly busy around here, what with working multiple jobs, apartment-hunting (don't get me started), and basking in the greatness of Ozan. Speaking of this last, I've put more pictures up on the Picasa page, including shots from cousin Melek's birthday party. More soon, God willing...

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.

Insert clever title here

I'm too tired to think of one. But you can enjoy this video nonetheless.

Be vewwy vewwy quiet

I'm hunting the wild Ozan in his lair: under a chair in the kitchen.

The white stuff

The other night we looked out the window and surprise! – we were having a snowstorm of the biggest, fuzziest flakes I've seen in a long time. (For you language buffs, in Turkish this is called snowing "lapa lapa.") It snowed hard for a long enough time to get some accumulation, and a couple of families in our complex took advantage of the situation to go have a rare snowball fight. Our own future snowball-hurler was snoozing soundly.



Interestingly, since Istanbul is so big, and probably also because of its various elevations and the effect of the Bosphorus, not all parts of the city got snow. For example, Meltem's parents didn't see even one snowflake. Lucky us! Luckier still that it all melted overnight, or there would have been hell to pay on the roads the next morning. Such is life in our fair town.

Life of the party

You may have enjoyed the photos of Ozan's birthday party on the Picasa page. Here is a video I shot with my cell phone of Ozan playing with balloons. I swear I have never seen him so happy. Unfortunately you can't see his face much in this short clip (my phone only does 15-second videos), but you can hear him squealing with delight.

Our happy boy turns 1

Today is Ozan's first birthday. (He shares it with Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, who I hope feel honored by the coincidence.) If you want to see how far we've come since the "Welcome!" picture on this blog, check out this video:



Backstory: While feeding Ozan his dinner, or at least attempting to, Meltem bent down to pick up something His Majesty had thrown floorward and bumped her head on the table. Well, this just absolutely cracked up Ozan. In fact it marked the first time he ever laughed without us trying hard to make him laugh. So naturally Meltem, ever the good sport, intentionally "bumped" her head several more times and I caught his beautiful "kahkaha" on video for you.

UPDATE: As we were filming the above, the camera's batteries gave out, so I had to switch to my cell phone. Here's the video from that, in which you can see Meltem eliciting Ozan's giggles with mock self-abuse.

And here's a picture of the Man of the Hour with the "cake" (really a pie) that Meltem got him on his actual birthday.

An Ozan sampler

To make up for the long silence, here's a nice video from the other night, in which you can see Ozan showing off some of his talents, including babbling, blowing kisses, and demonstrating his rather unnerving strength.

The whole tooth and nothing but the tooth

Allow me to let you all back into the loop. Meltem and I have been surprisingly busy given that the semester has been over for a couple of weeks now; I, for one, have been busy with the buildup to the January SAT (which is this Saturday) and writing/grading final exams. Ozan, of course, has been busy with being the cutest little guy in the world. His teeth are slowly but surely poking through; it looks like his two front teeth will have an adorable little gap between them (can't wait to pay for those adorable little braces later on!). The pain of teething seems to have stopped bothering him for the nonce, because he is a bundle of happy energy almost all the time he is awake these days.

Which will make it all the harder to leave him! I'm heading home for a visit to the States this Saturday, with sojourns in Connecticut and North Carolina (to meet my nephew Mitch). I haven't left Turkey in two years, so I'm really ready for this. Plus I've been working very hard, so it will be a well-deserved vacation. Oh yeah, and it will nice to see people. Much to my discomfiture, though, I got sick today. I was afraid it was a bug passed on by one of my students – who just got over a virus so bad he went to the hospital twice for IV! But I spent an uncomfortable afternoon in bed and seem to be over it. We'll see how I feel tomorrow. Nothing like a trans-Atlantic flight with a rotten fever...

Thar she blows

Sighted: Ozan's second tooth! He's been pretty unhappy for a few days now, and it reached a peak this morning; but when he awoke from his morning nap we spotted the top ridge of a second tooth breaking through the gums right next to his first one (i.e. lower jaw center). There are also distinctive white patches on his gums where other ones are pushing through. So Ozan should be giving us a nice toothy grin in short order.

Man at work

Ozan has reached a stage where he sets little tasks for himself. These can be as simple as "throw my toy off the high chair and watch Mom or Dad pick it up," or relatively more complicated ones like repeatedly putting his block on a higher shelf than he can reach and waiting for Mom or Dad to give it back.



Here, Dr. Ozan does his "rounds."



Finally, our boy is absolutely obsessed with computers; I don't know if it's the colorfully glowing screen or what, but he just has to come up and "use" it. I let him get too friendly with my Mac and he pried the space bar off (since repaired!). Here you can see him getting all worked up over my online teaching schedule.

Poof!

Boy, am I glad we caught this moment on camera. Indulging my silly side has never been so satisfying!

Ozan's first Christmas

I've put the pictures I took of Ozan's first Christmas on the Picasa page. A grand old time was had by all, although our hero was kind of pooped by the end of it. After that – well, it was a workday, this being a Muslim country and all, so I went off to teach from 2:00 to 9:00 (!). There was a nice happy ending though: I got a phone call in the middle of the day to tell me that Meltem's present was ready (it had needed resizing). So I dashed off to the store after my last SAT class and got in right before closing time, then hied myself back home to present it to the lady of the manor.

Now it's back to work! Happy holidays to all.

Merry Christmas!

Just under the wire! Despite the fact that I have been working so much I'm getting tremors, we found time – an hour and fifteen minutes before Christmas – to put up our tree. This year we moved it to the top of the TV buffet so that a certain curious personage won't be able to knock it down. Here are a couple of pictures of our Christmas spirit; sorry for the blurriness, but the flash was too bright and hey, it's 11:00 pm and I've been working since 9:00 am, you want I should be Ansel Adams?



Special thanks to Mom (a.k.a. Nana) for the best ornaments ever:

The Barry and Ozan Comedy Hour

As Meltem put it: "He [meaning Ozan, of course] is gonna be so much fun..."



And in this one, you see even more clearly what a dork I am when I try to be as cool as Ozan.

Status report

Yesterday Meltem took Ozan in for his monthly doctor's appointment (your humble correspondent had to work – what's new). Here's the dilly: Our hero is gaining weight at a good clip (about a pound since the last visit), especially in his cute little Buddha belly. He's growing vertically, too, but not too fast. He's in the 50th percentile for boys his age in both height and weight. Teeth, or rather tooth, is also doing fine. In short he's a healthy and happy little guy. Or should I say little Casanova; apparently he loves to flirt with the nurses at the clinic. Heh, heh.

Update alert

Just added a bunch of recent photos to the Picasa page, including a bunch from our holiday visit with cousin Melek. We also shot this video of Ozan showing off one of his tricks: If you recite a certain children's rhyme about a person rowing a boat, he rocks back and forth.

Burn, baby, burn

Good.

A trip to the museum

Here we are again! Both Meltem and I have been pretty crushed with work lately. I work two jobs, and Meltem is a Workin' Mom. But we get this week off because it's a religious holiday: the Feast of the Sacrifice, which commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son (not Isaac but Isma'il in the Islamic tradition). Now if I heard a voice telling me to harm a hair on Ozan's head, I'd tell that voice where to get off, but I guess that's why Abraham is a prophet and I'm not. At any rate, it hasn't been much of a vacation, in that I've been either visiting relatives with Meltem or chained to my computer preparing lectures for the upcoming weeks (I give one "mass" lecture a week in December in addition to my sections... not to mention the SAT teaching). Hoo boy.

Anyway, a couple of Fridays ago I took some precious hours of my "off day" (such a thing does exist, at least on paper) and went down to the Archeological Museum. Not many people are aware of the place, because it's so comprehensively overshadowed by the Byzantine and Ottoman stuff, but it has some absolutely phenomenal stuff, particularly classical sculpture. Here are some shots I took with my semi-trusty cell phone camera.

For starters, here's a head of the goddess Artemis that really caught my eye. Gimme those exquisite classical features any day.

Speaking of gods and goddesses, here's a very fine seated Zeus.

And here's a guy who sure thought he was a god, namely Alexander the Great. The light was a little bad in this one but you get the picture. Note the hairdo, meant to look leonine. One of my professors back at Hopkins said she knew a classicist who used to take a photo of a similar portrait of Alexander (they were spread all over his domains) to the barber as a model whenever he wanted a haircut.

Here, too, is another very famous portrait type, that of the Emperor Augustus. Thanks for that there Roman Empire, Augie!

I couldn't pass up this bust of one of Augustus' eminent successors, Marcus Aurelius. Now there was a philosopher-king for ya. Being somewhat Stoic by nature (if not by explicit philosophical commitment), I always had a warm spot for the guy.

One of the great highlights of the Archeological Museum is the so-called Alexander Sarcophagus, a Hellenistic sarcophagus with scenes on the sides that people have interpreted, wrongly, as depicting Alexander the Great. Whether or not it's Dandy Sandy, the scenes are just masterful. They include battle scenes like this, in which the guys in trousers and head-wrappings are Persians (possibly leading to the Alexander connection):

... as well as hunting scenes. Hunting lions was always the sport of kings.

To give you a sense of contrast, not to say of artistic progress, here's a relief from Hittite times in the Museum of Oriental Antiquities, which is across the courtyard from the Archeological Museum proper. I like the guy with the arrow sticking out of his butt.

Back in the Archeological Museum, there was a striking pediment with a relief of craft scenes, including a sculptor's workshop. You can see him here chiseling away at a bust, while an apprentice stands by with a tray of tools (or perhaps lunch).

Let me conclude this little tour with a cute detail from yet another work. This one depicted Bacchus' little helpers getting into his wine and making trouble, as they are wont. Most of the reliefs show drunken toddlers helping each other, er, toddle around, but there is one pair who are smooching. It was cute in Antiquity, and it's cute now!

And with that, it's back to work for me! We will return in due course to our regularly scheduled program of Ozan-watching.

Don't mess with Club MelbaBlog's bouncer...

I realize I've posted video of Ozan in his bouncy-duck before, but he looks so utterly happy in this one that I just can't resist sharing.



After such an intense workout, of course, Ozan likes to relax and cleanse his imperial person in the bawth...

Lemme try this

A few weeks ago I bought a new cell phone, one which I hoped would have better picture-taking capabilities. So now let me belatedly try posting some of the piccies I have taken with it recently.

First, His Majesty (complete with crown!) sitting in his palanquin as the royal stroll is about to begin.



Some of Ozan's feline fans wander up to see what he's up to. He, for his part, doesn't seem quite sure what to make of them.




Here is a great picture of Ozan practicing hoisting himself up into a standing position. I love the "Are you watching this?" look on his face.




Last Friday on my day off Meltem and I took the boy to Emirgan. We had a nice little sit by the pond, and even fed the ducks.



Finally, here is a picture Meltem took with her phone which she forwarded to me and which I'm uploading now. Whew! He's got a priceless look on his face in this one, too.



OK, I think you'll agree those pictures came out pretty well, so I'll try to make it more of a habit to snap 'n' post. (Snapping is a bit frustrating because the phone takes so long to decide that it is, indeed, being told to take a picture, meaning that Ozan usually moves from the original pose I was trying to catch. But we soldier on.)

All checked up

Yesterday was Ozan's 9-month "birthday," so Meltem took him to the pediatrician for a checkup. I would have come, but I was busy teaching. All is well with the tyke. He didn't grow much in the last month, but he had enjoyed a growth spurt the month before so we're still on a normal track. As I suspected, too, he's got impressive leg strength. What's impressive as well is his budding attitude. Apparently he has decided he doesn't like the pediatrician, so he hollers bloody murder when she handles him, and even when she talks to him he won't look at her. All this is amusing as all get-out to me, of course, but we'll see whether I sing a different tune when he tries to pull it on me. Not that he ever will, of course!

Movie time again

Here again we see the Ozanosaurus in his natural habitat: the kitchen floor. He is turning into a fish fan, which is good 'cause it's brain food. (Not that our kid needs any aid in that department, nyah ha!)



And here you see standing practice. In this video our little star lolls his head around a bit in the cute way he's developed. Unfortunately the sight of the camera on him made our little star take a slightly reticent turn; before I started filming he had been doing it a lot more. Well, we take what we can get here at MelbaBlog in our quest to bring you your all-too-occasional dose of our tyke.

Obiter dicta

1. You know, the sheer amount of cuteness concentrated in Ozan threatens to throw the entire cosmic cuteness balance out of whack. Of particular note is his new thing wherein I hold him in my arms and spin around, and he leans back to watch the ceiling go round with this absolutely priceless little grin on his face. (I would try to film it but would probably drop the camera and/or him.) He is also determined to stand, and mounts anything climbable just to get on his two feet. Unfortunately this includes the railing of his crib at nap time; we put him down nice and quiet-like, and within 20 seconds of leaving the room we hear him wailing because he has stood up in bed and (obviously) can't fall asleep that way. The wages of ambition!
   
2. Today my colleagues and I in the Humanities class sat in our office with a professor from the Philosophy Department and talked for a good while about Aristotle. I mean a real, serious, philosophical conversation, with no pretentiousness or BS. I felt like I had finally reached the Promised Land. (We all have to know what makes us happy.)
   

The Ozan Wood Film Follies

Hi again from Istanbul, where it was a summery 24 degrees Celsius today. That's about 75 degrees for you retrograde Yanks. Warm weather or no, I'm laboring under a cruddy cold, but it'll take more than sniffles and a headache to slow this proud dad down. Thankfully, the week ahead will be a bit slower, in that a couple of my SAT students are off doing something and won't be coming in for lessons. School continues to go well for Meltem and me. In particular, I thank my lucky stars every day that my colleagues in the Bogaziçi Humanities course are so great. We get along swimmingly, and last Friday two of them came over for "tea" which turned into a nice dinner. What a nice change from the academic environment I am used to, in which I either fear or despise everyone around me.

But enough about us. You come here to see Ozan, don't think I don't know it. So I will oblige you with some recently shot footage of his self-propelled odysseys around our floor. He's finally breached the border between the living room, his usual haunt, and the hall outside; he has even made it into the kitchen, as seen here:



Here he is entertaining himself in the hallway. I tried to catch him doing the "bub-bub-bub" noise he makes when he pauses between activities, but he was looking away. The abrupt ending is because he was reaching for things he shouldn't reach for... which is becoming a theme around here. Time to go shopping for Ozan-proofing materials.



Finally, here is Ozan doing something he almost never does: Eating. Eating, that is, without passionate resistance. If you're interested, click "play" to watch His Majesty chew köfte (basically hamburger) for 62 seconds, with amusing commentary from yours truly. What you don't see is the proto-tooth that is slowly emerging from his bottom gum!



Well, that's it from here for now. Best to all y'all.

You can't stop the signal

You may have heard (from me via e-mail) that Blogger, and with it MelbaBlog, was being blocked in Turkey. It seems that the source of the trouble is a Turkish broadcaster that tried to get Blogger to stop some blogs from posting pirated footage of live soccer games (what else), and when Blogger wouldn't oblige, the broadcaster went to court to pull the plug in toto. Sheesh. So I thought it was lights out for MelbaBlog for a while, but thanks to a workaround I got courtesy of my fine cousin Randall Wood in Benin, I am right here, posting away. Let me celebrate with a recently-shot video which, I think you'll agree, is chock full o' cuteness.

By the way: 1000 MelbaBlog points to whoever can name the source of this post's title.

Coming up for air

Greetings faithful and neglected readers. Contrary to what you may have inferred from our long silence, we haven't left the planet to raise Ozan on a worthier world – we're just really busy. I am now in the thick of my brutal semester, wherein I teach both at Bogaziçi and at TIPPS. Good thing I like both jobs a lot, because it sure takes up every hour of the day! Especially this week, since there is an SAT on Saturday and students skip school to have lessons with me in the morning (a practice I frown on, but hey, it means they're serious about the test): on Tuesday, for example, I taught SAT from 9 to 1, then over to Bogaziçi to talk about the Iliad from 3 to 5, then back to TIPPS from 5:30 to 9:30. Whew! But hoo boy, is it ever padding our bank account, which is a nice feeling in times like these.

His Royal Highness, for his part, is stupendously cute as ever. He's also growing well. He went in for his 8-month checkup the other day and apparently he's in the 75th percentile for his age height-wise. Maybe we should call him Stretch. He is now almost fully mobile, having figured out the forward gear in his crawling repertoire. We're almost at the point where we're gonna have to batten down low-lying books, CDs, etc. I've started picturing the day when he'll come when I call him – quite a change from the early months of carrying around a little crying blob!

Behold, finally, Ozan's new discovery: leg power.

Ozan's Energy Hour

Every night at around 6 pm Ozan gets his second wind, a burst of energy which produces a veritable mushroom cloud of cuteness. Tonight I was on the scene with the digital camera, so I can offer to our faithful MelbaBlog readers this taste of our boy's twilight doings.

Here, we work on our crawling skills. As you can see, Ozan is great at moving backwards, but forward movement still eludes him. He'll do one-armed push-ups before he crawls straight ahead!



Ozan is also very enthusiastic about being propped up in a standing position. He likes to bounce and dance around. The likeness to Elvis is more than passing...



Finally, Ozan found the time to play with one of his newest toys, a little concrete-mixer truck that squeaks when you squeeze it. Such niceties are not for Ozan, though, who is still in the "if I like it, I devour it" phase.

The Road Worrier

'Tis done: I have my Turkish driver's license. Woo hoo! Gökhan and I went to get it on Thursday morning. As if to give me an up-close-and-personal reminder of the lot I'll be sharing the roads with, the taxi driver who took us from the pier to the police station was a certifiable nut who almost hit a bus and a pedestrian back-to-back within seconds of pulling away from the curb. Well, anyway, now I get to drive. The last couple of days I've driven to TIPPS and back, just to get back in practice (I haven't been behind the wheel since leaving Cyprus in 2003), and that's been harrowing enough. Although I have to brag that my status as a parallel-parking god remains in effect.

Tomorrow my endurance test of a semester begins in earnest: Classes begin at Bogaziçi, and I continue teaching a full evening-and-weekend schedule at TIPPS. I'm looking forward to the Bogaziçi class, if only to remind myself that there are indeed good and smart Turkish university students – my experience at Bahçesehir U. spooked me big time. Plus, I think I'll like teaching the material. You can check out the course website here. It's a skeleton right now and very much under construction, but it is good for pictures of the teaching staff, including yours truly. We're hoping to beef it up with pictures and stuff soon.

UPDATE (Sept. 25): My Bogaziçi students are great, and I am getting the hang of Turkish driving:

All checked up

Today was Ozan's seven-month birthday, so we took him in to the pediatrician for his monthly checkup. Everything looks fine; he's gaining weight at a good clip (currently 7850 grams, or 17 lbs 5 oz), making up for a period in which he wasn't, and is basically a healthy and happy little guy. The doctor commented that most boys Ozan's age usually aren't as alert and aware of their surroundings as he is. He's clearly going to be a sharp one. We also said that lately he acts cranky and wants to be put in his crib, but then he doesn't sleep, but just kind of sing-songs to himself. The doctor said maybe he just wants to be left alone for a while! Definitely takes after his old man.

The pediatrician is fond of Ozan, but the nurses and front-desk staff at the clinic are positively ga-ga over him. They keep coming over and asking to hold him, now and then taking pictures of each other with him. Today one nurse even brought over a little blue bead to pin on his blanket (standard Turkish armament against the evil eye). That's my progeny: Ozan Wood, Chick Magnet.

Latest installment in the continuing saga

... of my Turkish driver's license: Today I finally had the time to go over, early in the morning, to the police station in Üsküdar, a neighborhood on the Asian side. I toddled over there with all my documents in hand, including my original Johns Hopkins diploma (carefully bubble-wrapped from when Mom was angelic enough to send it over). I was accompanied by cousin Gökhan, who is always willing to help out, bless him. The place opened for business at 9:00, and we were in the room for driver's licenses at 9:05. And it only took an hour and 40 minutes to get our business done. Sheesh. The process involved such highlights as:

• A plexiglas barrier between us and our bureaucrat which had but a few holes and a slide-through slot for communication; said bureaucrat found it amusing to speak very quietly, forcing us to bend over to the slot and shout "Excuse me? Excuse me?" every time he murmured something.
• A guy who strode into the waiting area and brusquely ordered us to get our butts over to the counter on the other side of the room, where, to our bewildered surprise, we were supposed to fill out more forms and pay 191 YTL for the privilege of being there.
• Unannounced Requirement #1: A photocopy of not one, not two, but four pages of my residence permit. There being no photocopiers in the building (!), we had to run outside to the copy counter strategically placed across the street. (In the store that sells equipment for cops, like pistol grips and vests that say "POLIS".)
• Unannounced Requirement #2: Some number I was apparently given as a temporary ID when I took the written driver's license exam. Huh?! Since I had neither a clue as to that number, nor as to the phone number of the driving school so I could ask them, I had to call Meltem and ask her to re-find their number on the Internet and text-message it to me so I could call them... (whew)
• Barry's Sole Moment of Amusement: Just when I was thinking "These guys are never gonna ask to see my original university diploma," the cop asked to see it. I hoisted the thing out of its big IKEA bag and held it up to the window. Turkish diplomas are the size of a sheet of typing paper, so the guy had never seen a great big whacking thing like mine, and his expression of surprise was kind of funny.
  

Anyway, after all the fun, I got a slip of paper with a confirmation number on it. Next Thursday I am supposed to go back to the station and present the number, and then they'll just hand me the actual license itself and say "Have a nice day." You can bet I'll blog THAT.

Scenes from a feeding

Ozan is a big yogurt fan. When he first tried it he was a little suspicious, as this was the first non-mother's milk thing he had ever been given, but he warmed up to it right away. Now he's all into it; sometimes he opens wide when the spoon is a good six inches away (more than we can say for his attitude toward vegetable soup, that's for sure). Here is some footage captured recently of His Majesty enjoying his daily yogurt:



Some time later, Ozan was also spotted gnawing a favorite toy. Note the "get that camera outta my face" reaction when he realizes he's being filmed.

Thoughtful Ozan

A friend who came to visit recently sent us this picture she took of Ozan contemplating the universe from his chair. A philosopher already, I'd say.

Sitting pretty

Ozan is getting better and better at sitting on his own. Not that his wobbliness doesn't keep us on our toes, as you can see in this video, shot this morning:



He's also getting slightly more mobile in that he knows how to roll. He is also within striking distance of crawling, although at present only in reverse gear. Which is both good and bad news, because he has a LOT of energy. We're already girding ourselves to Ozan-proof the whole apartment when it's clear he won't be restrained any longer.

A message to our readers

This is what Ozan thinks of all of you who read our blog and don't leave any comments.



Take that!

Nanny postscript

Just when it was looking grim on the nanny front, we interviewed someone yesterday whom we really liked. Her name is Neşe, which means "joy, merriment" (good omen!). Ozan took an immediate shine to her and showed it by barfing on her pants. She starts Monday. She was very cute: Meltem told her I was American, whereupon she got this pained look on her face and said she had to tell us something in all honesty, to wit that she had had to leave a job with a family whose father was American because he didn't like her habit of saying "Bismillah" ("in the name of God," a common pious formula for luck) before doing things like picking up the baby. We laughed and said I was used to such things. Jeez, what kind of jerk thinks the nanny is brainwashing his kid just because she invokes God now and then?

Roll over Beethoven

Victory! Note the adorable bear-butt onesy he's wearing.

A tale of two babies

One wiggles and looks around contentedly, like a normal baby. One stares as if he's spotted a burning bush or something. Ah, that's our kid. (Many cute photos on the Picasa page.)

History fix

Just to remind you that there are wonders in Istanbul not named Ozan, here is a nice photograph my friend Jon shot when he was here in June. It's a view of the Blue Mosque from Hagia Sophia.

Ozan the athlete

Here, in the spirit of the Olympics (but without the totalitarian BS), we present Ozan's grueling training regimen. Added bonus: You get to learn to count to ten in Turkish!

Gimme shelter from the swelter

Greetings from Istanbul, which feels like its own large-scale Turkish bath right now. August heat is bad enough, but we've also been socked with a couple of days of absolutely nauseating humidity, the kind that feels like a warm, wet, very unwanted blanket wrapped around you every time you venture outside. Thank heavens we splurged for an air conditioner a couple of years ago; we have spent the last couple of evenings cowering under its protection.

In addition to the discomfort afforded by the weather, we're laboring under the hassle of not being able to find a nanny. We had one all lined up, one with all the experience and recommendations you could ask for, but she first postponed and then cancelled her employment with us – the latter via a cell-phone text message (!!). Well, we both thought she was a little weird anyway. Be that as it may, we're still short a nanny, and have begun a not-quite-yet-panicky-but-getting-there search for one. We have some leads, but the market is tough; generally they work limited hours, live far away and ask for a whole lotta money. But we're gamely trying. Heck, maybe I'll just take Ozan to work.

For all the headache of the nanny situation, we're actually pretty chipper. Who can be too down on life when there's a cute, smiling, secure little boy at home to lift your spirits? ... And here I was going to post a video of Ozan playing in his gym, but Blogger doesn't seem to want to process the video. Feh! I'll try again later. Meantime, y'all take care now.

Splish, splash, I was taking a... shower

Sometimes Meltem and I give Ozan a quick shower instead of letting him luxuriate in bubble-bath splendor (gotta instill those Spartan qualities early!). He's fun to watch because not only is he interested in the shiny steel taps, but also the water whizzing out of the shower nozzle:



He has been very cute lately, as you can see at the newly updated Picasa page. Tomorrow is his six-month "birthday" – how time flies! – and we'll be taking him in for his checkup. Looking forward to getting compliments on how buff our little man is.

This driver is educated

Today I schlepped myself over to the Asian side for what I thought would be the straightforward process of picking up my papers from the driving school that tested me last week, then taking said papers to the police department to apply for the driver's license proper. Ah, but I had forgotten that Turkey is one of those countries that gives bureaucracy a bad name. Turns out I need not only the passport-size photos, cash, and so forth that they told me about over the phone – I also need to provide the police with the original copy of my college diploma, as well as a certified translation thereof into Turkish! What the hey?! "Sorry I'm late, I got pulled over for driving without a B.A."

More amusing is the story Meltem's mom related to me that the brother of one of our in-laws, a university graduate and practicing pharmacist, was obliged to hand over his elementary school diploma when he applied for a license. Admittedly, this was 30+ years ago, but it's still funny.

Meet feet, eat

Ozan and Meltem are back in Istanbul (hooray!), and to commemorate their return I present to you Ozan's "feet" of gymnastic excellence. Note the grace with which he sticks his pinky toe up his nose. Note, too, that the Picasa page has been updated with pix from the summer place. (I put the pictures in the July album because that's when they were taken. An August album will follow in due course.)

Observations from yazlik

I meant to blog a couple of things I noticed when I visited Meltem and Ozan at our summer place (yazlik) last weekend. One was that even though I'd only been away for four or five days, Ozan definitely looked a little different: a little chunkier, a little more hair on top. I took it kind of hard ("My little bald boy is gone!"), but I'm told they keep growing, so I'll suck it up and watch for the next round of changes.

Another cool thing about Ozan is that he hasn't yet learned frustration. If he's grabbing at something he shouldn't and you take it away, or if he's playing with a toy and you need to move it so that you can feed him, he just lets it happen. No fussing, just a look of placid acceptance: "Well, that's gone, guess I'll focus my steely gaze on this other thing." I'm told this changes too, so we should enjoy these halcyon days while we can!

Final note: Meltem informs me via telephone that now when you put Ozan on his back, he rolls over in an apparent attempt to get onto his side, which misfires because he's getting stronger, so he ends up on his tummy – which he doesn't like, so he starts complaining. "Hey! This isn't what I meant!" ... Well, it sounded cute to me.

Turkish roads, here I come

After a good year of having to think about it, today I completed my hoop-jumping en route to a Turkish driver's license by taking the actual driving test (as opposed to the written test, which I took a couple of weeks ago... you remember). Sit back with some popcorn, here's the story.

I had to get up nice and early for the test – they schedule it early on a Sunday morning so that they can find a road with little or no traffic on which to test aspiring drivers. So when my alarm clock went off, interrupting a particularly interesting dream, I got up, ate my toast and cereal, and went outside to find a taxi. Easy enough, as there's a taxi stand around the corner from our apartment. I told the driver to take me to "the Üsküdar pier," Üsküdar being the neighborhood on the Asian side where the driving school is located. Well, it seems there's also a pier on this side of the Bosphorus which you refer to as "the Üsküdar pier" because that's where the boats which leave from it go, and my driver blithely took me there instead of over the bridge. Imagine my surprise when we stopped on the wrong side of the water! After I made it clear that we were NOT where I had asked to go, we hurried along to the proper destination. I was a little time-conscious, so the adrenaline rush made a nice substitute for the coffee I hadn't made myself.

Anyway, I made it to the driving school where I and a bunch of nervous-looking teenagers (and a middle-aged woman or two) sat around waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to the neighborhood where the driving test would be carried out. As we sat brooding, a kid across from me started telling his girlfriend that this whole driving-test thing was just a scam to make money, and that in America you just show up at some office and say "I want a driver's license," whereupon they just put you in a car, let you show your stuff, and then give you a license in exchange for ten bucks. Hah! I never cease to be amazed at the naïve vision of free-and-easy American life that obtains in certain places (nor at how said vision manages to coexist with anti-Americanism, but that's another story).

Finally the shuttle buses came, and we got shuttled off to a road called "NATO Street" which has a long straightaway. Our mission, according to the guy from the driving school who accompanied us in the shuttle, was to drive a ways, make a U-turn, drive some more, make another U-turn, and come back to where we started. (To the chagrin of those who believe in omens, we passed a "Student Driver" car which had been rear-ended by some jackass in an SUV and whose poor driver was talking to the police as we passed.) We got out at a given spot on the road across from a Domino's Pizza; there were a couple other, similar groups at various points along the road, all equally nervous. Anyway, one of the guys organizing the whole event told me to walk about fifty yards up the road to a bus stop, where the present examinee would stop the car and let me get in for my turn, as indeed she did. When the car pulled up, I got in and showed my exam ID, upon which the examiners sitting in the back seat said "OK, let's go." I set off, got in the left lane in anticipation of the U-turn – and the examiners said, "All right, pull over to the right" (i.e. to where the group from our school was waiting). I looked at them, puzzled, and they said I clearly knew what I was doing, so the test was over. Hence my driving test took all of fifty yards and ten-ish seconds. Whee!

With that ordeal out of the way, I had the rest of the day to myself. This I spent engaging in my favorite pastime: Wandering around in bookstores, wondering if I should buy anything. In fact I did, by way of celebrating my passage to vehicular manhood. I also went to the movies and saw The Dark Knight, which was a big fat disappointment, although I shan't bore you with a detailed aesthetic analysis of that unholy mess. Now I'm sitting at home, recording my day's fun for your enjoyment. Don't worry, Meltem and Ozan are coming back next weekend, at which point I'll be able to post some of the pictures and video taken of His Majesty at his summer retreat (I know you only read MelbaBlog to hear about him anyway!).

Alone again

This week, while I stay in the city and go to work, Meltem and Ozan are staying at the summer place in Selimpaşa. Business seems to be booming for TIPPS, because I have about five times as many students as I was expecting to. It's a bit frustrating for me, of course, but (a) Meltem eminently deserves a nice summer vacation and (b) I might as well enjoy making money hand over fist. I am trying to make the most of my non-work time, e.g. by practicing tai chi before work and reading books after work (currently I'm engrossed in Plato's Republic). Friday, though, I get off teaching at 1:00, and will promptly hie myself to the bus station so I can join wife and son for the weekend. Not quite the drowsy summer I had envisioned, but that's life.

While cooling off after Plato, I chanced upon this interesting essay on Kosovo. Europe's newest country is a matter of some interest to us, or at least me, because Meltem's mother's family is Kosovar. They departed Tito's communist paradise in the 1950s, but most of them have kept in touch with relatives there and even visit now and then. (As it happens, though, Meltem's mom was too young when they left to have developed any attachment to the place, so she's never been back.) Some of the essay is grim reading, due to Kosovo's grim recent history, but the author does have nice things to say about Prizren, which happens to be the town Mom and Co. came from. He contrasts its quaint charm with the commie/modernist aesthetic disaster that is Prishtina, the capital. Even if you don't go read the essay, enjoy this nice photo I lifted from it.



Travel junkie that I am, I am keen to go visit Kosovo. They love Americans as it is, and on top of that I've got "family" there, so I imagine I would feel pretty welcome. Plus the Balkans have some amazing natural vistas, if you can look past the nasty pieces of work who make their abode there. Perhaps during some future summer vacation – SAT demand permitting!

QTV

(Get it? Cutie TV?)

Of late Ozan's big thing has been making cute noises. He is starting to figure out how to use his voice, which will come in handy when I teach him to swear. (Just kidding!) Here is some typical chatter. Watch for the special guest around 00:24.



To our immense delight, Ozan is also starting to laugh when we give him the proper cues. These sometimes involve props, as here...



...but sometimes it only takes a mother's affection to get him going. After all the weeks of crying the poor little guy went through, it's great to see him enjoying life so much!

Ozan soup

Bathtime used to be Fuss City, but for some time now (basically ever since he became able to sit up mostly on his own) Ozan has been quite content in the tub. Here he benefits from the generosity of Uncle Jon, who brought aromatherapy bubble bath from Brooklyn when he visited a couple of weeks ago. The aromatherapy effect is supposed to be anti-crankiness; maybe that's why Ozan looks so placid.

Chatterbox at work

Behold the latest stylings of Ozan, including his Bruce Lee imitation and some impressive yoga-moves with the leg.

Test day

Today, after literally almost a year of planning, delays, snafus and worry, I took the written test to get my Turkish driver's license. Bright and early I trundled myself over to the Asian side and joined dozens of other hopefuls at our desks in a high school which had a brand-new-looking exterior but was a dingy cave within. I'm still amazed at what prospective Turkish drivers are expected to know: everything from legal vehicle weight limits to the reasons a diesel engine might stall. There's also first aid. One question from that section stuck in my mind:

What is the appropriate treatment for a burn wound?

A. Rub alcohol on it
B. Wrap it in gauze
C. Run cold water over it
D. Rub toothpaste into it

As may have been the case with you all, choice D made my jaw drop, and I thought it was a throwaway or joke answer. Turns out, according to Meltem, that some people (peasants?) do think that this is how to treat a burn. Eeewwwwww!

Anyway, now that the written test is out of the way I get to wait until the end of this month to take the actual driving part. That should be fun. Maybe I'll get to prove my mettle as a Turkish driver by slingshotting across a busy freeway the instant I spot an opening barely large enough to accomodate my SUV.

Summertime coos

This past week, while I stayed home and started my summer SAT teaching, Meltem and Ozan took off for the seaside residence of the Kelepir family, about 45 minutes outside Istanbul (or two and a half hours if you're dumb enough to try it at rush time, as I found out the hard way). For Meltem, it was a much-needed and well-earned break after four months of being bound to the apartment. For Ozan, it was a fun chance to see a new place. They walked by the water, but Ozan didn't dip his toes in just yet. Many photos were taken, which are now sitting on the Picasa page for your delectation and as a reward for your patience. Video was shot as well, including the "Batman" one below (Ozan rolling around in his favorite scarf) and this one of Our Hero cooing and chirping:



You'll notice I've been putting videos of His Majesty on the blog. Why not open a YouTube channel, you ask. Well, it's because the Turkish government in its ineffable wisdom has been blocking YouTube for a couple of months now. Probably some miscreant posted a video which was insufficiently respectful of Atatürk. Whatever the reason, we can't access it. So you get to enjoy Ozan's doings right here on MelbaBlog. If we open a video page like the Picasa page, you'll be the first to know.

And now, auditioning for the part of Batman...

Brief hiatus broken

Your friendly MelbaBlog hosts are alive and kicking – sorry about the lengthy silence! I've been on a much-needed break from teaching. Last week my old friend Jon, whose comedy stylings you may have read in the comments, came across the pond(s) for a visit. This week I'm attempting to relax, with little success. Well, I am what I am.

There's old news and new news. Old news: Ozan is very cute. New news: Ozan has officially been Ferberized. For those of you not in the know, "Ferberization" refers to a technique of getting your child to fall asleep on his own, pioneered by one Dr. Ferber. That dude is a genius. Whereas Ozan used to need to be held for 20-40 minutes to fall asleep, now we put him in his crib and he drops off after just a few minutes. And now that sleeping comes so much easier, Ozan is doing a lot more of it; not only does he sleep straight through the night (last night he was out from 8:15 pm to 7:30 am, to Meltem's indescribable joy), his daytime naps are longer as well. All this time with the sandman makes Ozan much less fussy and much more fun to have around.

He seems to be quite the social animal, too. Or maybe he just gets bored at home. Whatever the case, it's cute to watch. When we take him out in his baby carrier, he doesn't fuss much at all, but gets intently wrapped up in the goings-on around him, and even falls asleep (as he did at Starbucks last week). Today we took him to the mall to get a new stroller, and he seemed to be totally grooving on being out and about.

Well, time for bed. That is, unless Turkey wins the soccer game they are playing this very moment against Croatia for a berth in the Euro Cup 2008 semifinals. If they win, as they did last week, we can count on several hours' worth of horn-honking and hollering, as we got last week. ... WHOA, who needs horn-honking and hollering when you get a fireworks display launched from practically across the street, as we just did? Miraculously, even though the damn things were practically exploding in our kitchen, Ozan does not seem to have been awakened. Thank you, Dr. Ferber!

Couch potato

Here's a little footage of Ozan entertaining himself on the couch (with the occasional prompt from me).



Me, I'm done with teaching for the next two weeks and I intend to enjoy it! First things first: A trip to the airport to pick up my old friend Jon.

Ozan and Melek

While I was teaching today, Meltem, her mom and Ozan went across the water to the Asian side. There they visited Hasan, Elif and little cousin Melek, who hit the two-month mark today. A grand time was had by all. Meltem took a bunch of pictures, which you can see on the Picasa page via the link at right. She also took a video of Ozan and Melek hangin' out on the couch:



I realize it's a little hard to tell which is Ozan's cooing and which that of the spectators, but hey, that's how we are around here. (You also don't see Ozan merrily kicking Melek, which was apparently the comedy hit of the afternoon.)

Job news

I've been waiting on this one, lest I spoil any karma floating about, but I can't resist any longer. I'm going to be working at Meltem's university (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, a.k.a. Bosphorus University) starting in the fall. (From student and teacher to husband and wife to colleagues!) Unlike several institutions I could name, the university is being extremely professional about hiring me, and today I picked up my office key and started arranging my desk – which they had already pre-loaded with office supplies. I even already have a faculty ID card, albeit a temporary one until I sign the actual contract.

What, you ask, will I be teaching? Coolness 101? Stud-Muffinism for Beginners? No, while eminently qualified for either, I'll be doing something still more up my alley. The university is instituting a course called Humanities 101–102, which will introduce students (primarily from non-humanities majors like engineering) to the Great Conversation, including reading original texts from Plato and the like, seeing works of art, learning about different religious systems, and so on. I and a few other instructors will lead section discussions to get the kids engaged with the various ideas. This is actually a revival of a course that Boğaziçi used to have in the 60s and 70s, which some people of that generation – who now occupy positions like Vice-Dean – remember so fondly that they were determined to get it going again, even in the teeth of opposition from certain parties who think it's retardataire to think of such a thing as a classic idea. I am extremely enthusiastic about the course and am raring to get started. The project has soft-money funding for four years, after which, I hope, we'll find another way to keep it going.

I will, of course, continue to teach part-time at TIPPS, which I love both as an institution and as a group of people. Can't say the same for Bahçeşehir U., but my last obligations to that particular entity are to administer the final next Thursday and then enter the grades for the (ahem) "students," after which I shall shake the dust off my shoes and drop that place in a deep memory hole.

Cherry trees

Today Meltem and her mom took Ozan on a country jaunt to the "village" of Polonezköy, a cute little place on the Asian side where there are a bunch of B&B-type places with open meadows and such. (We took Mom there last year for Mother's Day.) Here's a typical scene; note the tables at left. If you look closely there's also a dog; Meltem says he followed her and her mother around, although in this picture he seems to be snubbing them.



Apparently 'tis the season for cherries, which was the main reason for the trip. Meltem took a couple of nice photos of the trees laden down with cherry goodness.

History lesson

Today I was playing with Ozan on our bed when from outside I heard the distinctive strains of the mehter march, which the Janissaries used to play when they were invading Europe 'n' stuff. But of course, I realized, today's May 29. On this day, exactly 555 years ago, the Ottomans breached the walls of Constantinople, founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine as "New Rome" in 330 AD, and brought to an end the Byzantine Empire. The Greeks, who used to run the place, are still mad about it. Heh, I'm reminded of the time we were watching some soccer game or other which must have been Greece vs. Turkey; a bunch of Turks in the stands unfurled a big banner which said "Istanbul – Since 1453" and had a picture of a turbaned Sultan on horseback leaping over the city walls, sword held aloft. Boy, were the Greeks in the stadium ticked off to see THAT. In case you're interested (or even if you're not – you're my captive audience, moo hoo ha ha!), the Ottomans continued to refer to the city as "Qustantiniyyeh" right up until the bitter end; the name "Istanbul" comes from the Greek for "into the City," eis ten Polin, which is what people said if you asked them where they were going and which became the popular name for the city long ago. In fact, some years ago an American acquaintance of mine who had traveled a lot in Greece told me that if you walk into any travel agent in Athens and ask for a ticket to "the City," they know you mean Istanbul. Sheesh, guys, give it up. It's like the English holding a grudge about the end of the Hundred Years' War.

Bonding, or at least projection

The vaunted three-month mark seems indeed to be a real turning point in baby development. Ozan has been maturing, relatively speaking, rapidly over the past week or two. An indescribably wonderful aspect of this is the fact that I can feel like we are getting some initial father-son bonding. Like when I come in to his room in the morning and Meltem is changing him and he turns to see me and breaks into an ear-to-ear grin. (In fact yesterday he was all smiles for most of the day; wonder what they're putting in that milk of his?) He also has a cute thing where he grins and then turns away and curls up, still grinning, as if you've embarrassed him. Also, in the last couple of days I have tried putting him on his tummy on our bed and letting him try to figure out how to push himself up, if not crawl. I love it when he lifts his head, looks around, sees me and smiles. He may not exactly be thinking "Wow, I've got to impress Dad," but it's immensely gratifying for me to think he is.

Next step: Reading Goodnight Moon together (made possible by the generosity of Mom and the cooperation of the Turkish mail system).

Budding linguist?

As we round the magic three-month corner, Ozan's peccadilloes like fussing fade away and his personality begins to shine through. In the past day or two we've noticed that he's got quite a thing for words, both ours and his own. He makes a lot of (good) noise now when he sits in his play chair, frowning and saying "goo" like he's trying to get a word out. He has also developed an interesting habit: When he's at Meltem's breast and she starts to talk on the phone, he lets go, turns to look at her and watches her talk with this priceless "What's Mommy doing?" expression on his face. Too early to say he's gonna be a renowned linguist?

By the way, this is MelbaBlog's 200th post!

Ozan at play

Here, for your enjoyment, is some footage of Ozan doing his thing with his hanging toys. I have to say that the little guy is clearly growing up these days. The extended bouts of fussing are down noticeably, and he spends a lot more time either fixing his intense basilisk gaze on objects hither and yon or making cooing-type noises. (We are both looking forward to the time when he can talk, in order to hear what he has to say!) Here, he engages with his toys, especially his favorite, the blue elephant. Note that he actually likes having stuff smushed up against his face, and has just begun to guide things to his mouth for tasting.

Bogaziçi Sportsfest

Every year Bogaziçi University has an international Sportsfest in the stadium across the street from our apartment. This year is no different, and the opening ceremonies were tonight. It was kind of cool to watch the teams of university athletes from several different countries – among others, I spotted the flags of Hungary, Macedonia, and the good old U.S. of A. – marching around the track to the thump of a marching band. Also, they had a cool show by a team of guys who play with fire. I caught some on video:



And when the whole thing was over, they released a bunch of balloons, which I caught going past the moon:



So as you see, there is stuff other than Ozan going on in our world. Lesser stuff, but still.

A good day

After all the bad press I've been giving Ozan (well, that picture of him hollering on Mother's Day does kind of capture his personality, but hey), I thought it would be nice to report that today went unusually well. Dare I tell myself we've turned a corner at the ripe old age of three months? Well, whether this represents a one-off or (hopefully) a permanent trend, Ozan was quite the chipper little guy today. He fell asleep with a minimum of struggle for his first two naps, and when he woke up after one of them, instead of instantly plunging into a crying fit he just lay in his crib contemplating the puppy decoration therein. He also proved a champion at self-entertainment when we put him in his little chair with the toys hanging from a bar. We even, mirabile dictu, had a 100% fuss-free bath tonight! So we are hopeful that he has finally grown enough that whatever made him so cranky – gas? sleep anxiety? – is passing... because lemme tell ya, when Ozan is happy he is CUTE.

A nice Mother's Day outing

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and we, with our newly (and exponentially) increased respect for the office of motherhood, decided to have a nice outing with the family. So when I came home from teaching, Meltem and I, her mom, and the clan of cousin Melek all went off to Meltem's university for a little together time. We were actually in approximately the same place Meltem and I got married, for those of you with long memories. Here are some pictures that Hasan took.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the lovely mothers. The tower in the background is a fortress built by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror when he was besieging Constantinople in 1453.



And here's more of the family. Ozan, as usual, is letting us know just what he thinks.



Here's Joe Cool in a slightly less truculent state of mind. (I mean Ozan, not me, although the potential confusion is understandable.)



Part of the fun of being a dad is introducing my boy to the Manly Arts.



(Disclaimer: Don't even think that we let a single bubble of this stuff pass Ozan's lips. It was all for ME, thank you very much.)

New pics available

Please note that I've placed a whole bundle of new photos on the Picasa site (in a new album for May), accessible with a mere click on the link to the right. How can you resist? Adorable babyness, with a guest appearance by cousin Melek! Witty captions! Ozan practically growing up before your eyes! Click now! You know you want to!

Laughing for Nana

We just concluded a nice visit from my mom, a.k.a. Nana. She got to bask in Ozan's cuteness and even evoke a big grin now and then, as here:



(Speaking of grins, Ozan is coming closer and closer to coordinating his "ha-goo" noises with his smiles; the confluence of these two should approximate a laugh, which I shall strive to capture on video and post here.)

The most momentous event of Nana's stay happened literally as she was getting ready to go out the door to leave for home: Ozan actually... fell asleep by himself! I can barely bring myself to type the words, but sure enough, it happened. Not without difficulty, of course, but this was the first time in living memory (i.e. about 12 weeks) that the little guy did NOT have to be in someone's arms to depart for the land of Nod. Meltem and I almost wept for happiness. He even proceeded to sleep for a good long time. Naturally he decided to make up for it later in the day by crying incessantly, but I look at it as two steps forward and one step back. He's done it once, he'll do it again!

Still here, and kicking

Ozan continues to travel the road of cuteness, as seen in this video of him getting to know his hanging toys by attempting to beat them up:



No hard feelings, of course. In fact the elephant is Ozan's favorite toy at the moment – as, it seems, it (or at least the same model) was once cousin Mitch's favorite.