Oddities

This will be perhaps my most random post yet. Just an hour or so ago, about 4:30am, I heard the call to prayer from our local mosque. (We are sleeping with the windows open now, so we hear it more.) Unfortunately, all the stray dogs heard it, too. They began a chorus of howling in unison. So, with my early morning rising will come a mix-match of ideas on this blog post.

The first oddity I discovered this week is just how ready Big Boy is to self-feed. I fed him his oatmeal and fruit, but it didn't seem to be enough. So I handed him a slice of bread. After a few minutes, I kept looking for the bread remains somewhere down in his chair/diaper/leg creases. But alas, it was gone. This will save me time, I won't have to pack a meal for him. There's not a restaurant in town that doesn't have some type of bread served with the meal. But just as it saves me time in the packing, there's all that 'bread goober' to clean up afterwards. I have to wipe a face, hands, in between chubby little fingers, under chin rolls, in leg creases. I even found some bread crumbs in his diaper that night. But you know what, on baby #5, I don't mind so much. I am old enough to realize I'll miss wiping out those bread crumbs soon.
Another oddity. I have begun to put shoes on Benaiah. I spent all winter explaining to my Turkish friend why he never wore shoes over his socks. Now that it is finally hot outside, he is wearing shoes.

The answer of course is that a good friend just gave me a pair of shoes for Big Boy. And they're cute. And they are the kind that make it easy to cram fat feet inside. So I put them on him.

Now you see the real reason for putting shoes on him. The strings are a toy. The strings serve as a pulley.

Another oddity: Want to know how old this romper is? 10. That's right. I was given a little money when I was pregnant the first time, 10 years ago. In case my eldest turned out to be a boy (she didn't!), I bought a couple of things. This romper was one. Then I saved it for #2, she wasn't either. Then I saved it for #3, she wasn't either. Then I saved it for #4, she wasn't either. I happened to find it the other day and laughed. Ok, it is an 18 month, but it fits my 8 month old, just in time for Spring and getting to see those sweet thighs. I tried to get his picture here, but there was dirt nearby. The dirt won.

An here is an odd intuition. The girls and I stopped for an ice cream after school. How does a baby who has never tried ice cream know how good it might be? Somehow he knew.

Here is an odd pose. I wanted a picture of this girl. She was all in purple, eating ice cream. But she was too concerned about the drip of the ice cream.

And now an odd comment. We are having health screenings at the school this week. When this one saw the doctor, she said, "I have 2 boogers." How did she know that was a medical issue?

And, in other news, I had a particularly rough day over the weekend. I didn't feel well (translation: I was in a bad mood.) so my girls planned a pedicure for me. They had job assignments. They brought me reading material and told me not to listen to them at all, just to escape in a book. I knew I had a bunch of girls for a reason.

This week I had planned to post a recipe with step-by-step photos of how to make Turkish Stuffed Eggplant.

I dutifully took photos of how to make it. Then I served the meal, planning to get my last photo of the finished product. I thought it would be more fun to have people in it. Big mistake. The food was devoured so fast, I never got it.

And my final oddity: Winter seemed to transition into summer with only a 3 day Spring. We are not complaining, though! We've scrubbed down our balconies. The girls decorated them with little chairs and tea tables and flowers in pots hanging off the railings. And the sun is shining brightly. So now, Big Boy needs a hat. I have basically concluded that a baby must wear a hat 12 months of the year here. Either it is too cold or too sunny. I tried one day to take him out without a hat. I really tried. Only 3 old ladies on the street asked me where his hat was. How does the poor boy ever have a chance of growing hair?