Sunday, October 14, 2007

Dos Cochecitos

Oh, what to talk about, what to talk about. The weather today was brrrr brrrrr cold. A bit rainy and a bit windy. We bundled all the kids up as best we could and made our weekly trip to church. We leave the apartment around 10:30 and walk about 10 minutes to the Dolmuş stop. We get in the small minivan and it takes us right to Taksim square which is about a 15 minute walk from church. We don't actually meet in a building, they've rented a floor in an apartment building. İt is set up very nice for church. About 20 to 40 people come each week depending on how many tourists are in town. There are three other children besides ours in nursery. A 3 year old girl, and two 2 year olds (a boy and a girl). Shermie tries to be the bully but the other boy can fend for himself pretty well. The little girl gets abused by her own sister anyway so I think she's used to the mistreatment. İ just wish there was a magic spell İ could cast over Shermie that would make him see other kids as friendly creatures instead of people that want to take his toys away. İ don't know if Turks believe in magic but maybe their praying five times a day helps their kids behave well because İ don't see that many kids that are on the loco side like mine.
Jonathan's birthday was on Wednesday and to celebrate we ate out all day. First, we had a cheese pastry on the street where Jonathan had another job interview, for lunch we ate at Burger King where the kids didn't cause a scene, and for dinner we walked 2 miles one way with the kids at night to get KFC. Jonathan said it was his favorite birthday ever. (Whatever!) He's sweet anyway for saying so. Things would have been a lot different if I had an oven and a TV to watch. İnstead of dragging the whole family around the city we could have vegged out in front of the TV all day eating cakes and casseroles made by me. Oh well.
Two great pieces of news: We are getting cable tomorrow!
When we were getting off the Dolmuş today on our way back from church Shermie had fallen asleep. When you get off a Dolmuş you have about 2 seconds to do so or they will start driving even if you are only halfway out of the vehicle. We got out as fast as we could, me with Cinci in a front baby carrier, Atticus on his own, and Shermie in Daddy's arms. When we saw all of ourselves out of the Dolmuş alive and whole we breathed a sigh of satisfaction. But Shermie had begun to cry. We realized that he was missing a shoe. Great. The Dolmuş was long gone and it was still raining. İ really didn't want to buy new tennis shoes for Shermie. They had already made it through Atticus and I was hoping they would last through Cinci. Jonathan looked under the cars that were parked on the side of the road just in case it had fallen outside but no luck. İ was hoping that we'd see the Dolmuş come back around the corner but in this world that would never happen. İ told Jonathan to look under that last car that was perhaps close enough to be the hiding place of the shoe and Voila! There it was. Everyone was suddenly happy and all the people in their cars waiting at the stoplight got to witness the joy of a jolly, crazy, thrifty American family as they sang Shermie's favorite bedtime song 'Dos Cochecitos' which only we know because we made it up. İs there any felicity in the world superior to this!

1 comment:

Sonja said...

I can picture your happy family singing that happy song in my mind SO clearly! How incredible...
I'm glad Jonathan had a good birthday. Happy Birthday Jonathan!