He's finally three. Yay! Glee!

The kids woke up to this tempting display. Unfortunately,

everything we thought would happen did. They wanted to pull

all the balloons down so I had to take them down. Then they

popped one by one throughout the day giving my mother heart

failure each time. Then, to top it all off the glass light fixture

that the string was connected to unexpectedly fell to the

floor and shattered into a million pieces while all the kids

were playing in the vicinity! I guess it was pretty stupid to

connect something so enticing to a glass light fixture. The

kids, however, are very well. My mother did a superb job of

coralling them into their bedroom while I vaccumed almost

every shard of glass I could see.

This is not Shermie's birthday present from me, although

most Turks probably think so. A friend told me to hit my

children where no one else can see. I told him I would try. Ha

ha! Shermie decided to fly over the back of our couch. He hit

his face on the floor and from the look of it he must have

landed on something else too. I don't know what. All I know

is that ice was put, eyes were dried, and then the little bear

was set free again to pitter patter the rest of the night away

to his care-free hearts content. The next morning his eye was

pretty much swollen shut.

Claudia is well, we are all well. Next week we are going on an extensive trip across Turkey. We will be renting a car and maybe I'll be nice and let my mom sit in front sometimes. Ha! I know, I sound so mean. The relationship I have with my mother is somewhat comical. I don't know why but I cannot refrain from teasing her. She's a wonderful sport. The sad thing is, I can't take the same treatment. I am such a baby. Every time she or my husband tease me about the slightest thing I am very disgusted and offended. I think that on those single people websites they should offer the word "teasable" to describe people. Who wants to be married to a no fun wet blanket anyway? Absolutely no one (except for my husband).