Updates

Now we know why Sari wasn't eating much--apparently she had been eating small pebbles before she came to reside with us.  The poor thing was literally full of rocks.  The worm medicine helped her to pass them and now she's eating just about everything we'll give her.

She and Askim are not exactly friends yet.  Sari has decided that we need protecting from Askim, so there is a lot of barking and hissing and scratching and boxing of ears going on around here.  Hopefully they will learn to coexist peacefully.  Until that time, Askim is fairly content to stay in her room and gaze out the window.

I have given up housecleaning for good.  I simply do not have the energy to keep up a 480 sq mtr (5000 sq ft) house.  I was falling behind even before I became pregnant, but now it's simply more energy than I have.  We finally agreed to have Emine come over to help out around the house.  She's spent the last three days scrubbing from top to bottom, only to have it rain last night and today and have the basement flooded again.  Ekrem plans to address this tonight at the homeowner's association meeting.

Ekrem's friend Savas passed away early this morning.  While I know what a loss it is to his family, I don't think Savas would've been happy with the way he would've been had he made it out of the hospital.  They had been unable to wean him from the vent (this is what happens to long-term smokers, folks--consider yourselves warned!), and he'd had at least two kinds of pneumonia superimposed on severe lung damage from smoking nearly 50 years.  I feel very bad for his wife and children, but I hope that they use this as a learning experience and all quit smoking themselves.  Whatever pleasure is gained from smoking is simply not worth the end results.  (I can say this with confidence--I smoked for nearly 18 years.)

Nothing new with the baby.  I'm still waiting to feel him/her.  It's so hard to be patient!  We are kind of looking around for baby furniture, keeping our eyes peeled for something that is not painted wood.  Ideally, I would like a crib, dresser, and closet in a nice cherry wood or mahogany.  Something that isn't painted white and too cutesy--which of course is all the style here.  Some friends of ours have a lovely nursery outfitted with crib, dresser, glider chair, wardrobe--all in lovely matching white and pale green paint.  Very cute, very nicely done, looks like a professional decorator put it together, but how practical is it?  The kid is going to grow out of the crib in two years or so, and then he's stuck with this cutesy-baby furniture that cost a small fortune.  Am I just an unsentimental freak?  Or entirely too practical?  I want furniture that will last at least half a lifetime, not just a year or two.  Not implying that the painted stuff is cheap, it's not, but the style is certainly dated to the infant years only.  Certainly not what a "big boy" wants in his room at the ripe old age of 5 or 6.  Is practical, affordable furniture too much to ask?  Apparently it is in Istanbul.