the innocent

Tuana is seven days old today.  It's moving fast and slow at the same time.  Last week I was begging that this whole birth thing be skipped, and now - the experience is almost forgotten.  We are a family of five and we squeezed all three into the back of our SEAT Leon - I should have taken a picture of that, but than a may be cited for improperly securing our children.  There are not many cars out there that can fit three car seats across - and our car is surely not one of them.  Teoman is in a booster seat, Tomris is in a 5-point forward facing car seat, and Tuana is in a baby car seat.  They were overlapping and Teoman seemed to be definitely angled to the left and smashed into the baby's car seat.  But Teoman is a sweet boy - proud to look after his sister.  Tomris on the other hand, I thought was over her car sickness because she had gone at least two months without puking in the car, but last week had thrown up, and now was reluctant to go in the car.  She wanted to go with us, just not in the car seat.  We leave buckets and paper towels in the car just in case.

This was our first full family outing.  We were out to the doctor for mine and Tuana's check up.  Tuana was up to 3.775 kilos, having gained 25 grams a day since her last check up, which our doctor said was great.  Tomris side-eyed our doctor - she had already informed me that she didn't want the doctor to look at her belly.  Our new doctor was quite warm and friendly.  He offered to look at Teoman's throat and listen to his heart.  Tomris, was not impressed.  But accepted the balloons from the doctor anyhow.  They also had two lollipops each.  I have so many lollipops from the hospital - because every time we go there (which has been at least once a month for the past year) we are sent away with lollipops for the kids.

My doctor checked me as well.  I had had odd and terrible cramping, just two episodes, but the pain had radiated down my leg, and in the night I had got the chills - so they were worrisome symptoms.  However, everything looked well enough.  She prescribed again medicine to contract my uterus as I still had blood collecting inside, and she prescribed an antibiotic just in case - the placenta had torn and while it looked clean on the ultrasound - my hands on doctor prescribed the medicine just in case.

We left the hospital, grabbed some coffees and stopped at a park on the way home.  Living here it took me some time to find parks that were actually safe for the kids to play in - and the park below is one of my favorites.  It's nicely contained in a circle where we can sit on the perimeter and watch our kids play.  They are too the point where they are able to play more and more independently - much to our relief.  Not that they want to - they usually take turns pulling Tolga or I into their games, slides, or swings.

Tomris' excited face

And we can't help but enjoy it too.


"WhatsApp" groups are a thing here - and I'm part of the English Department's WhatsApp group.  We text information that needs to be shared with all - pictures, worksheet corrections, administrative information, seminar notes and so forth.  It actually gets kind of obnoxious because it often reaches beyond work issues to birthdays, general commentaries, gatherings outside of work, and so on.

Well, this happened at 7pm tonight - and the group messaging was non stop as my colleagues posted pictures of what they witnessed.  Some were very close to the incident - hearing the explosion, and even driving by on the way to or from somewhere.  It happened in a central area - a car bomb went off - directed at a military bus, killing over 20 people and injuring over 50 - the numbers are never clear in the beginning and will probably take a few days to sort out - but my colleagues were messaging the group to learn whether everyone was safe.  Fortunately, we all were.

This is the contrast that I live in - the extremes of the world outside our nucleus - they are close at hand, but fortunately far enough away at the same time to not touch us directly.  And this is the irony I feel as a mother - I am so blessed and happy as a family, but I also feel horror at the idea that I've brought these children into such an imperfect world where innocence will inevitably be lost.