The kid's friend Mina came over today - and I thought it would keep them busy while I worked on some paperwork for my school - but instead it just kept me busy.
"Mama, Tomris pulled my hair."
(A little bit later)
(Tomris crying) "Abi pushed me."
"Mama, Mina doesn't want to be the little girl."
"Tomris is sitting in my way."
I was sitting at the table scanning documents and searching for files in between feeding or changing Tuana. I also decided to get a start on warming up some lunch seeing as Anne had retreated to her room, Zuleyha was ironing, and Baba was hanging around the kitchen. Tomris told me she was hungry too - which wasn't surprising, seeing as her and her Dede seem to be on the same feeding schedule. They both almost always start eating their meals together before anyone else gets to the table.
So I heated up the yoghurt soup, boiled cauliflower, and boiled peas with ground beef, as well as the few dolma left - a boiled cabbage leaf wrapped around a ground beef and rice mixture. Boiled vegetables is usually how things are cooked here - with a oil, tomato and red pepper paste, onion base that always makes the vegetables a bit soupy and washed in red.
Turks have found me strange when I ate a green bean or snap pea raw or as a snack and I don't think I've ever seen a vegetable here steamed or roasted.
Amidst all this - Tolga was calling to see what time we should leave. I was on the embassy website too looking for directions - I still had to change, get the baby ready and settle down Teoman who was now crying because Mina wouldn't sit and eat lunch with him.
Tolga had come home and upstairs - he was nervous and stressed about driving to the embassy - worried as to whether roads would be blocked because of the recent threats as well as trouble finding parking. He happen to come home when I had just sent Mina home with Emily, Teoman to his room with Zuleyha to put down for a nap, and Tuana to sleep after nursing her.
So to him, I was just wandering around in my sweatpants.
argh.
At the embassy we had to leave most everything in the car as many things weren't allowed for security reasons. People were lined up outdoors and every person had a clear slip cover with their documents inside - no one carried a purse, or a phone, or even a cigarette lighter. As a US citizen, I could bypass the line I suppose, but we joined the line instead because our first appointment was for Tolga's visa. However, when the Turks started noticing we were carrying a baby without a proper blanket on this cool day they all agreed to push us to the front. There was another line of five or six waiting to get in the security room and those guards took as first as well.
I had our papers in a blue multi-tab file - they were really strict in the past about bringing your appointment paper with a barcode but no one asked for these I suppose because our name was on their list as well. We waited, interviewed, gave lots of documents - passports, IDs, birth certificates, marriage licenses, applications, transcripts, pictures - paid, and it appears both Tuana's passport and Tolga's visa will be approved and mailed to us in one to three week's time. And hopefully they will return all the important documents we gave them too...
We celebrated with Starbucks.
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