The Fortieth Day

A baby's fortieth day is traditionally celebrated in Turkey for reasons mostly forgotten now. As I've watched my newborn develop over the past few weeks, and have myself felt better and better postpartum, I've come to believe there is ancient truth and wisdom to the forty day "rules."

Sitting on the beach chatting to some ladies, my sister-in-law suddenly realized it was Baby's fortieth day. To celebrate, that evening we made irmik helvasi, a dessert out of semolina. We melted about a pound of butter and stirred a pound of semolina and a pound of sugar into it; then took turns stirring for a half hour, until the semolina was gold

en brown. Everyone -- my husband, my brother-in-law, my husband's nieces and nephews, a neighbour -- took turns stirring, and each time, that person said a prayer, well wishes for Baby's life.

We didn't wait for the helva to cool, pouring it out like liquid pudding onto plates. We topped each puddle of sugary delight with some pecans and cinnamon and dug in.

Deliciousness aside, I found the whole process moving and quite lovely.

p.s. sorry, no pictures ... The few I took made the helva look decidedly unappetizing. Here's one I swiped from the internet.

Learning to Let Go

This would never have happened, had he been in my care!

Sitting on the table, honey dripping down his chin and onto his bare knees, his arms almost shaking from the sugar coursing through his veins -- his first "sugar coma," as they say in Turkish -- a horrifying sight!

But when he dipped an olive into the honey and proudly offered it to me, I realized he doesn't get enough opportunities to be crazy and I bit my tongue; no comments about sugar before nap time or sugar in general, for that matter; no comments about instilling table manners.

I braced myself and swallowed that sticky oily olive and smiled.

What followed, on the other hand, was all my doing:

Secret (Flawed) Weapon or Flying with Baby

A few months ago I wrote about the security guards at my school melting as they cooed and even kissed my son; policemen have changed their minds about giving me a ticket, anxious about me getting Baby home. This weekend I unexpectedly but gratefully accepted the assistance of airport employees, from security guards to grounds crew, as I traveled alone with Baby for the first time.

Image via WikipediaOne passes through a security check just to enter a Turkish airport, meaning I had to take Baby out of his stroller and fold it up to put it through the x-ray machine several times. On each occasion, security personnel enthusiastically offered to hold Baby while I dealt with his paraphernalia. Ditto for the people who take the stroller at the entrance to the plane and deliver it again when you land. No one was interested in helping with the pram; they just wanted to hold Baby!

Until it came to the flight crew. In my darkest moment of need, when I actually had to ask for help, I was warned that they weren't allowed to take care of the baby. A steward reluctantly sat with my son while I ducked into the plane's tiny washroom to change my sopping wet clothes after baby's razor-sharp tooth burst through the water bottle he'd been gumming and somehow managed to empty within one second all over me; I was as suddenly and thoroughly soaked as I would have been in a dunk tank.

I think I know what Baby's Secret Weapon is!

My Little Turkish Man

Salvar, a traditional pant worn by men and women throughout rural Turkey and by rural migrants in the cities, are admittedly funny-looking until you get used to them. Characterized by their low and baggy crotch, they are cousins of the better-known Pakistani Shalwar. I remember my first reaction to them, visiting my now-husband in Turkey for the first time; I'd found them just plain odd, and not at all attractive, especially since men often wear them with a dress shirt, a waistcoat and leather dress shoes.

But şalvar are seen everywhere in our little city, and they've somehow grown on me. I'd been planning to get a pair made for my son before we move to Istanbul this summer, a nod to his birthplace, but hadn't had time to visit one of the tailors in our local çarşı, or market. They wait in their three-metre-square shops, dark and cool despite the intense sun outside. Several pairs of şalvar hang ready made out front, or you can choose your fabric and wait while the tailor quickly stitches you a pair.

But last week, an old friend of my husband's visited us from Urfa, one of eastern Turkey's most historically fascinating cities, and one I'm dying to visit. And with him, he brought a pair of toddler-sized şalvar with beautiful pocket stitching and a matching waistcoat, or vest. I cannot wait for Baby to grow into them; in fact, I may just have to have a smaller pair made after all, so that I can see him in a pair of şalvar sooner!

The Nanny Search

My mat leave ends in six weeks and I'll be going back to work, albeit with certain allowances: I'm allowed 1.5 hours a day to breastfeed Baby, and since I live right across from school, that'll be easy. My teaching schedule is likewise brilliant in that it has many large open periods each day, so I won't be rushing to get home, feed and be back, all within a 40-minute period. Instead, it'll almost be like working part time.

But I will need a nanny, there's no getting around that. So how to find one?

Many working women in Turkey leave their children with their own mothers, and I envy them that. I've observed the way these older women eagerly await the day when their daughters will have babies so that they can have someone to care for again. This is in stark contrast to my mother, who would not be at all interested in looking after her grandchildren full time; she's raised her own four and moved on! She's now involved with the career she had to put on hold for twenty-five years; why would she want to give it up all over again?

And then of course there's the small problem of geography; my mother lives in Canada.

But back to reality. There are no nanny agencies in our city; indeed, there are no nannies per se. Since taking care of children is such a ''natural'' thing, any woman is considered capable of doing it. Women whose own children no longer need them full time, or else women who don't have grandchildren, are happy to look after someone else's as a way to supplement the household income.

So my nanny will be entirely capable of changing Baby's diapers, comforting his cries, and feeding him the bottles of expressed milk I'll leave for him. But finding someone who also excels at the other aspects of childcare -- playing with him, stimulating his developing mind and body with cooing and talking, using his Fisher-Price Circus Gym to full effect, giving him tummy time each day -- will be a bonus.

But we still have to find someone, and there are no job ads. Instead, everything is done by word of mouth. Luckily, a little investigation has yielded lots of interest.

The first candidate cold-called me; or rather, her sister-in-law called me. The connection is vague, and my husband still doesn't get it, but I'll try to make it clear: the nanny's sister-in-law goes to a hair salon where I've on occasion gone to get my legs waxed; the owner of the salon told this other customer of hers that ''a foreign teacher at the American school'' was having a baby and would surely be looking for a nanny. Now, I need to add that I don't know the owner of the salon, nor did we ever speak about me needing a nanny. Anyway, this other salon customer tracked me down through the school, and I agreed to meet her sister-in-law.

I had some doubts right away. Why didn't the nanny call me herself? And could I trust someone I didn't know, or who didn't have the reference of someone I knew? But she actually turned out to be quite good, and we would have hired her, had she the reference of someone other than a hairdresser I didn't really know!

The second candidate was referred to us by someone who knows someone, which was an improvement over the previous nanny. But, in keeping with the rules of irony, I was prepared to hate her. However, she was pretty good too!

My husband and I couldn't believe our luck; two for two!

And then along came a third candidate, this time recommended by our family doctor, whom we respect and trust immensely. Could she be the perfect package, then? A great reference and a great nanny? But she turned out to be mind-bogglingly unsuited for the job.

My first impression of her, over the phone, wasn't great: she called me canim and hayatim, the Turkish equivalent of ''honey'' or ''sweetheart,'' more times than I could count. I realize it's just a reflex of hers, she clearly calls everyone that, but I'm sorry -- you haven't even met me yet, so how can I be your hayatim, ''my life?!!'' And besides -- it's a term of endearment you don't use with your potential employer! I could see this woman wouldn't listen to any of my instructions, and would instead be inclined to do things her way.

But I second-guessed my instinct and agreed to meet with her. I could be petty and list all the little things that bothered me about her. But I'll skip to the whoppers. After reassuring me that despite her tremendous knowledge about childrearing, she'd do things in whatever way I showed her, she proceeded to give me the following instruction: as I put my son to my breast to feed him, I must recite Bismillah al rahman al rahim, which means ''In the name of God, most gracious, most merciful.'' I'd noticed she herself had uttered the phrase as she entered our home, and a few more times before undertaking anything -- changing Baby's diaper, or drinking a glass of tea. But to impose her faith on me was too much; Turkey is after all a secular society, and although there are many religious Muslims, there are also many non-practicing people.

The few Turkish people I told this to were shocked and found the whole thing quite funny. Needless to say, we did not hire her.

Pilgrimage to IKEA

There is no IKEA in this city, although there have been rumours of one opening for years. There is likewise no online shopping in Turkey, at least not in the true sense of the meaning. (You can send an email to a specific IKEA location elsewhere in Turkey, tell them what you want, and wire money from your bank account to theirs; then, for a hefty delivery fee, they'll send you the items you want.)

So a few weeks ago, I extended a business trip to Istanbul by a day and spent my Sunday at one of their two (they have two!) IKEA stores. I went armed with a list of items I'd pre-selected from the online catalogue, and did my best to stay focused. That was however extremely difficult to do, since almost everything I saw appealed to me in some way, and I was overcome with that panicked I-must-prepare-for-being-being-cut-off-from-society-and-hoard impulse -- not knowing when I may next find myself among such reasonably priced good-looking glass vases and light fixtures and sofas. I wanted to buy them all.

But the thought of something breaking in transport back east, and the impossibility of travelling with so much luggage, stopped me. Instead, I got the items I'd come for (crib, dresser with changing table top, cupboard), plus a few little extra goodies, and high-tailed it out of there. The hardest part of my IKEA adventure was over. Or so I thought.

Now, my extremely heavy, flat brown boxes had to make their way via courier to my city. I employed a company my husband often uses for business, and got the whole load here for just thirty-five Lira! (It would have cost me around 250 Lira, had I allowed IKEA to send it.) Easy enough.

We got the crib set up in an evening, despite horror stories I'd read by disgruntled customers on the Consumer Reports website. Although my Turkish husband had never assembled IKEA furniture before, something I think every North American probably has -- a right of passage into manhood, isn't it? -- he was genius, as long as I interpreted the pictures in the instruction booklet and forced him to do the steps in order. I guess it really does help to have an engineering degree!

The cupboard is taking a little longer, partly because we've been coming home from work late and exhausted, and if we get to the assembly at all, fizzle out after about ten minutes of work. And it didn't help that it turns out we needed two different kinds of screwdrivers to put together the cupboard, which delayed us a day -- I thought IKEA was famous for including all the necessary tools? What happened to the trusty IKEA key?

Although our cupboard is slowly taking shape, there is still no changing table in sight. At this rate, baby's nursery is going to be finished around the due date. Here are some 'before' shots, which I hope to soon replace with 'after' pictures.

What's left of the cupboard's many pieces:

The cupboard in its current state:The crib, ready for mattress and sheets!

Decorating the Nursery with ''Adult Art''

Over a year ago, when my current pregnant state was still just a distant prospect, I fell in love with and bought an Iranian folk art rug that I knew would make a perfect wall hanging in a baby's bedroom. The oddly-shaped and disproportionate animals, people, trees and buildings, the mountains, stream and green fields would provide hours of stimulating imaginative play for my child.

Earlier this week I made my second non-baby purchase for baby, and realized I much prefer ''adult art'' to purpose-specific nursery decor. In Istanbul for a few days over the Ramadan holiday earlier this week, we stumbled across an arts and crafts fair sponsored by the Beyoğlu municipal government. A stand of brightly painted two-dimensional marionette-type figures caught my eye. Painted in intricate detail on animal hide, these were true works of art.

The artist had hung several of them from the ceiling by a thread, and their transluscent nature allowed light to shine through, bringing the colours to life. I immediately thought two or three of them hung at different heights would make an excellent alternative to the traditional mobile. Other figures had been framed between two panes of glass, which I thought I'd have done once this and babies to follow outgrow their mobile.

Overwhelmed by the selection, I thought the two main characters, Karagöz and Hacivat, would be a good start. I did a little research and learned that these shadow play characters had been popular during Ottoman times. Karagöz was an illiterate but intelligent man, while Hacivat represented the educated class. Much to the delight of audiences, the latter was usually outwitted by the former.

I think that's probably enough ''adult art'' for the nursery, but will certainly balance the cute teddy bear bedding I've bought.