Back Again !!! Ceyda Ceyda Ceyda

Proud !!

The day before i left for Toronto was Ceydas Kindergarten Art Open day.. she was so proud to show us her Art work and intoduce her English Teacher as she is unsuprisingly the teachers assistant.
Her Turkish is now almost equal and perhaps better than a her peers, for the most parts she is eager and happy to go to "School" (kinder is apparently for babies).
We have just started learning to identify letters of the alphabet in books we read so that we can start a Reading series together in the Summer.

Ceyda with her co teaching English Teacher : )

Ceyda with her class teacher Handan Hanim ( mrs. handan)

The day before the open day the teacher asked Ceyda some questions that we were given the answers to. 

Who is your best friend ? Emma

What will you be when you grow up ? Doctor 

Favoutie Film ? BOLT 

Favourite game ? Football & playing with Lucky our dog : )

Favourite Toy ? Lina her doll

Favourıte Colour ? yellow 

Favourtie word ? İ love you mummy 

Favourits thing about mummy ? Baking

Favourite thing about daddy ? he dances with me and plays Prince Charming  ( i should add that one of her teachers did actually ask me once if koray was a dancer ? as during what do your parents do week... Ceyda told everyone her daddy was a dancer.... hilarious !! i will try to find a video of koray and Ceyda dancing...and all will be clear 

Family days

Since coming home from Canada my main focus has been Ceyda, i know the trip unsettled her, it hurt to see her  struggle with the routine changes and different environment. When we left Turkey we took only one peice of handluggage as our flight changes were so tight I made a point of buying her a unicorn cuddly horse in london as he companion.(her choice i love that when given the option she finds the smallest shabbiest thing and wants it, i swear that horse had been there for a century ) Poor bee she started having accidents again and played up alot more than usual ..at times i felt like we were in that episosde of those nanny shows where  they say " all you do is tell her off... so all she knows to get attention is to be naughty" I noticed the biggest change when my sister left a few days earleir than us she constantly asked about her... and missed her.I underestimated how much time my lovely younger sis gives her...and gave her there.

Ceyda is a very very self assured little girl, brave boisterous and full of energy and love yet she can sit and do jigsaw puzzles for am entire afternoon and is sensitive to the feelings of others just like me, (maybe hyper unusally so) she can be so profoundly kind to people quite out of the blue.. she will pick the shy child in a crowd and take thier hand...i love these pure qualities of  love and inclusion ,seeing the comfort and joy  and even assurance she brings people at such a young age. 

Well we have baked... crafted, walked,washed the dog alot as she loves this... gardened, painted... i am detemined that she be settled when we got to Scotland sunday for a month. 

eveing walks

special treat !! 

Finding you...

It really seems like forever since i last posted. Blogger is still banned in Turkey but i can post sometimes which is kind of odd as i cant then view what i have posted. I do plan to get the computer man from my husbands office to  see if he can help me view blogger normally but these past weeks have just been so busy...busy in a nice way full of energy and inspiration. 
The nice thing is that i can stilll read the blogs love in reader (a week ago i couldnt). I really enjoy spending a half hr in the morning catching up with the blogs that i love and the women that write then.There is alot to catch up on but i will start with a super cute picture of Ceyda and Lucky...i have no idea how he managed to wriggle his way onto her bike. I just love to see them together, yesterday she had her play peppa pig medical bag out she i watched her from the kitchen window was listening to his heart and chattering away telling him he was all better. He just lolls around her in adoration its so cute. 

Here is a pic of Ceyda and her Lucky ( i hope it works as i cant see it ? )

Tinkerbell plays...

Toddlers are like elephants they never forget or at least Ceyda never does. Last night Ceyda wanted to wear her Tinkerbell dress to bed we negociated for a while and agreed that she could wear it all day today. She ran upstairs to ge the dress right after breakfast. Sometimes i think she has a better memory than me.. when we go food shopping sometimes i tell her the most important things we need and when i ask her she always remembers she loves this.. helping mummy or Isla as she calls me.

We had our first completely successful nappy free day today and a dry nappy when we came back from our afternoon walk.Yay ! The picture below is Ceyda wanting me to photograph her backpack so she could see what she looked like from behind.. but it of course catches the tinkerbell dress and handbag that came along too... the dress caused quite a spectacle as we came home, we live opposite a mosque and there was a very very large funeral.. at this point ceyda had her jacket off and was on on backpack reign ( she is very very fast ) as we live opposite the overspill from funerals usually means our front door and street become part of the ceremony, something i so not mind at all.. 

We had to weave our way through the crowd...i found the sadness quite suffocating, Ceyda was dancing through the people saying "hello" "scuse me" asking loudly "who these people Isla" my attempts to shh her were hopeless and then i realised peope were smiling.. my little tinkerbell wasnt a noisy toddler but a little ray of sunshine on a sad day for them.Love you bee...

I took these on the way home...

Spot the dogs

Happy Valentines

Ceyda and i made a few Valentines day cards, most were for daddy but the last card was for her friend Aiden. She hasnt been able to see Aiden for a while as his baby brother arrived a few months early  ( all are fine and well now : ) but until baby brother Ethan he reaches his due date its important he stays away from sick people. Ceyda really misses Aiden and every night at bedtime she asks if she will see him the next day : ( : (... they will be reunited soon though....

Miss you friend 

Ceydas 1st

Today was Ceydas first morning at Kindergarten. She was already so excited as we talked about it alot beforehand to prepare. I expected to stay with her for the full 2 hrs today to help her settle..apparently that wasnt neccessary. Even before éher Emma"  as she calls her ,her cute and lovely best friend had arrived she was waving me off.. 

Potty training ( i actually hate calling it that) is going well... the school have asked that she wear pull ups next week as she asked to use the bathroom each time.

Afterwards Ceyda and i went to Starbucks together for lunch , she was so excited to tell me about her morning. Sitting there with our juices and lattes chattering away , i hope that we will be doing this together for as long as time allows..I was suprised when she walked round the corner suddenly ,sometime later alone as i sprinted after her i asked where she was going ... " bathroom Isla"....too cute !!!

How the decluttering / Cleanse going ? & a whole lot more...

First of all i am going to change the name to cleanse.. declutter feel well to cluttered : )

The answer is honestly not great. Apart from bagging and giving 5 bags of second hand clothes to charity and clearing my "posh living room " ( the only things posh in it is the marble fireplace.. the Ikea curtains,old recovered couches and borrowed pillows not so much..) Still it is my favourite room in the house and as with most of my favourite things will barely be used. 

This means that i still have the home office, and spare bedroom to tackle... 

(oh i just remembered i also clearned the cupboard under the stairs yay ! i can reach my tumble drier now ) 

Actually a hoarder could come to my home and find me quite mad as i dont actually have that much stuff what i do have though, is an obsession with storage and orderliness... no one tells you that orderliness and toddlers dont mix..please i am not making excuses just merely pointing out that on a normal day when i am cleaning bedrooms putting clothes away etc Ceyda is normally in her room trying on all her clothes... I call it the tidy up sprint ,as if i am fast enough i can minimise the mess she makes. Ok back to the cleanse. 

I think this will be a longer process  than i would have liked for one i am still waiting for DH to find a ladder so that we can put said storage away to be stored..

Ok back to Ceyda. We had such a lovely day today. It was one of those easy days where activites and duties flowed perfectly. So here is what we did. 

*3 loads of washing (one of which still in machine take note Isla) cleaned kitchen twice..hoovered twice ( dropped bag of sugar on the floor...) tidied bedrooms. Prepared spare room and bathroom for new guest arriving tonight.

* Read all of her favourite books..including her new leapfrog tag books which she loves

* Counted..manadarins and apples alot... counting is kind of her thing right now

* Sang songs to a daft Pegga Pig CD

* Went for a lovely walk to the supermarket where i pretty much forgot to get everything i actually needed.

* Puzzle time..Ceyda is freakishly good at puzzles

* Watched Little Einsteins

* Played in the garden with Lucky

and last but not least painted before Dinner "project shapes".. the idea was for Ceyda to paint the shapes i had prepared..and once the meal was on the cooker i joined her and well we had far to much fun cos i burnt the dinner : ( : ( 

* Pasta with ready sauce for tea then. 

The one thought that i had all day was "GRATEFUL" regardless of feeling as though i am tumbling around at times, regardless of feeling the depth of loneliness at times, i am grateful for everthing and everyone i have in my life. I am grateful for everything i think and feel and grateful for my journey.

Last night i blog surfed something i have never done. I found many beautiful blogs but there was one that caught me..it was the blog of a mother who had lost a child. She had brought only one of of twins home from the hospital. My heart hurts for this person still... as she is lost between the living and the dead. I know you dont know me but i hope you find your way. 

Although there is no comparison it made me think of my first baby bee. I miscarried at 15 weeks. I love you. I think of you often my dear little boy. We are waiting for you. 

Isla x

So much fun maybe too much !!

Yesterday we had our long awaited playdate with friends at the Saysen Playhouse. It was just magical to see Ceyda having so much fun. I felt really relaxed and it was clearly the first tentative step towards her and i spending time apart. 

She was so excited though that she found bedtime really hard...we did our usual bath and stories with milk in mummys bed then teeth brushing before bed. Everything went perfectly as always until bed, when to leave the room Ceyda shot out of her bed " Mummy dans Ela, dans Emma dans..Emma play, Emma jump" Following the advice from books i have i picked her up popped her back into bed and said "its bedtime Ceyda Goodnight" this was repeated for the next 40 mins..50mins... 1hr. By 9.30pm i was about to give up when bam she was out like a light. Or so i thought when i heard her calling me at 4am. So i go to her room to tell her its still dark and not morning yet (this usually works) and before i can even speak she is all "morning mummy" today see Ela ? Emma ? Ata ? Oh No...a short discussion later she and i are asleep in her mini Ikea bed and man do i have a sore neck today ! 
Toddlers are hilarious they really are but tired toddlers and tired mums don't make for the best team. As a result today was well the toughest day ever for me in toddler parenting. I had this lovely day planned..walk to the park... coffee and snacks outside at our favourite cafe, walk home for crafts (halloween) and painting..then wash the dog and garden together ...( add put away washing, tidy house..make"nice" dinner as we have a guest). Heres how the day actually went. Ceyda refused to put her shoes on so no walk to the park...destroyed all the crafts..didnt want to paint or play with playdough or do anything..even quiet time reading books was unacceptable for her. Whilst cleaning she garden , 3 flower pots were upturned.. the dogs tail was pulled ( this is not allowed as although our lovely 9 year old pointer is good with her we all have our limits) so no dog washing. 

We use "time out" and "quiet corner" . I use "quiet corner" for her as sometimes she gets so overexcited she can either hurt herself or others. It like a nice time out where i tell her to breathe   (she knows this from the yoga we do together) 
The day ended in a showdown about putting toys away and then while sitting in a huff in the lounge after a time out for throwing something at the TV ( seriously i wish i could take a photo of the pouty huffy face), she comes to me in the kitchen open and says " so sorry mummy me paint now" so we painted played with playdough and made the dinner together. What a day. Phew.
This day actually gave me a gift cos i was due to be starting an online language course in a few weeks but there was a problem with the payment.. this means that i wont be taking the course until next year. The message from the universe to me is " your bee needs you all of your attention for a little bit longer". ( next year she will start kindergarten 2 days a week). the path to our selective freedom needs to be slower and i am ok with that. Breathe.