onvural.net – melih – family man

Talking about hummingbirds…

Apr
30

After setting up the treehouse for the kids, I decided to add a hummingbird feeder off of the end to see if we could become friendlier with our hummingbird neighbors.

It’s worked!

They love our yard for its flowers, and they love our yard for its hummingbird feeder. While we’re in the yard playing, they’re buzzing around us almost as if they don’t fear us at all. Today, the main fellow (or maybe the sneaky fellow – I can’t tell the difference yet) buzzed just out of arm’s length away from me, suspended in air as we watched each other.

He then went and chased, got chased, and I lost track of where he went.

The kids started playing pirates in the treehouse, and as they were bringing the treasure into the pirate ship, I said to Amelia, “Look, the hummingbird is back”.

Mr Hummingbird in the backyard
Mr Hummingbird in the backyard

I think her expression takes care of the rest of the story 🙂

Fatherhood 0 Comment

You know it’s a good morning when

Apr
28

The kiddos and I went to work/school without Micky today. She was at home to make sure some deliveries were properly setup (come check out our mack-daddy backyard & deck!!)

And so in our way that we do, we talked most of the car ride about what we saw, words that start with certain letters, and what we were going to do that day. And then when the inevitable lull came in the conversation, we popped on the Bluetooth player, loaded up YouTube, and jammed to:

Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. Amelia says to me, “Daddy, point to me when it’s my turn, and I’ll sing my part” which amounts to singing “Hot Damn” as loud as she can during the chorus (with a few “OOOHHHs” thrown in as well). Luka starts wiggling his butt, and gets his funk on. That boy has hips. That comes from my side of the family. Uptown Funk was my choice.

Then it was Luka’s turn. He decided to go with an instant classic…

Idina Menzel has nothing on us. We can belt this song like there’s no tomorrow. And I’m pretty sure that we don’t get a single lyric correct. That is true Onvural singing in the car magic.

And finally, Amelia went way past her years, and chose one of my all time favorites…

And as she sang, “Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah” we got to school, hopped out, and started our own individual days.

It feels like you’re doing something right when you can have mornings like these

Fatherhood 0 Comment

Don’t teach fear; teach respect instead

Apr
24

The bees are drinking as much sugar water as the kids are drinking milk. It’s amazing how quickly two sets of little ones can consume these liquids.

And so yesterday, I went to refill the sugar water for the bees so I wouldn’t have to do it this morning. Mornings are just too crazy to add another chore, but that’s a blog post for a different day. And one little worker bee decided she didn’t want to hop out of the feeder. So we brought her along, refilled the jar, and I was going to turn it over, but I didn’t want to drown her. Instead, we shook her out of the feeder onto the mulch, and put the feeder back in place.

At this point, the kids decided they wanted an up close view of a honey bee.

I can’t tell you how many people seem to be freaked out at the concept of being close to bees. Everyone’s first shared thought has been that I’m crazy because bees sting. We think this way because we’ve had bad experiences, and so we’ve either been taught, or taught ourselves, to fear stinging insects (as if they’re all created equally).

And so here we are, mere inches from the bee. Luka pointed out that she has stripes on her abdomen. Amelia counted her legs. We looked at how big her eyes were on her face. We talked about how it’s a girl bee, and that boy bees don’t fly. We talked about why you don’t touch the bee, and even though I mentioned that they sting when they’re scared, the conversation was more about not wanting to be touched, and respecting the life of another creature.

I don’t have to teach them to be afraid of bees. I just need to teach them to understand and respect the bees. And isn’t that a better state of mind for how to approach new things? I sure think so.

 

Adventures in beekeeping, Fatherhood 0 Comment

First fake sick day

Apr
08

Amelia got us good today. She coughed herself sick, and then had a slight fever. She acted very whiny and tired. And then as soon as we said she didn’t have to go to school she was back to 95% (she is a tiny bit under the weather), and we knew we’d been played. 

Damn those 3.5 year olds are good. 

Check out the play dough sculpture we made: 

Lesson learned. You may have gamed us this time my darling, but just you wait 🙂 

Fatherhood 0 Comment