onvural.net – melih – family man

23 days til 30

Oct
28

This morning I did family share at Amelia’s school. We learned that we’re in San Francisco, Amelia’s mommy is from England, and her daddy is from Turkey.

We did flags, their colors, and shapes. One historical site.

And then I passed out evil eyes. The kids loved the idea that the eyes keep ghosts away on Halloween.

After I did our reading time. It was a ton of fun, but sitting cross legged for an hour almost killed me πŸ™‚

It made me realize how much I love sharing those moments, and how quickly they seem to be flying by.

I took this photo the other day at drop off knowing it would eventually show up in a blog post. Today is that day. And sometimes the signs on the mirror are just wrong.

IMG_3041.JPG

Objects aren’t closer. They just keep scooting further and further away.

Community pool

Jul
20

Amelia was desperate to go swimming today. Micky wanted to see the curtains. So we looked up some public pool times and headed down to Bayshore.

The lady at the front desk of the MLK Jr Rec Center was incredibly nice. Great smile.

We got in, and the babies were definitely intimated. Lots of loud kids. The water was too cold for them. But we hopped in, and toughed it out for 35 minutes.

We took a steaming hot shower afterwards because the water was really cold.

And then hit up the playground.

I think it’s so great that the city of SF has public pools we can go to for $8. It’s definitely going to be part of our weekend play book.

But the best part was how Amelia wanted it, and how much she enjoys the pool, swimming, and just being physically active in general.

Long may it last πŸ™‚

Hide (or don’t) and seek

Jul
19

The babies have fallen in love with playing hide and seek. Except… there’s no mystery to how they play πŸ™‚

The game usually goes something like this

Amelia and Luka go into bed time delay mode by suggesting a rousing game of hide-and-seek. Amelia usually says something along the lines of, “Mummy, Luka, Mummy, Luka you be a dinosaur. Me and daddy hide in daddy’s bed.”

So let’s break it down… a successful game of hide-and-seek seems to involve

  1. Dinosaurs chasing you down, and attempting to eat you. There’s a lot of cannibalism in our family as the babies are so sweet that cheeks, chins, tummies, and feet are regularly eaten. This has clearly translated into their play
  2. Knowing where someone is is a requirement to the game
  3. The “dinosaurs” need to make loud noises pretending to not know where the hiders are.
  4. When the “dinosaurs” finally pounce on the hiders everyone squeals in delight

That is, unless you’re Luka. You see if you’re Luka then you can’t wait, and you pull the covers down, pop out of the bed, and yell, “Mummy. I here!” over and over again until you’re discovered. And then you squeal in delight anyway.

What will those goofballs think of next to not have to go to bed. I can only imagine πŸ™‚

Learning to let go

Jul
17

I always tell people that I have 3 babies:

  • Amelia

  • Luka

  • OpenTok

And all three have had an amazing year. They’ve gone from needing epic hand holding to having a village around them that makes them better than I could alone.

At work, the hardest part has been learning to trust that others can love the product as much as I do. The team I’ve built makes me feel so confident in the wider set of problems that we’re solving. And now, as they develop their own ideas, I’m really seeing what OpenTok will be. It’s really amazing.

This past week at swimming class my other two babies surprised me so much. Luka is getting so damn confident. Amelia did the older class by herself, and she was just amazing!! And the whole time all I want is to hold them back, and feel like I’m on control and can help them.

But as I said to my team at TokBox, my challenge this quarter is learning to let go. I guess it’s destiny that it all has to happen at once πŸ™

Happy birthday Amelia!

Jun
01

Darling Amelia.

You turned three years old today.

What a year we shared together. You started school last August, and you’re getting ready to “graduate”. We’ve moved house, travelled across the US, met elephant seals, learned to communicate, did potty training, and so much more.

You hate to sleep. Especially alone. In fact, you weren’t sleeping through the night until just recently. And breaking that pattern was so incredibly difficult.

Your favorite songs were:

  • Anything by Miley Cyrus but especially “Wrecking Ball”
  • Anything from Frozen but especially “Let it Go”
  • ABCD
  • Old McDonald had a farm

Your best friend could be any of:

  • Lilah (from school and soccer)
  • Lucy Green
  • Luka (you guys can’t stand to be apart… or together)

Your favorite activities were:

  • Gym class every Saturday morning
  • Swimming
  • Going to the zoo
  • The Pet Store on 31st and Judah
  • Scooting in the park
  • Hanging out with Doruk

We travelled to

  • North Carolina (twice)
  • Myrtle Beach (and we’ll never do that again)
  • Pescadero over Christmas

Your major life events were

  • Starting school in August 2013
  • Moving to a new house in February 2014
  • Learning to scooter around the neighborhood
  • Surgery in May to close up another hernia

Developmentally you continue to amaze us. Your speech is fantastic (even though you can’t hit a pronoun to save your life). You’re athletically so talented. Fast. Coordinated. But you’re still a bit shy around other kids. You’re much better with adults.

You love Luka so much.

And you give the best kisses that any dad could ask for.

Happy birthday darling Amelia. When you’re finally old enough to read this, I just hope you’ll still curl up in my arms, and fall asleep on my shoulder, and not be too big to be my baby girl.

I love you.

He’s too big!!

May
21

Luka is now bigger than Amelia in weight (34 vs 32 lbs.), but she’s holding on to those 1.5 inches with all her effort.

I genuinely wonder what happens when he passed her, and how their power relationship tilts.

Right now, more than weight, it’s really about motor skills. But man he’s catching up fast, and then she’s going to have to be smarter.

They grow up so fast.

Luka climbs out of his crib

May
20

Today is my half birthday. The last one of my third decade of life. That’s right… I’ll be 30 in November.

And so it was quite fitting that so many fun things happened today.

First… Micky got me a subscription to National Geographic magazine! When we went up the North Coast for Easter, the house we rented had a million issues of NatGeo around. We said, “Wouldn’t it be a cool subscription?”, and it looks like Micky pulled it off.

Yes – I do celebrate my half birthday. Get over it πŸ™‚

Then… the kids start chattering away at their bedtime. This is really a Luka driven thing. So there’s squeaking, and some chatting. Then some yelling. Then a voice from the hallway. But it’s not Amelia’s voice. And Luka is in his crib.

Well, Mr. Luka James had pulled his baggy off, crawled out of his crib, opened the door (big no no for Amelia who was trying to stop him), and walked into the hallway – quite proud of himself.

Oh man, oh man. These kids are going to get me.

Anyway, today was a good day.

The day after

May
06

And she’s up and on her scooter. What a star!

Today, I told Luka on my way to work, “Luka, I love you” and he says back to me, “Thanks”.

πŸ™‚

They’re just goofballs. Long may it last.

Amelia’s surgery

May
05

Amelia has just gotten out of surgery for a new hernia she developed a few months ago.

All is well.

Hopefully this is the end of the road with her oemophalocele related stuff. You can never say never, but it would be really nice.

Thank God we live in San Francisco where the best of the best in pediatric and neo-natal surgeons can be found. Sometimes these things happen for a reason.

A day at the farm

Apr
26

There’s a place called Slide Ranch by Muir Beach in the North Bay… and it’s amazing!

It’s a working farm, and today they held an open house for kids. They were showing folks how to make pickles, milk goats, sheer a sheep, and a bunch more. We went to gym, hooked up with the Greens, and then made our way over to Muir Beach.

I get so nauseas going north on CA1. It’s just too windy for me. But we were only on it for 10 miles or so to get to the farm. We got our stickers, and headed straight for the goat milking. I tried to get the kids to do it, but they wouldn’t. I jumped in, and it didn’t go so well πŸ™‚

The babies got face paint done. Amelia got a black sheep and a bee. Luka a tiger!

We had a picnic lunch, checked out the bee hives & chicken coop, and then ended our adventure by trying to felt a cat. That went awfully πŸ™‚

It was tons of fun though!

Now for the pictures…