First Blog Entry Ever

It's not without trepidation that I type into the ether and wait to see what happens. And I fear even getting into it all that much; though the boy LE is asleep at the moment, there's no guarantee it will last even until the next second, when the wail I try to ignore first rattles me, then sends me in a huff to his cribside, where I see his crumpled face and mussed hair and feel really bad for getting huffy and trying to ignore it. LE is 6 1/2 months old. Today is the day his first tooth made it's appearance. I'm stunned by this. Every time he laughs or cries with his mouth wide open and I can see that sliver of white in there (surprisingly sharp, too!), I'm completely awestruck. When one spends all of one's waking hours next to an infant, small things take on greater import.

It's getting late. It's the second day of Ramazan. The ezan (call to prayer), due in 8 minutes, is sure to wake up the little one. The mosque is about 2 blocks away, and our good imam thinks it's necessary to turn the loudspeaker up a little higher each month, so it sounds like he's singing from the bathroom. I live in a residential neighborhood of rather drab and industrial-looking concrete high-rises, and the acoustics here are fantastic. From the 7th floor, I can hear my husband cough from the parking lot if the windows are open. Though our neighbors prefer to bellow down to their children, and the children to scream upwards for their mothers all day every day, it's actually possible to speak in a normal voice to someone outside on the ground and be heard. Nonetheless, our good imam keeps up with the volume. Maybe he has a PA system that goes to 11 and wants to show it off. Some people tried to complain about the volume, not the ezan, and were accused of being dinsiz (religion-less), and so the complaining stopped. I wanted to complain because the ezan wakes the baby, but BE, my husband, didn't want to get into it. Perhaps name-calling is more effective here, who knows? I'm not against the ezan at all. Just the increasing volume of it. I'm against the waking of my baby because sleep, however long, is precious and hard to come by. I thought of going to plead with the imam myself, but then figured he'd just think I was some kafir yabancı (infidel foreigner) and abandoned the idea. Not that I mind being called kafir or yabancı-- both are true. I just realized I'm too chicken to confront the imam.

2 minutes before sunset. I better get going, and be prepared for some baby-cuddling. He has a new tooth. He's been hardly disturbed at all by its arrival (none of this teething drama I'd heard so much about-- the womenfolk in my life here are ever so disappointed baby care hasn't been harder on me) so he definitely deserves all the love he wants.