What Is That Burning Circle In the Sky?

After a very dreary, rainy week and a half, during which my mood and temper deteriorated, Sunday dawned with bright sun and blue sky.  It was a glorious day and we celebrated with a family trip to the park.  Selcuk and I played one on one basketball while Selcuk's cousin Mehmet played football (soccer) with the kids.  We then attempted a family football game but Nehir was a bit miffed by our desire to play by the rules.  We then went to another area of town to visit his cousins.  It was a nice day and I hope the weather holds.

Nehir plans to write a series of books about a boy wizard named Jack who goes to a wizard school after his parents are killed by an evil wizard names Sand (the boy LOVES Harry Potter).  He says it is sort of like Harry Potter but sort of different.  The differences are that Jack doesn't use a wand (actually, Nehir changed his mind on that and now he does), Jack can never die, Jack is the first wizard ever, and Jack saves his family in the end after all.  The titles of the books are "Jack and the Boiling Iceberg", "The Volcano", "The Monster in the Cave" and "The Snake in the Temple." He wrote the first sentence in such garbled English I couldn't read it, which upset him a bit until he decided to just read it to me: "One day Mr. and Mrs. Spike went shopping but when Sand showed up the shopping trip was canceled because they were dead."  I guess if I were dead I would cancel my shopping plans too.  Apparently, at the end of the series, Jack will bring them back to life.  I know some of you are probably thinking that I shouldn't expose him to scary books like Harry Potter at his age, but he loves them and I am only letting him read the first two for now.  I keep him as sheltered as I reasonably can, which isn't as sheltered as I used to think I would keep him.  Ah well, I do the best I can.

I wish I had more news about Taylan, I say the same things every posting: he is cute, he likes to dance, he is cute, he likes the Bob the Builder Song, he is cute, etc. etc.  Today he climbed up on the dining room table to sneak sugar cubes so I moved them to the kitchen.  A few minutes later I found him on the kitchen table eating the sugar.  I was pretty impressed because he hadn't seen where I had put them and it wasn't our house so he didn't just go to the "normal" sugar spot.  Did he smell it?!  The boy must be gifted.