Visit to Some Green Space

Lady Hiva and I try to get Tau’aho outside as much as possible. We live in such an urban area that it is hard to do that at times, but at least a few times a day we get him outside to swim, swing or take a walk. He loves being outside and doing any kind of active event.

For the weekend we decided to explore one of the large parks in Istanbul: Emirgan Park. Once in Emirgan it is easy to forget that you are surrounded by millions of your closest neighbors. The tall trees provide shade over picnic tables and lazy walkways. During the springtime Emirgan is a popular place to see the tulips—Turkish tulips are famous. Some even claim that Holland, who are also known for tulips, took their tulips from the Turks.

The best part about Emirgan, at least where Lucky Dragon is concerned, there are several playgrounds. We stopped and explored a few of them and he loved trying all the different activities. It had rained the night before so the soft rubber padding was wet, but the mud and water did not stop him from going from one place to another. He wanted to touch, taste and see everything.

The only activity he still has not grown to like is the slide. He would rather climb up it than slide down it. I find this interesting because he is a true adrenaline junky (like his parents). He loves to ride in his car that his cousins gave to him as fast as possible. He laughs the hardest when the swing is flying high and is always game for wrestling or playing a game of tag around the couch.

Some of his new tricks are: walking (so much easier on the knees), taking caps and lids off everything then putting them back on, sneaking around to touch nightlights or Lady Hiva’s herb garden when he thinks we are not looking, giving dirty looks when he is displeased, and learning to make the noises animals make (so far his favorites are the cow says “moo” and the dragon says “RAWR.”)

We love this little guy so much!