1. Murat's day off; and
2. Murat's father is visiting with us; and
3. it was a typical Antalyan hot and sunny day; and
4. we all love swimming, playing in the sand, and getting out of the house,
we decided to go to the beach. Since Ky doesn't sleep anywhere except in our bed or in the car we always have to carefully plan our days around his sleep schedule. So with this in mind, we decided to go to the local sandy beach early in the morning and then when the sun started to get too hot at around 11am, which is also coincidentally Ky's nap time, we'd jump in the car and slowly make our way to another, rocky beach, about an hour's drive away, while Kaya napped in the car.
The plan started out well enough and we had a lovely morning. As soon as we arrived at the beach club Murat and I settled ourselves on the lovely deck overlooking the beach while Ky and his grandfather built sandcastles together by the water's edge. (By the way, we never use the public beaches because they are so dirty and I just don't even want to think about Kaya playing in the sand amongst cigarette butts, decaying food scraps, plastic cups, dog poo, and other disgusting and unidentifiable items hiding in the sand - but my thoughts on this deserve a post all of their own which I'll get to another time). While we were there, Kaya met a little boy called Saney and sometimes they came up to the deck to push each other around on a kid-sized toy car. Other times we all swam together in the sea. Murat, who's friends with the owner of the beach club, jumped behind the bar and made us a couple of delicious, tall ice coffees sweetened with honey. I very much enjoyed sipping on mine while watching the kids play. Kaya's grandfather found time to relax too and did what he loves best - reading the newspaper while drinking a strong black turkish coffee. Ky painted the deck with ice cubes. Murat chatted on the phone to his brother. I pushed Kaya in the little car. We paddled around in the calm water a bit more. In fact we were all enjoying ourselves so much that it wasn't until just after midday that we noticed how hot it was getting.
What typically happens when you've neglected to keep track of the time while playing in the sun? You get sunburnt! Being so fair, Kaya was the worst affected and his little back glowed red.... Bad bad bad mummy! We jumped in the car and headed for the nearest nursery and broke the leaf off an aloe vera plant found right near the entrance. We opened the leaf and scraped all the gel out and onto Kaya's little back. Fortunately Ky didn't yet seem to be bothered by the burn and we crossed our fingers that the healing magic of the aloe would start working right away and soothe his skin until we got home to our own aloe vera plant.
By the time we got home most of the redness was gone but we applied more fresh aloe gel all over for good measure. And this morning, you wouldn't have even known that Ky had been in the sun at all. That stuff is magic!
Even though it's very old and looking really unattractive. I really love my aloe vera plant.
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