babe-alert

I'm currently notching up acquaintances of the newborn variety – they are all special of course, and I would have mentioned some of these earlier had I not been a bit flustered of late!

1) My new niece – Lena-chan, who was born in mid-January. First girl of the family, and absolutely lovely! I’d love to see and cuddle her, but will have to be content with images over the computer until either I can get my family to Japan or my brother can get his (now with 3 kids – argh!) here. Her big brother is being good and responsible, her middle brother doesn’t quite understand…
2) Young Isaac, dear first born of friends Angel and Dr J, who was born the next day. He is thriving and doing all the sorts of things newborns are supposed to do, and even went to sleep for a few hours when we were visiting on Saturday night so Mum and Dad could relax and enjoy dinner! Good boy!
3) Twins next door! My neighbour finally had her twin boys this morning, after a long gestation as far as twins are concerned (38 weeks!). Poor neighbours have been freaking out at the thought of having two of them – hope they manage to work out some sort of routine soon.

----------

We also have had a family with 3 kids recently move in over the corridor. They’re an academic family, accustomed to moving cities, and the Mum is a pragmatic type who gets to know her neighbours quickly so she has someone to ask about where to go for shopping, doctors etc etc. We also had a bizarre shared phone line (telco’s stuff up…) for a few days, and had to try to sort that out, which was weird, but another storey entirely. Only problem is they all have hard-to-pronounce Hebrew names. I’ve committed the parent’s names to memory, though.

Last night, their middle child (roughly 7 years old?) knocked on the door:

Child: Hello! Mom wants to know if we could borrow your can opener. We have one but it doesn’t work.
Me: Sure

I lent them the can opener and sent her on her way. 10 minutes later, knock on the door again:

Child: Hi. Mom wants me to say “thanks very much”
Me: Not a problem – tell her it’s fine!

This is the first time anyone has ever knocked on our door and asked to borrow anything, and it’s kind of nice, actually. I’ve always thought people are over-cautious about intruding on privacy in inner-city areas (especially where renters move in and out of high density areas all the time). Sure you run the risk of interrupting something. But when I knock on my neighbours door, they always invite me in it seems – you wouldn’t do that if you are too busy… Our neighbours who just had twins were so worried about the noise their babies will make. I told them not to be silly – newborns are quiet compared to toddlers (I reckon), and we can’t hear through the walls anyway. I’d rather hear noise from babies or kids, than party music past 11pm, loud television noise, or power tools early or late in the day…