Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Overdue & Promised

I promsied a while ago that I would talk about our visit to the the hypercompetive Russians. The reality is that I really shouldn't be calling them Russians. Of the crew there is only one Russian national: the Muscovite. The other two are ethnic Russians but from Kyrgyrzstan. One was an embassy worker that married the Muscovite and the other married an American. I'll call the women N and T respectively and the men P and J.

The one of the women (T) is hypercompetive with my wife. Lyuda does something T has to do it better or bigger or something. When my wife got her ring, T all but forced her husband to get another that had a bigger stone. A much bigger stone. When T heard that Lyuda was getting a car, she made her husband get one for her much faster (we bought a new one and she is galled that hers isn't). N never seemed to be competitive with my wife. However, that seems to have changed.

What changed? All three of them have babies and we all went to a birth party for T's baby.

N's is the oldest. He (L) is a very sweet child of about 1 1/2 years. He's funny and fun. He's shaped a little strange: his head is disproportionally huge and he has extra bones in his skull. He's developing along like a normal child. Nothing to be anything other than proud of. T's brand new son is (whom the party was for) is a little strange looking, but he's a newborn. They often looked a little squished and some such. Avrora was a little small so she didn't look that way though.

The women retreated into a back bedroom at this Newborn Party to breastfeed and that left the men up front. However, there was a steady stream of "Will! Tell T that Avrora really is already doing X, Y, or Z!" I'd explain, "Yes, she's doing X or Y or Z." Our poor daughter was having to demonstrate holding her head or pushing herself up or whatnot while she was hungry. T and N started getting really jealous. N had told us when her baby had done X, Y, and Z prior to Avrora's birth. After watching Avrora she revised her statement saying, oh yes her son had done that as early as Avrora. *sighs* T kept muttering that what was happening was impossible because all the books had said it was. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous, personally and so did my wife. Every baby develops differently. Some get ahead. Some do not. Some start fast and slow down. Vice versa too.

Is Avrora early for developing stuff? Right now, yeah.

Is it a little remarkable since she was premature? Yup.

I it something that these women ought to get into a tizzy about? Nope.

The men chatted, awkwardly, out in the livingroom while the women were off having their pissing contest. P and I don't really get along that well. We've reached an awkward, armed neutrality with one another. The other man is J and he's a librarian that's about a decade older. The three men sat around and chatted, but we were not overly comfortable. We were just making the best of the situation.

In the end we split, women finished jockeying for position when Avrora and the newborn had their photos taken together. When turned to look at each other, Avrora reached out for the newborn to touch and grab. Lyuda quickly snapped some picts...but from the wrong angle so neither expressions nor to show what Avrora was up to. I got a good look and so did J since we were holding the kidlets.


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