Last night I dropped by my neighbor’s place for a “quick” visit. I’ve lived here over a year now, don’t I know that the definition of quick here is completely than the definition in the States?

Anyhow, it was quarter-till-nine in the evening, and Chickpea was miraculously still not in bed. I really needed to get some dishes back to our neighbor, and since her place is on our floor in our building, I could just pop over, say hi for a few minutes, and get back.

Kabob pointed out that I should bring Garbanzo, since the lady adores him. Okay, fine, I decided, I’m sure she’ll hold him the whole time, and I can just enjoy a few minutes of someone else doting on him. Then Chickpea said she wanted to go, and I hesitated – it was past her bedtime, and their 8-year-old son is incredibly rough when he tries to play with her. She doesn’t really like him.

So I relented, because in all honesty, I figured if I brought her, she wouldn’t have much fun, she’d start whining, and I could use her attitude as an excuse to high-tail it out of there. (Please tell me you’ve done this before, fellow moms.)

To make a long story short, almost an hour later, I finally got out of their apartment with my beat-red, sweaty-faced baby (most people here are freaked out by the cold, so their homes are saunas). Chickpea stayed to watch the rest of the cartoon she was watching on their ginormous flat-screen (Heathcliff dubbed in the native language). She was on her tenth dried apricot (no, not just before bed!) and was polishing off her Coke (she’s three, remember). Whenever I’d try to whisper in her ear to not eat or drink anything else, our neighbors would protest. No, she can have as much as she likes! It’s no problem! I wished I knew how to say It might not be a problem for you, but would it be if you came over and changed her sheets in the middle of the night?

Garbanzo had to get in his last feeding and hit the sack, and Chick sincerely said she wanted to stay. Apparently the boy drawing on her face with a red marker, immediately breaking the headband his mother gave her (by swiping it off her head), and taking the apricots off her plate and putting them on her head didn’t phase her enough to not want to be there. My plan backfired.

They really are sweet people, and they’re great neighbors (she said with tears in her eyes that she loves hearing Garbanzo cry at 4 a.m., because she misses having babies in her home). We honestly have a good laugh about them, because they speak very fast and with a slight accent, so we usually can barely understand a word they say. Our visits typically consist of a lot of head nodding while they speed-talk their way through our ears. All the while, we’re hoping we’re not nodding about how yes, we’d love it if they made us a traditional dinner of sheep intestine sometime.

Their older daughter promised to return Chick home in a few minutes, so Garbanzo and I headed out the door. Before we left, the neighbor lady gave me three eggs. “It’s a traditional gift here,” she said. “It’s so his cheeks will be chubby.”

Do you think I can exchange them at Babies R Us?

posted: 08 April 2
under: culture, parenting