Helpful strangers

January 9, 2009 - 12:15 AM by Jessica · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness

Our stroller, even if you can't always see the babies

When you enter the baby business, you discover how much some people love babies. Particularly twins. There are those who see a double stroller and immediately light up, delighted at the thought of not one, but two infants in the same carriage. There are others who need to stick their head into the stroller and inspect said babies for themselves, and then there are those who have advice to offer, desired or not.

As it turns out, Jerusalem’s Malcha Mall is full of these people. I headed over there the other day with my sister and the boys for an afternoon adventure, because anywhere you go with three-month-old twins can be classified as exciting.

And along the way, as we do these days, we met many people who wanted to meet our guys. There was the saleswoman in the socks section of the Mashbir, who literally lifted the baby out of my sister’s arms, kissed him and ran off to show him to someone else. I had never met this person before in my life. There was the staff at Aroma, who exclaimed over our little guy’s size — he’s the one who spent six weeks in Hadassah’s NICU — and couldn’t believe he was for real. “Is he a doll?” they asked. There was the woman at the Originals shoestore, who took offense at the way I was holding one of the babies, sort of sitting him up on my leg in order to burp him. “What’s that going to do to his posture?” she barked at me.

When we bumped into the father-in-law of the woman who owns my local dry cleaning store [it's a small country, and Jerusalem is really a village], he glanced at the carriage, asked if they were both boys, and then pinched my cheek, saying, “You have to really know how to make boys!” Wink, wink.

And then there was the coexistence moment of the day, when I sat next to another mother, an Arab woman, as we nursed our babies in the local Shilav baby store. She admired my babies and I admired hers, and she wondered out loud how I was handling two infants. I shrugged and rolled my eyes, and we agreed that new motherhood is challenging no matter how you approach it. But thank goodness she didn’t offer any advice.

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Tags: babies, coexistence, malcha, Mashbir

Jessica has twins

December 16, 2008 - 2:42 PM by Nicky · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Life

Happy to be together: Lev and Ziv For all those readers who were wondering where on earth our writer Jessica has got to over the last couple of months, then wonder no more.
She’s had twins!

Two little cute boys who were born two minutes apart on October 13th. Ziv Maimon weighed in at 2.2 kilos at birth, while Lev Yehuda weighed in at just 1.2 kilos.

The boys were born prematurely at week 34, and while Ziv was in hospital for just 10 days, it took Lev six weeks before Jessica could finally take him home.

It’s no doubt been an exhausting couple of months for both Jessica and her husband, Daniel, but the boys are now doing well, eating enormously and gaining weight quickly. Ziv already weighs 3.3 kilos, while Lev has reached 2.4 kilos.

Congratulations Jessica and Daniel! They’re gorgeous, or as Karin – our own green prophet – told me earlier: “They’re cutie poopoo’s.” jessica-and-boys