The Baby Across the Street, or, Serious Overthinking

This is more like a letter I should submit to Miss Manners or Dear Abby (love your work, Miss and Dear!) than an actual event worth ruminating on. Even so, I have given some thought to it already, so I may as well go all the way and give some thought to it out loud (so to speak). The issue in a nutshell is: our neighbors have had a baby- what should my response be? Keep in mind that the longer I ruminate, the more I have made a default decision for myself. The history is thus…

The house across from ours is a piece of new construction on a street of 1956 split levels. It’s big and red and has gables, a funny brick-walled front yard (with impeccable groundskeeping) and a wide front porch at ground level. And it seems it is not just a house, it’s a home. An assisted living home, to be exact. Mobility buses coming by many times a day to schlep the assisted livers here and there, and when we first moved here and I wasn’t yet working, I got a little jealous that these assisted livers seemed to have so much more of a life than I.

Also living in the “Steakhouse,” as my local friend has dubbed it (because of how it looks, not any darkly comic sense), is a family of four- husband, wife, and two small children. They are from some eastern European country. I assume that the woman looks after the residents, and the man looks after the building (though it could be the other way around. He certainly mows the lawn, more, though...). Our association with them has been limited to occasional waving (especially waving at the man and his children, who sometimes go out for little walks in the neighborhood).

At Christmas time, as is the tradition in my family, I loaded up a few plates with Christmas cookies and candies, and carried them to each of our neighbors’ houses. The only one who was around to receive their goodies was Sheila, who celebrates Hanukah instead, but was still very gracious about accepting the cookies. When I brought a plate to the Steakhouse, a young woman who works there took them from me, saying, I’m not the owner, but I’ll give them to her. Fast forward to Easter, a few weeks ago. The doorbell rang (an excitingly rare event), and when I opened it, there stood the woman from across the street. Whom I have never met or spoken with or even really waved at, since it’s her husband who is outside much more often. Unsmiling, she handed me a plate of pastries she had made for Easter. I thanked her, hugely smiling, and asked her (recklessly!) if she was expecting (because she looked about six months pregnant). She said she was due in two weeks (Wha?). She told me her name, Adina (I am spelling it on a whim here). I told her if they needed anything, to call on us. She said they would be just fine. Kind of meanly, it felt like.

And of course, she had the baby. We have seen him from our windows, tucked into his baby bucket and covered with a blanket, being carried in and out of the car. Catching him outside once, I asked the father if the baby had come, he said yes. I asked the little boy if he liked his little brother, and he gave me a very sour scowl. We know the baby is here. We don’t know the family very well. But they have made a kind gesture to us (the Easter pastries were pretty tasty), they are a young family with a new baby, and they are our neighbors. I want to do something nice for them, on the other hand, I fear (a little irrationally, I’ll admit) that doing something for them will be perceived as something like meddling, which I genuinely don’t want.

Am I mired in a simple cultural difference? I know Americans are more grinny and boisterous in their attempts to be “friendly” with others (especially me! I blush a little at my uber-friendly try at conversation with the borderline sullen Adina as she handed over the Easter sweets). Or is she genuinely just not a warm, friendly person, perhaps one who would neither notice nor care about an extra pack of onesies and a Hallmark card? This is one situation where the golden rule might not apply. I would want my awkwardly smiley, new-to-the-street neighbor to come over with a small, cute baby present if I had a new baby. To me, that would be just great. But also? I think it’s easy to see how not everyone might feel that way.