It's mostly because Saby has lots of newly married cousins that he and I have found ourselves to be the North American branch of an international baby makin' syndicate.
I can proudly say that thanks to the Catholic side of my family, we had our own population boom (international even, as one cousin was born in Germany) during a time frame that allowed my sister to participate. She cast in her lot as co-engineer of two girls and a boy over a span of about 6 or 7 years. Other cousins of mine have managed to have upwards of 5 in that same time; some are sticking with one.
Sometime this summer, our cousin Babi was not the first of the new generation of cousins to have a baby, but the first to have one after I had actually met her. Until our trip to India in the end of '06, the joy of most family baby announcements had been diluted by vague descriptions like "Daddy's 2nd youngest brother's second daughter had a baby boy yesterday" and Saby saying, "She was just a KID when I saw her last!" Add to it a pile of names like Anju, Manju, Renju, Reena, and Reema... it was just hard to imagine everyone. So ta-daaa, go to India, meet everyone, sort the Anjus from the Manjus, and now we can authentically rejoice in the birth of everyone's children.
Babi had a girl. Babi managed to get pregnant on probably her wedding night, as all good Kerala girls should, and subsequently had a baby some 280 days later. Her daughter is a cute little thing, from the few photos we've seen, and I'm sure she's being loved to death as the first grandchild of Joy Uncle and Valsama aunty.
Next came Dhanya. Dhanya is from the other side of Saby's family... Mummy's. She is the second daughter of Matkutty uncle, who lives in Jersey City (and who is a very nice guy.) See, I can play this whole thing out now, even though I've never met her. Dhanya has always been a bit of a luddoo gordita supreme, and unfortunately had to go through a c-section before her daughter Riya could be introduced to the world. (the fourth Riya/Rhea in the family, btw... not sure what that is all about. We have more than one Babi too) Riya was born at a whopping 9 point something pounds... very close to ten. She's now probably the most kissable little glub-glub you'll ever see in photos.
Now the newest addition to the club is our cousin Cynthia. She's the wife of Vinod, the big Egyptian looking fellow from our wedding, should anybody remember. She is relatively tall and very very slim, and has never allowed me to see any photos of her pregnant because she feels she looked like she had swallowed a watermelon. Huh. (I'd be proud of that, but hey...) Have never seen photos of their wedding, either, because she claims to look like crap. Anyway... she just gave birth on the 30th to a baby girl named Maya... unfortunately also via cesarean operation. She was terrified about the idea of giving birth and said she'd sell her mother and husband for an epidural... then later recanted that, saying she was nervous that the doctors in Cochin were too inexperienced on giving epidurals. We have yet to hear how it all went down, or get any further statistics on the baby, but it also looks like a sweet little thing and has the same big cheeks of Cynthia and possibly Vinod's nose.
A friend of ours in Michigan gave birth on March 15th to a baby girl ( to Anjali, the best Hindi movie name ever)... and another friend of ours is in the "watch-and-wait" stages, holding out for April 5th or so.
After that, the spotlight goes to cousin Meril (from Daddy's side of the family) in the UK on or around July 18th, and then to me immediately after. It's very interesting to look at it all this way. At least for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment