Concerned Grandmas and our backpack

We were warned about infants and grandmas. Jenny Smith, my boss’s wife, told Julie about the possibility of it happening to us—and it did. It seems that otherwise mild-mannered babushkas, when they seen an injustice such as an under-dressed infant, transform themselves into the protectors of the innocent, frozen children. Such was the case today (Wednesday) as both Julie and I experienced the same situation (from the same woman, in fact). If Russian grandmas think that you are not dressing your child warm enough, they will give you quite the lecture (even if you don’t understand it). As my classes were ending (about 1:45), Julie brought David into the school and the woman at the door scolded Julie that David wasn’t wearing the hood on his jacket over his head (it was probably about 60, and he had on 3 layers already). As I left, David didn’t even have the jacket ON—and well that wouldn’t do for this woman. I was carrying David in the backpack (modeled by Julie and David in the photo), and the woman MADE me take it off and put the jacket on him. It didn’t matter that it was by now fairly warm, and that in doing so (taking David out of the backpack, that is) he began to howl. It didn’t matter—only the welfare of David concerned her!
Speaking of the backpack, it has drawn quite the reaction. You’d think that we had a scarlet “A” across our clothes, or that we had three eyeballs or something hideous like that because people absolutely stare at us, point and whisper, gawk, and little kids even come up to us (this has happened to Julie twice) just to investigate. It is very weird—but is something we are going to have to live with because the backpack is very handy and since we live on the 4th floor and our apartment doesn’t have an elevator, we are holding off on buying a stroller cause it would do us no good…SO, we will continue to be the entertainment on the streets of Tver—at least for the time being!