People always say that strange things happen on nights with a full moon. No one knows this better than neighbors Allison and Mark Weintraub, Kate and Jeff Hymowitz and Joni Corn and Tim Frank, who all live in the same neighborhood in downtown Hoboken.
The three couples were expecting their first child in April of 2000. Under a full moon exactly one year ago, all the women gave birth to a son within 12 hours of each other. Two of them live in the same building at First Street and Park Avenue, and one lives a few blocks down on Observer Highway.
The synchronistic births of the three babies are quite eerie and almost surreal, but they have had the realistic effect of bringing the first-time parents and their babies together as friends.
Allison’s baby, Jake, is the oldest of the group by a brief 45 minutes over Joni’s son, Noah. Jake and Noah are a whopping 12 hours older than the baby of the group, Kate’s son, Jack.
“It was crazy,” said Allison as she watched Jake and Jack playing on her apartment’s floor Thursday. “My husband and I were going down the elevator to head to the hospital, and while we were in the lobby, we passed by Joni, who at that time was not in labor, but we most definitely were. We [didn’t know] that [Joni] would be going into labor almost the moment we left.”
While Allison and Joni were not much more than acquaintances before the birth of their sons, since then, their friendship has blossomed.
Remarkably, the two met Kate because Kate’s husband, Jeff, works with Allison’s sister-in-law. And as fate has it, her sister-in-law was scheduled to attend the two kids’ brises on the same day last year.
Amazed by the circumstance of the proximity of the birth times and home addresses, Allison’s sister-in-law brought the neighbors into contact.
“[Having a baby] means having more of everything,” said Allison. “More fun, more stress and more work, but the fact that we are all going through the same thing makes it so much easier for all of us.”
As the parents were discussing how they became friends, young Jack and Jake were busy playing and sharing their toys.
“It’s funny,” said Kate. “Two of the first words that they learned to say were Jack and Jake.”
Now it’s time to celebrate everyone’s first birthdays.
“It’s been so much fun to see them go through their first year,” Joni said. “It’s amazing that they’re all going through the same things, but they’re all a little different too. One may learn to talk first, one may be more physical, and while they all learn at different rates, they’re all growing up together.”
All three mothers agree that Hoboken is a great place to raise a family. They enjoy the parks and the fact that they can stroll up and down Washington Street where plenty of other mothers are out with their babies in strollers.
“Sometimes you can feel isolated when you are a new parent, but we’ve been lucky,” Kate said. “We live in a town that is chock-full of new parent groups and we have three families that are going through the same experiences, and that makes it so much easier.”