Quiz #24. “A Baby Aquarium”
What's it like having a baby during a pandemic--living inside "a baby aquarium?" Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz for April 9, 2020
These are strange times. The world seems upside-down. The virus feels like it is everywhere and, potentially, in everyone. Maybe it’s someone you see on the sidewalk--unknown to them and certainly not known to you or me. You just don’t know--and that’s sobering. Just going outside your own house is frightening.
I can’t imagine how hard it must be for new parents now. Having a new baby is scary enough, but doing it without the comfort, advice and touch of extended family and friends seems unthinkable. Just walking into a hospital these days must be unsettling enough, but we’ve heard from one family member who is pregnant that her local hospital has told them that if she shows up and thinks she’s in labor, her husband must wait outside the hospital--only to be brought inside when the maternity nurses confirm that she is, in fact in labor. In March, a friend gave birth to her son in a New York City hospital more than a month premature. I cannot imagine the pain of leaving your baby at a hospital NICU in normal times--and these are not normal times. (He’s home now.)
Still, seeing each new baby pop up on social media and in the neighborhood gives me hope. Our neighbors, Joe and Danielle, had their first baby a few weeks ago. On the day they went to the hospital, I spotted Joe at his SUV on my daily trip outside the house to walk the dogs. I asked how Danielle was doing and she emerged from the other side of the vehicle to say she was in labor. (She seemed calm so I snapped a picture which I texted to Joe to mark the moment.)
Neighbors Joe and Danielle, leaving to go to the hospital, March 24, 2020
This past Saturday night, April 3rd, I got my first glimpse of the baby, Joe Junior, in a heartwarming scene that I watched unfold, again, as I was walking the dogs. I walk our two 2 dogs, Happy and Stella, separately, so I go up and then back down the block, passing Joe and Danielle’s house 4 times. On my first pass that night, I saw an SUV pull into their driveway at an angle, its front lights pointed at their front door. I switched to the opposite side of the street to maintain social distance and on the way back home, I saw 3 people now on their front lawn, a mother, father and child, spread out and holding handwritten signs. Back at our house, I switched dogs, went back out and up the block again. On my third pass, Joe had invited the threesome up onto their stoop so it was safe for me to stay on the sidewalk on our side of the street. He and Danielle were behind their glass storm door, Danielle holding Joe Junior behind Joe the father for them--and then me-- to see. I shouted a greeting from the sidewalk and snapped another photo to capture this moment. Again, I told them I’d share it with them. On my fourth pass, the SUV was gone and Joe was on the stoop, spraying their handmade signs with Lysol.
When I got home, I texted the photo to Joe. He texted back various pictures of baby Joe and told me how the grandparents had visited that day, sitting on their back deck, separated by a sliding glass door from their new grandson. Joe called their house “a baby aquarium.” Brilliant. The analogy has stayed with me. (I asked Joe and Danielle if I could share their story and he emailed, “Share away. I think in this weird time we live in, if the story of a baby aquarium makes someone smile, it’s worth sharing.”)
Joe Junior
As I have thought about it, the notion of a baby aquarium also seems an apt description of bringing home a new baby in normal times. With a new baby, the other parts of your world shut down--and it happens in a moment. There’s your life before--and your life after. The moment you bring your baby home, there’s a new normal. Everything gets thrown on its head as you focus your attention on this strange new creature with its own personality, quirks and rhythm. Let’s not forget the bone-crushing sleep deprivation that kicks in from moment one as you learn to sleep (if you’re lucky) for a few hours at a stretch, night after night, day after day In normal times, a new life with a new baby may not be an aquarium, but it’s a small world (afterall). With coronavirus, the crushing cruelty comes that no one can touch your baby and even your family and friends are forced to look at them (and you) as you sit behind the glass in your baby aquarium.
I think the aquarium analogy also applies now to all of us in this time of social isolation and stay-at-home orders. It is a fish bowl life, each of us trapped separately but some together--perhaps with our people and pets--in our own small worlds (afterall). Our windows onto the outside world are not sliding glass doors on the back deck but the screens of Facetime, Skype and Zoom. They serve as virtual windows, opening us up to family and friends, all swimming--and hopefully not drowning--but still shut off in their own self-isolation aquariums.
The night after Joe told me about his “baby aquarium,” I saw him and Danielle sitting out on their stoop, holding Joe Junior. It was a mild Spring night and our town had called on people to shine a light and cheer first responders at 8 PM. We talked about that--and Joe told me that all he and Danielle were doing was staying inside and taking pictures of Joe Junior. He was worried they were going to run out of space on their iPhone.
If you know me, you know that this was catnip. I am obsessive about a lot of things--none more so than my photos. So, for Joe, Danielle, parents (new and old) and anyone else who takes family photos, if you want my tips for saving and storing photos, here’s “Steve’s Guide to Family Photos.”
There are the 7 basic steps:
1. Get your photos off your phone and out of the cloud every month. Load them onto a hard drive.
2. As you’re putting them onto your hard drive, group them into albums, trying (where possible) to limit them to more than 200 photos, grouped by activity or event.
3. Give names to each album, always starting with the year and month followed by a brief description of the activity or event. (Example: “2020-04 Coronavirus Easter,” “2020-03 Steve’s Birthday”)
4. For busy months, add letters (A, B, C) to distinguish between the albums. (Example: “2020-04 A Easter,” “2020-04 B Judy’s Birthday”)
5. Upload your albums to Shutterfly, giving the albums in Shutterfly the same names so your photos are stored in a consistent system across your storage systems. ("OK Boomer.")
6. Upload the Shutterfly app to your phone so now all your photos are backed up on your phone.
7. Work forward and backward, creating albums every new month and going back in time to save your photos, month by month.
There’s a lot more detail in the guide (imagine that), but we all have the time now, right? If you’re an older parent--and even if you don’t have kids--maybe you’re looking for something to fill the time during these stay-at-home days. Maybe this is the perfect time to begin to get all your photos in one place. Lemonade from lemons.
I’ve been taking (and posting) a lot of photos with each coronavirus quiz as I document and record these strange times.
What did NOT happen?
A. This morning, I took a photo of Sara and Happy looking at a Great Blue Heron having breakfast in the small river behind our house;
B. This week, I took a photo of an onion that John and Will got at the grocery store;
C. Last weekend, I stuck my selfie-stick out the second floor window and took a drone-like photo of Sara sitting on the back deck;
D. I took a photo of social distancing in the line outside Perrotti’s, the local butcher;
E. I take a photo every morning of the digital clock by the side of my bed. I like to keep track of when I wake up. This morning, I slept in: 6:42.
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Want more?
Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #25. The onion.
Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #23. Poor Planning.
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
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