Adventures of the Great Indoors

Adventures of the Great Indoors

And then the whole world

walked inside and shut their doors

and said we will stop it all. Everything.

To protect our weaker ones.

Our sicker ones. Our older ones.

And nothing. Nothing in the history of humankind

ever felt more like love than this.

~C.D.

"I don't believe that there is a reason for everything. Like, I don't believe that everything happens for a reason. I don't think there's one person responsible for it all. There isn't one single puppet master up there. Sometimes things happen and it just sucks."

According to Ally, there is no hidden meaning in tragedy. Bad things just happen.

My dear sister Ally Burke has been home with her husband and their six-month-old, practicing social distancing for over ten weeks now. The Burkes live on the border of Lynn and Peabody Massachusetts. With Lynn falling at number four in the ranking of hot spots in Mass, they have been taking all the precautions to keep themselves safe. They have food delivered to their house, and they just recently began to visit with their parents in the driveway, six feet apart with masks on their faces

Ally explains, "I don't worry about Isla getting sick as much as I worry about myself getting sick and not being able to take care of her. Because they say babies aren't usually impacted as much." Isla is Ally and Joe's baby girl. She was born over three weeks early on November 6th 2019. Isla came into the world with underdeveloped lungs. When she was first born, her oxygen level dipped down to the 80s every couple of hours, forcing her to stay in the NICU for two weeks. Ally and Joe went into Beverly Hospital every day to visit Isla during this time. She is now a belly laughing, healthy, 18.6 ounce six-month-old! When my niece looks at her parents, her face beams as if she were looking at her own personal sunlight.

Even though I know they haven't been leaving their house much, I still ask, "What have you been up to during COVID?" I have learned that there is so much for us to experience in the comfort of our homes.

Ally's voice perks up at my question. Perhaps she has discovered this fact as well, "We've been going on lots of walks. And because Isla is the age she is and I have all this time, we've been focused on different activities that are age appropriate."

"What kind of activities?" I ask, giggling at the thought of my niece pursuing hobbies at six months old.

"We do PT for 30 minutes after breakfast. She's on a strict schedule." Ally explains Isla's daily routine. She is a busy girl! After a breakfast of fruit and oatmeal, Isla practices tummy time and PT movements. Isla's motor skills are advancing after only a few months of baby intervention, which she participated in due to her premature birth date. With the COVID-19 outbreak at its peak, Ally scheduled these intervention meetings through telehealth. The appointments have been scaled back to once a month due to Isla's progress, as she continues rolling and playing on her tummy.

After physical therapy Isla takes a nap from 9-11, during which time Ally either cleans, preps dinner, or works on home projects. "I've done tons of work on my yard," Ally says proudly. She reads off a list of her completed tasks, "I stained my deck, painted the fence, seeded the lawn, her playroom is almost done."

Ally texted me a picture of Isla's playroom after our phone interview. It's a picturesque inlet off the Burke's living room, full of colorful bouncy chairs and various baby seats lining the walls. A row of stuffed elephants and bunnies sits on top of a stained, wooden playbox. Bookshelves are nailed to the walls with titles such as The Hungry Caterpillar, Guess How Much I Love You, and Are You My Mother? Magical, childlike signs hang over the toy box and baby seats. They sparkle with the words "Play the Day Away" and "Land of Make Believe."