Covid 19 is Messing With My Making Babies Smile Game
By: Mary Devries
Tags: Covid 19, Parenting, Baby, Humor, Life

How can it work with a mask on and no babies?

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash

There have been many losses in 2020 but perhaps the least discussed is the loss of opportunities to make babies smile.

I’m mean sure, if you are lucky enough to have a baby in your bubble you are golden. I imagine all your time is just spent sitting around making faces at her and delighting when she giggles. What else could you possibly have to do that is more important?

If like me your bubble is baby less, you are screwed. I try making funny faces at my 19-year-old college student but it never works. She is living at home taking online classes instead of living in a dorm and skipping class because she was out late the night before partying with friends.

God did not intend for parents to know where their 19-year-olds are and what they are doing 24/7. It is not natural.

I have been honing my making babies smile skills since I was a young child. Most of my practice hours have been logged at church. Delighting babies by pulling faces is the only socially sanctioned method of goofing off in church.

Trust me, as a preacher’s daughter, I know what is and isn’t acceptable behavior in church.

Acceptable: flipping through the Bible looking for the gory or dirty bits. Pro tip: the old testament is your go-to.

Unacceptable: folding your bulletin into a paper football and playing a game with your brother using the pew as the field and your fingers as goalposts.

Making babies smile is in a class all its own. It isn’t just accepted. It is actually approved. You are giving weary parents a break by entertaining their children. Fussy children distract the worshippers. You are not hiding your talent in the ground. No, you are using it to bring glory to God’s kingdom.

While it is possible if you are very good to go a little too far and cause the baby to begin to giggle audibly, even this isn’t really a problem. Happy baby sounds tend to make even the sternest church lady’s mouth twitch upward if she has any heart.

And the best bit is you never have to outgrow this silliness. You can keep making babies smile even if you live to be 100. How many options do we really have as adults to act silly and have society react with approval?

You don’t need to be a churchgoer either. Baby smile provoking is a thoroughly secular activity as well. After all, pre-pandemic, babies were everywhere. You could play this game standing in line, on the train, in the grocery store, in the stands at the pee wee football game, anywhere really.

But now? Thanks to Covid 19, good luck finding a baby to smile at out in the wild. It’s been months since I’ve seen one in the grocery store. Parents have hunkered down with their little ones, selfishly keeping them at home and away from the public all to avoid them contracting a deadly disease.

Not to mention all the best baby smiling venues and activities being closed and/or deserted.

On the rare occasion you do happen to spot a baby it is now totally unacceptable to get too close. Not only that but you are a concerned citizen who cares about other people so of course, you are wearing a mask.

How do you make a baby smile from 6 feet away with half your face covered? That’s like asking a trapeze artist to do his act with both arms and one leg tied behind his back. It might be possible for a pro but I can’t quite imagine how.

I finally got a chance to try the other day. I was ten feet away from a baby while standing in a queue. I gave her my best expressive and wriggly eyebrows and wide eyes. She eventually rewarded me with a demure half-smile.

I think it was gas.