By Vicki Bahr 
My grandmother was astounded when I told her I had met so many of her neighbors after we had only lived in her house for a couple of weeks.
Grandma had decided to move into a senior citizens’ apartment building, and the timing was wonderful. John and I had been renting a townhouse, but once our baby, Christopher, was born, the situation wasn’t ideal any longer. Christopher was very fond of being awake and vociferous during the night, and the paper-thin walls of the duplex were horrible.
When Grandma broached the idea of us renting her small two-bedroom home as she “tried out” the idea of her new apartment, we jumped at the chance. It was the perfect solution for us.
I sewed curtains for the nursery, fashioned a skirt for the bottom of the exposed bathroom sink, and loved the opportunity to make the home I had loved as my grandparents’ our very own.
John needed our only car for work during the day and often into the evening, and it was wonderful to have a neighborhood to explore with baby Christopher in his stroller. We sat in the backyard and watched the trains go by on the tracks at the top of the hill, made shadows puppets on the side of the house as the sun went down, walked up the hill of one adjoining street and down the hill of the other, waved to cats in the windows and puppies in the yards, neighbors out raking leaves, and the mailman as he drove down the street. We crossed the little creek that filled up when it rained, and after only a couple of weeks, our routine had drawn attention and brought the retired folks outside to admire the baby, ask our names, and offer me a lawn chair and a bit of conversation.
My grandparents had lived there for several years, and hadn’t met most of the folks we had, and Grandma was tickled by that.
“It’s because you have the neighborhood baby!” she grinned. “A baby is a great way for people to meet and start a conversation. Christopher is the perfect excuse for people to come outside, take advantage of the nice weather, and just happen to check their mailboxes as you’re walking by. You know their names now, and they know yours. You have someone to offer you a lawn chair when the sun is setting, and John is working late. They’ll talk about when their children were little and be excited when he learns to stand by himself and toddle across the little wooden bridge as they wait on the other side, urging him across.”
And Grandma was right. Our baby was so loved, and my grandparents’ old neighborhood had a new vitality.
When we bought our first home and moved away, I missed those friendships and routines, but Christopher had a new baby brother by then, and our new neighborhood was just itching to welcome a 3-year-old and “his” baby. There were new puppies to meet, and school buses full of kids to wave to, neighbors who wanted to hear the boys’ stories and watch them grow, draw chalk paths on the sidewalk for their Hot Wheels to travel on, and exclaim how much they had grown as they started each new school year.
John and I are the old folks now, and we love waving to new parents as they push strollers or follow toddler bicycles down the sidewalks of our new subdivision.
There’s always time for a little conversation, and no better reason to start one than a baby peeking up at you from the blankets.
Grandma was right: every neighborhood needs a baby.
by Karen Johnson 
by Brea Schmidt 
by Emily Roussell 
by Britt LeBoeuf 
