Amanda and Tim brought their baby boy into the world during one of the wildest times many of us have experienced in our lives – they were originally due on March 29th, 2020, and Owen ended up coming a week earlier, just one week after the pandemic had started. Though we had planned to do a newborn session soon after Owen arrived, we changed course as phrases like “shelter in place” and “stay at home order” entered our vocabularies, now crafting the way we spent our day-to-day lives. I personally can’t imagine what these early days of the pandemic felt like for people with kids, much less people who had only recently become parents — and here were the Beemsterboers, in the throes of it all, as new parents with a new baby to join them as they sheltered in place at home.
 
We pushed their session back multiple times before finally sticking with a date in May – I had only left the confines of my apartment for groceries and runs at the time, so getting to be in a space with other people felt extra special to me. Amanda and Tim are the type of people who you could guess would be incredible parents from the moment you meet them – they each carry themselves with a bit of softness and kindness, and fun and ease that makes them both seem like they’d naturals at the parenting gig. And they were, of course; they were gentle and patient with Owen and each other, and they laughed about the little things, changed diapers, and took on parenting like the great team they are.  
 
I’m posting these a year later, and I imagine these moments feel so recent and yet so distant to Amanda and Tim – when their little man was just a fresh babe, and they were learning so much on a day-to-day basis, and so was he, and they all still are but maybe it feels like they’re all a bit more seasoned at it these days. It has been a heck of a year for all of us, but what an exceptionally sweet, strange, life-changing one for these three.