Quaran-teaming

When Rob first started to work from our home office, I hesitated to make loud noises during his conference calls. When it came time to make a lunch-time smoothie, I would wait until he was off the call, or write him a note asking if it was OK to run the Vitamix, to which he would usually give the thumb's up.  Now that all three kids are home and the Vitamix experiences high demand throughout the day, we have given up coordinating our timing with Rob's calls, and he sometimes stalks to the opposite end of the house despite wearing noise-canceling headphones.

The five of us are a team, specifically a "quaranteam." That's a brand-new word to explain how folks who usually live alone are banding together to ride out this time of social isolation together, an oxymoron normalized by the current strangeness. Though we're extremely lucky to have space and technology at home with which to maintain jobs and schools, we often find ourselves jostling each other in the small kitchen or running up or downstairs to investigate (and yell about) the source of pounding bass drops or howls of frustration.

We have to coordinate our TV-watching in the evening (the only time we use TV, since phones and computers are ubiquitous). I watch something light and harmless like a singing competition or baking show (or re-runs from the Rio Olympics) and then give way to Rob and William watching their dark, apocalyptic series. I can't watch these, finding them too close to real life. I can barely fall asleep above the TV room listening to the harsh minor chords and pounding beats that indicate dreadful turns of events.

The refrigerator and pantry are also sources of inquiry and often, discontent. As my friend described it, the boys frequently visit the refrigerator and stand in front of an open door, checking to see if anything new has "grown there" in the past twenty minutes. Between Instacart and Amazon Fresh orders, we do have groceries arriving every few days, but the pace is outstripped by the rampant eating of my teenagers.

Despite these minor frustrations, I enjoy quaranteaming with my family. My father always told me and my four siblings that family is bedrock, the people you can count on when you're down and out. I can't help but feel that living together through these challenging times will make a mark on my children, that despite their issues and frustrations with one another, they will realize the strength in their unity.  And one of the blessings of this time is that I can say goodnight to all of them in one place and wake up to see them all safe in the morning.