The new office set up has turned into the couch in the living room with our laptops warming our legs as the children run rampant throughout the house with the dog. Typical office background noise such as copy machines and phone chatter has been replaced by Baby Shark and Peppa Pig playing on the television.
This is our life in quarantine. My husband, Tony, who works in the academy’s Visual Information department, and I didn’t anticipate returning from spring break just to spend another two weeks in our quarters at West Point.
After disembarking our cruise ship, our command informed us we would have to self-quarantine, which meant we could not leave our house and we had to practice safe social distancing with anyone we encountered. This measure was put in place as a response to the emerging public health emergency associated with COVID-19.
The timing couldn’t have been worse as families started their travels local and abroad as the virus continued to spread throughout the United States. At first, this seemed like a mild concern, then suddenly it was a pandemic.
Our transition into life at home was gradual as we took stock of what food and household items we would need for the next 14 days and begin to understand what our daily routine would look like.
We started our quarantine with a plan but quickly realized we would have to be adaptable and resilient because every day would be different.
Luckily, our oldest daughter was already pretty savvy in technology so the transition to online learning was effortless. Our biggest hurdle was checking in consistently to make sure she wasn’t watching YouTube videos instead of completing her actual schoolwork.
Our youngest daughter was just happy to be around us all the time. When she wasn’t enthralled in one of her favorite cartoons on television, she was in someone’s lap eating their food or engaging in a conversation of gibberish. These are the moments we will remember when we think back on where we were during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Since we couldn’t leave our house, we had to rely on a sponsor family to bring us food and supplies. We are normally very independent so in this instance we had to humble ourselves and ask for help.
When providing our list of food and supplies, we at first were very prudent so that we would not become a burden, but our sponsored family reminded us we would be in the house for 14 days. Our list quickly grew once reality set in.
Working from home was a bit of a struggle because we were no longer in the operational space at the office where we can hear things being said and come up with solutions quickly. We had to listen to briefings on Microsoft Teams from our laptops to stay abreast of the situation as we balanced taking care of our family.
If we find free time during the day, we work out in our living room by screen-casting one of our workout apps to the television. Sometimes our kids will join us in the exercise if it looked interesting enough.
As we look forward to coming out of quarantine, we are also addressing measures we need to have in place to transition us into our new normal. Schools, Child and Youth Services and Child Development Centers across the Army are closed indefinitely and in turn we will have to find alternative care if one of us must report to work.
With teleworking put into place, this eases the burden of having to look for childcare as this situation continues to develop.
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