True story: some years ago, I opened my house to a woman (and her family of five) I randomly connected with on the internet. They moved in with our family of five. Two couples and their kids, one house, one year. No, not a duplex, or an upstairs-downstairs, or anything like that. A regular “one family” home.
#tenpeopleoneshower
A few months into our experiment, we’re still adjusting, crying, rejoicing — and, oh, did we mention their newborn baby? It feels like we are walking on water, then drowning, then pulling one another up for air.
We thought our six-year-old boys would get along famously. They didn’t. We have to work at finding ways for them to connect. We thought our friends would have enough room. They didn’t. We have to reconfigure the house all over again and give them an extra bedroom. We thought it would be challenging to distribute the household labour. It isn’t. Everyone simply pitches in and the work continues to get done day after day. We weren’t sure how meal-planning would go. It turns out my friend went to culinary school and is a master strategist, so food prep and feeding the families has been streamlined and straightforward.
Little miracles happen every day. Two of us walk the kids to school in the morning after making lunches, feeding six hungry children, and helping get on dozens of…
