Today was my first day home for most of the day after spending a few days at my boyfriend’s house with his family. I noticed tensions were high at home but that’s normal on Sundays.

It’s cleaning day.

My mom gets super uptight on cleaning day because everything has to be perfect for the guests we aren’t having over. This used to be a high point of tension in my mom and I’s relationship. She takes everything super seriously and it goes right to her heart.

Yes, even simple tasks on cleaning day.

We argue over who has to empty the dishwasher and who should fold the towels. This is NORMAL family bickering. But somehow it almost always turns into how one of us is “the worst sibling in the world” and the other one “doesn’t ever help out” and so on. That escalates and escalates until my mom can’t take it anymore and sits us down for the dreaded family meeting. 

My mom argues that she shouldn’t do any work because she works all day, my littlest brother starts crying, my older brother and I explain that we also work blah blah blah. Nothing gets resolves, everyone slams the door shut in their rooms or goes for a drive. 

And the house still … isn’t … clean.

So of course I entered the house with caution. I was preparing for an earful from my brothers about how I hadn’t been home in a few days so I should do more work. Or to see my mom angrily mopping the tile with her giant headphones on muttering something under her breath about if our father were here none of this would be happening.

But to my surprise, everyone was – okay. No one likes cleaning. So of course there is the occasional grumpy sigh. But everyone was doing their chores around each other not causing a fight. The quicker the chores were done, the quicker you could go back to lounging on the couch or taking the dog for a walk. 

Truly I was shocked.

But really since the quarantine started our relationship has only gotten better. Really the whole family dynamic has improved. I guess I should introduce you to who I’m spending my quarantine with.

First, there’s my mom. Her name is Kelly. Right now she’s my best friend, but it hasn’t ALWAYS been like that. She works for Gordon Food Services but before that she was at Ocean Spray Cranberries. She and I often watch trashy tv and lay in bed talking about school or work drama. I really love her with my whole heart but she drives me crazy.

Next, is my little BIG brother Jack. He’s 17 but he’ll be 18 in August. He and I always fought the most but last summer we became really close through some family trauma that I’m sure I will get into over the course of this blog. He’s autistic. He is the smartest and most caring person I know. 

Then, we have my little LITTLE brother Joshua. He just turned 16 on Friday. He calls me his second mom or even his dad. Our dad isn’t in the picture. Who needs him? I basically raised him since I was 4 and a 1/2 years old. He and I had a HUGE falling out last summer. Remember that trauma I was talking about? I didn’t think our relationship would ever recover from that. But now, with quarantine, our relationship has been forced to improve and we are both really getting along again. 

And of course, we have pets. We have my sweet dog named Cookie. She is almost 6 years old. Last Christmas we ‘got’ her 23&Me for pups. Turns out she’s a mixture of pitbull, husky, and labrador. She looks just like a border collie though.

I also have a SECRET snake named No Feet. He’s a secret because my mom would kill me if she found out. For real. My brothers know about him but she would actually kick me out if she found out. He’s a baby ball python and I’ve had him for about 2 months.

That’s the main crew. I’m sure I’ll introduce some new characters throughout the weeks. Tonight my mom is grilling for us and then we’re all watching the show “90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days.” Now THAT is trashy tv.

Anyways, I am really proud of how much my family has grown in the last few months. A year ago we were all at each other’s throats constantly arguing and miserable. I wanted to write about this because I think it will give other family’s hope for improving their relationships as well. I’m here to provide tips, tricks, stories, and more on how my family relationships have improved and how you can work to improve your own.