All familiar characters belong to Janet. Mistakes are mine. For everyone experiencing a less idyllic isolation ... I hope you stay safe, remain well, and continue to stay sane as we all get through this.

"I think this is the first time I've ever been told to stay home with my family for weeks on end, and have actually been excited, not horrified, at the mere thought of forced interaction."

"Olivia and I are pleased to hear that you enjoy our company," I teased.

She curled her arms around my neck. "I not only enjoy your company, I can't seem to get enough of it," she told me, fitting her lips to mine for a quick kiss.

My job as a boss and the head of a corporation, is to keep my people happy, healthy, and sane. But my biggest responsibility as a man is to protect my family at all costs. Even though the men are monitored daily for symptoms, and their contact with the general public limited, no one is allowed near my wife and daughter that has been outside of this building within the last two weeks.

I've always believed it has been extremely beneficial for Julie to have two families and two sets of parents who love her, but at uncertain times like these … I find myself questioning the advantages to co-parenting. My entire career is centered around minimizing damage and protecting those in danger, and I'm having trouble letting someone else watch over my child who's in another state too fucking far away from me. I know Rachel and Ron will take care of her, but they aren't me.

Knowing this, Steph has been focused on keeping my mind occupied during the time I'm not visiting virtually with Julie by coming up with ways to keep my attention on what I have to do for our daughter here. This morning's addition included surprising me in the kitchen, both she and Olivia with similar curly-haired ponytails and wearing matching pajamas that Steph stated they're staying in all day ... since we are all staying home again. The bottoms are a soft purple material and their tops are made jersey-style with both purple and white fabric. On Steph's, the white section across a very distracting chest were the words "Awesome Mom". And the mini version worn by Steph's mini-me read "Awesome Girl".

I can't disagree with either. As another way to kill time, yesterday evening Steph had painted their twenty toes with non-toxic polish in a complementary color, anticipating today's all-day slumber party. And from those little toes I now see curling individually into the laces on my boots in order to get between Steph and I to get my full attention, I believe she's ready to live today's family time to its fullest potential.

"Oops, Olive-girl. Looks like we're interruptin' a moment," Edna said, having come out of the living room right behind Olivia, but stopping short when she saw our lip-lock.

"It's okay," Steph said, picking up our daughter. "Daddy and I were already missing you, Olive. You're ready to go hunting for treasure, aren't you?"

After a quick cuddle, our baby was squirming to get down. "We pards," she stated during her descent.

"Go find Gunny, Mo, and Grandpa Plum, with Grandma Mazur," Steph suggested. "We're right behind you." My wife glanced at me. "You're up, Daddy. I hope you completed your mission."

I leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. "I'm a Ranger, Babe. I don't stop until the mission is completed and declared successful."

"I know, but you were already back even before you left the room."

"What can I say ... I'm just that damn good. All twenty-five targets are lying in wait for Olivia to discover and capture them."

"You are good. Now let's see if our baby stays interested past the third one."

I dropped my arm across her shoulders and used it to bring her close. Being confined is trying under normal circumstances, attaching a pandemic to it can make the entire ordeal unbearable. But I agree with what my wife said minutes ago. Steph and I both married the one person we never got tired of even when sex wasn't a guarantee. So spending all day, everyday with her and the child we made together, has been more of a second vacation to me than a punishment. The hours I never had with Julie when she was Olive's age, I've been trying to soak up now that I've been given unexpected time to.

I can say that because my building is a city in of itself. Everything we need is one phone call away. Although I've been restricting access to my women, Frank and Edna along with Ammo and Gunner, have been keeping us company and Olivia occupied during this the lack of interaction with her Uncles. I should be downstairs making sure Rangeman continues to run without a hitch, but I'm not willing to risk my family by possibly being infected and then bringing the virus straight up to them. Plus, I know it's even more dangerous for either Stephanie or Olivia to become stir crazy or get bored and have no outlet for their energy. So as a proactive and precautionary measure, I quarantined myself with them and am handling my usual workload exclusively by phone and email until this threat passes.

Edna hasn't felt the need to leave our building since she can now do whatever she wants to in her own apartment. And I believe Frank has resisted going out beyond our door for fear of Helen ambushing him, so both were okay holing up here since we returned from the Caribbean and before isolation was required by law. Leaving them to be two of the very few people who have been cleared to stay with my family. I tipped a mental hat to Frank for continuing his therapy sessions via skype when others would use this crisis as an excuse to postpone digging up more shit they'd prefer to leave buried.

"I've got the flashcards," Steph told Olivia, having taken the twenty-five cards out of her pj pants that I had slid into the pocket seductively placed on her ass once I'd finished hiding the objects featured on them. "Are you and the boys ready to see how many toys you three can find?"

Our baby did an interesting one-foot stomp, two raised-arm dance to show how psyched she is for this new adventure. As the days and weeks stretch on, we've needed to become more creative than normal to keep our baby entertained after years of having the luxury of an entire building as a playground and numerous Uncles on hand to amuse our daughter.

"Okay, you remember the rules, right?" Steph asked. "You pick a card and give it to one of us to read to you. And then either you, Gunny, or Mo, have to bring the matching toy back to us. Here we go ..."

"We go," she agreed, and pried out the card three down from the top.

"Good choice," her Mama said, taking it back to hold it up for Olivia to see. "It's a red ball. Ready, set, go find that ball!"

"Damn skippy! Look at those mermaids go," Edna commented, referring to the tiny mermaid decals Steph had added to Olivia's toe nail polish, and also referencing the speed to which Olivia and her dogs started ransacking our apartment.

The extra decoration on the little nails was a good move. Our daughter spent half of her bath time last night staring at her mermaids 'swimming' in the bath with her, which meant we - and the bathroom - got drenched fifty-percent less than we typically do.

Steph went to stand at the sudden quiet and then the noise we all heard, but I waved her back down to the couch. "I'll do some recon."

I found the trio sorting through the 'toy box' we have for Mo and Gunny's essentials. I debated stopping Mo before he ran back to the living room with a green tennis ball instead of a red bouncy ball, but decided against it. I gave him a head start and then bounced the red one towards Olive so she can bring that one back to her mother.

I followed behind and smiled when I heard Steph's response to the ball Mo dropped at her feet. "What a good boy you are, Mo. But the ball was supposed to be red ... ooooh like Olive found! Way to go, Olive-Pie! You got the right one. Now we only have twenty-four left to go. What do you think is next?"

"Ibe tebby beawr."

"Let's see if it is a bear. Pick a card, any card."

This time she brought it to me to show her and read out loud. "You were so close with your guess, Baby Girl," I encouraged. "It is an animal. But you need to go find a duck now."

That one is a no-brainer, since she has a minimum of four rubber duckies in the bathtub with her every night. After running into the bathroom, she chose the duck wearing a crown to present to the panel of judges. It was approved, and she gave Frank and then Grandma Mazur each a chance to display a card so they don't feel excluded.

Frank looked at the card she held out to him and then he proceeded to turn it to face to his granddaughter. "Can you find a phone?" He asked, cupping his hand around his ear. "Ya know, those things you talk to people on."

That confused Olivia for a second, but only because she couldn't decide which cell to pick. She eventually chose her baby cell and the expensive grown-up one Steph had unwisely left on the corner of the kitchen table, before high-tailing it back to the living room, her arms raised in victory.

"You're finding every one of them, Olive," Steph told her. "Great job! You're going to be an asset to Rangeman in no time if you keep this up."

Edna's card contained an image of a banana, which she thankfully made no inappropriate jokes about. Getting to know her personally while we were on the yacht, and more so once she moved into Rangeman, I have to wonder how much of her outrageousness was done just to annoy Helen. She's become a toned-down version of herself, still fun and unpredictable … but not in a way that endangers herself or embarrasses the men.

The good news to come out of crisis, is most of the country being on lockdown has curbed my mother-in-law's attempts to infiltrate my building and free my supposed 'hostages'. It wouldn't do for the Burg biddies to accuse Helen of infecting the neighborhood by coming here where 'those people' live. My men are far more intelligent than most, have retained their common sense when faced with taking care of each other, and took oaths to protect those entrusted to them, so I was annoyed on their behalf, but I am glad Steph and Frank got a government-ordered break from Mrs. Plum. Everyone is in agreement that six-feet is nowhere near enough distance away from that particular woman, half a city away still feels too close.

"Ewww, Gunny," I heard my wife saying. "I mean 'Good boy!' for bringing the right fruit, but now we're down a banana, since I don't think anyone will be willing to eat it now that it has teeth marks in it and dog drool on it."

"We can make some doggy biscuits with it after our picnic-dinner if Olive is wantin' to squish some stuff around in a bowl," Edna suggested.

"Sounds good," Steph answered, while holding out the dwindling deck of flashcards before Olivia's bare feet took her to her room to finally retrieve the teddy bear she's been predicting, the pink camo bear Tank had given her when she was born.

The dog card was an even easier retrieval. Olive just curled her chubby arms around Mo and Gunny and tried to nudge them closer to her Mama. Stephanie even gave our baby extra points for finding living, breathing examples of what the laminated flashcard displayed. An hour, a juice box-break, and one full-body couch-stretch later, the pile of toys at Steph's still-bare feet had grown and so has the love I felt for the woman who took a social-isolation order and turned it into a memory every adult involved will cherish long after the order's been lifted.