Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard love each other, but being stuck inside with their children during the coronavirus pandemic has not been easy. The Frozen 2 star admitted the two have been “on each other’s last nerve” for the past few days, but they have started laughing about the situation they find themselves in. They are starting to take on activities to keep their minds busy, from re-watching the Harry Potter movies to rock painting.
“We’ve gotten on each other’s last nerve these last couple days,” Bell told Entertainment Tonight from her home Wednesday. “We’re doing much better now because were laughing about it. But when we were not laughing about it for the first couple of days, that’s the hard spot.”
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Although Shepard and Bell love spending time together, quarantine time is different because, as Bell explained, “You have so much more time to think about the other persona and their actions and sort of replay what they said or attach a meaning to something that they did and that I could do without… Nobody really needs time for that. That’s useless.”
The two have found some places in the house to be alone though, which you need to have in a marriage, Bell said. Shepard, 45, and Bell, 39, married in 2013. They are parents to daughters Delta, 5, and Lincoln, 7.
“The biggest lesson I learned in the beginning was I wrote out the color-coded schedule, when our academic time would be and when our art time would be,” Bell explained. “By day five, I was making everybody miserable. The kids hated that I was trying to adhere to the schedule. So about a week ago, I woke them up and I said, ‘This is your most important mission ever. Get up.’ I brought them in the kitchen and I had them rip up the schedule. …I had them shred it and they felt so good. I said the learning lesson here is that if you make a plan and it’s not working, you pivot.”
Without that schedule around, the family has focused on art projects like painting rocks around their home. They have also watched all of the Harry Potter movies. Her daughters even donated to No Kid Hungry themselves.
“I think [their donation] was, like, $9.72 but the thought to me exploded my heart,” Bell said. “They knew that there was a need and know how lucky we are and wanted to help.”
Bell and Shepard recently appeared on Instagram Live with Katie Couric, where the two joked about the problems of self-quarantining with two young children.
“As a parent you can see when their eyes are asking questions and their mouths don’t know how to say it. So we’ve been very open about telling them what the disease is,” Bell told Couric. “We’ve tried to give them an opportunity to ask questions, but it hasn’t really happened. It’s kind of strange.”
Bell recently launched a fundraiser with Omaze to support The Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles, which is supporting small businesses, medical facilities and at-risk citizens during the COVID-19 outbreak. Fans can make a donation and enter a raffle to have a virtual game night with The Good Place star.
Photo credit: Cindy Ord/Getty Images
