We certainly do our best, but this week is always especially rough. Getting anything accomplished is nearly impossible, since there are constant interruptions, bickering, and—like my mom always described her daughters—“people coming behind me and undoing everything I’ve done.” Only, my kid is too little to reach the counters, unfold my towels on the racks, drip sticky mess from two liter bottles into the floor… You get my drift. The strain on our marriage sure doesn’t help much, either.

So what do you do in this kind of situation? My husband and I are as mellow as it gets, for the most part. We hate conflict, drama, anything that disturbs the waters. You’d think that would be the opposite, as much as we protest politically; but in our personal lives, we like it mellow yellow. (That’s one of the things they called our baby in the NICU, actually; no one could get over how mellow she was.) And every time we bring up any problems we have, that’s all that results—chaos.

People bicker, and of course no one wants to really take care of her or her appointments, workshop events, recreational trips, paperwork, prescriptions, etc. One aunt, bless her heart, did so for many, many years, and we took over in exchange for the free rent—which I definitely won’t complain about. And it wasn’t bad during the first year. But like she warned us, the further along our stay, the more harsh it would become as she got used to us.

So why would I, as I said at the beginning, beg some random person to watch my kid? Well, I never really would (though I do call relatives in desperation once every month or every other month, always met with a “Sorry, not this time…”), but I do get that feeling just because, like every mom, I need a break. And while I technically only have one child—that’s what it says on my taxes, right?—I do feel more like I have two; only that I can’t discipline one at all.

So the one I can suffers. She barged in on me while I was going to the bathroom today, for example—to ask for some chocolate chips, of all things—and it was in the middle of me wiping, brooding, growling over my messy towels and my relative using my hairbrush again (though she has two) and her things put in my daughter’s bathroom basket, which is a daily occurrence (though she has several baskets of her own—in fact, two shelves, while the rest of us share one)… and I blew it. I yelled, “Let me poop in peace!” and slammed the door, after which, of course, the plexiglass covering the light fell and shattered all over me.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, either. The slamming, that is. I guess I feel like it’s the only method of frustration management I can use freely without being punished; that said, it’s not a good example for my daughter, and it’s certainly no good for my wallet when it breaks the light covering.

So I go back to my breathing, my attempt to find Zen in the mess and chaos, and keep dreaming that little dream of a little house just for the three of us someday. Maybe, once the chaos clears, there will be a little eye untouched by the storm, just waiting for us.