Every once in a while, I feel like chaos simply descends upon our house. We’re all going through life, fairly normal and happy and in a routine of sorts, and then, one day, seemingly from out of nowhere: chaos. This week it was ushered in by the conjunction of two things. First, my 2 year old is both teething and has a nasty cold. Second, my husband has a more-severe version of that same nasty cold.

This means that my 2-year-old is feeling awful, and pretty much doesn’t want to do anything other than sit in my lap and nurse. He can be periodically distracted by things he loves or by something novel (“Let’s go outside and sit in the hammock,” being an example of the former, and, “What if you ate an ice pop in the bath?” being an example of the latter.), but it doesn’t last for long. After a few minutes, he’s back in my arms looking for comfort.

My husband is feeling awful, and I’m sure he’d like to curl up in my arms too, or at least curl up and rest, but he has to work at least a couple of hours a day (thankfully he’s working from home this week), and our adoring boys want to be with him whenever they see him. I feel proud that we managed to get him a midday nap earlier today, but I have my doubts about whether it’ll happen again tomorrow.

Then there’s my 6-year-old, who is thankfully healthy and well. But when everyone else is getting extra attention because they are sick, he does not want to be left out. Who can blame him? He wants time in my lap too, and one-on-one time spent working on his projects.

When I tried to continue on with our day mostly as normal, everything felt chaotic and harried. It’s hard to do most things with a fussy child in your arms. And when your partner is also down for the count, things become even more frazzled.

So, while I had all sorts of plans for today and the rest of this week, I’ve put them aside. Instead, today we’re slowing down so that those who are sick can heal, and those who are healthy can [hopefully] remain that way. Playdates are cancelled. Errands are put on hold. Big cooking projects are set aside for another time. Household projects are forgotten. Instead, we sit. We snuggle. We read. We rest.

And as soon as I made the change from, “How am I going to do all of this?” to “All I need to focus on is what’s right here in front of me,” everything shifted. Suddenly, life didn’t feel quite so chaotic. Suddenly, things felt calm, and it felt like we could find the space and energy to focus on healing and restoring and, of course, love and togetherness.

Hopefully in a day or two everyone will be feeling well again. When health returns, all of our big projects will still be there, none the worse for having waited a bit for us to get back to them. And we’ve all, in the midst of it, had a quiet time to be together and reconnect.

Isn’t this how things often are in life? When life gets complicated, it feels like chaos until we give ourselves permission to let go and simply be present. Then, it feels manageable, good, and even lovely.

What do you do when your life feels chaotic?