Structure? What Structure?

I had a reallly challenging week this week.  It was my daughter's first full week of school after having most of the summer off.  We had our apartment re-done and are essentially camping out on the floor with a few beds, no toys, no computer and no furniture.  Kevin stayed at the house upstate to meet some deadlines, so I was at home with the girls alone.  Three year old's need structure. Everyone tells me that our daughter in particular needs structure.  

Our lives are the definition of un-structured.  Kevin is a free-lancer, which means that he usually gets a call at 4 o'clock with some impossible deadline which takes him out of commission for days and nights.  We make plans to do all sorts of things then have to cancel at the last minute.  My job is different every day and I have to be flexible to meet my deadlines.  I get countless calls at the last minute, demanding my presence at a school and I have to jump.  Kevin and I handle all of this with relish and flow.  After all, the alternative is, well, an 8 to 6 job in an office.  

A three year old handles this by screaming and pushing us away.  When we arrived home from the swings on Thursday, my daughter began screaming at the top of her lungs.  I put her in the time out chair and she screamed and kicked even louder.  When she screams, the little one starts screaming.  When the little one screams, she screams even louder.  If your apartment has no rugs or furniture, screams can be heard all the way on the first floor.  

I am not proud of the effect that three nights of three hours of screaming had on me.  On the third night, I broke down and cried, sobbing, air gulping cries, sitting on the floor, while my daughter looked on in awe.  She asked me why I was crying and I said, I just don't know what to do when someone screams at me.  When I finally calmed down, she said that she didn't want me to cry anymore and we laid down to read books and got silly and kissed each other.  After she went to sleep, I cried some more and called my parents a very candid parent friend. After a good cry with them, I was ready to face the world again the next day.