Stuck in between.

I know pxb has been v naughty. He pees n shit at the right/wrong place according to his mood. To be fair to him, he does it at the right place most of the time. But he's usually too lazy to step in the middle of the pee tray n does it at the corner of it. Thus he still dirties the floor. So my mil nv like to let him hang around the house freely.
On the other hand, he stays in the playpen most of the time n I find it such a sad thing to see him caged up.
So I let him out in the kitchen as often as possible. E.g, I'll feed him breakfast at 6am n let him play in the kitchen thereafter til I'm ready to go to work.
On weekends, I'll feed him n let him play in the kitchen while I go back to sleep. So without supervision, he does it according to his mood. N from the time I do that til I next wake up, say at 9am, he might/might not have made a mess. N I'll wake up with the intention to clear the mess, if any.
Problem comes when she wakes up earlier than me, like today. I heard pxb prancing in the playpen n realized my mil is awake. Woke up to see her cleaning the floor. N told her I'll clean it. Her response was a miffed "I'm almost done". Though I can understand why she gets pissed, I'm also pretty stuck. Unsure what to say.
Can only look forward to quickly moving out n doing things our own way.