At one point in our lives, we had five kids and the oldest was six. Two or three were in diapers. I had to travel. Things would get chaotic - the lawn would get so high sometimes that our neighbors would mow it for us without asking.

We were an oddity in that Truman Show community. Children in diapers would escape the safety of the house and go toddling down the street. Once a UPS driver showed up at the door with one of them, "Ma'am, is this your child?" he asked.

We held onto our sanity by threads - it required real effort. Between the two of us, Karen's frame of mind was most at risk. She was like the Special Forces soldier in deep cover behind enemy lines. I'd come home some days and she had the Colonel Kurtz (from
Apocalypse Now) look on her face - an expression that said, "The horror. The horror."

I struck upon something that bought her space in her week to decompress and I share it here for anyone in a similar situation (or as a ministry with a harried mom you know). When Saturday mornings in our home came, I'd bundle all the kids up in our jeep and we would head out for four hours of fun.

In our case, we were fortunate to have a beach nearby. We'd play word games along the way, spend the morning building sand castles, and then stop off at the library and a place to buy French bread on the way home.

When we returned home, it was a delight to see Karen still nursing her coffee on the porch, glazed expression replaced by the smile of a woman restored.