I'm giving up.

Last week I may have mentioned something to the world at large about how my Saturdays are absolutely, for-surely, positively going to be restful. I'm just not having it anymore, I said. I need to rest. Can't go go go like this. Dude, I believe in the whole Sabbath thing, day of rest and all. Not legalistically, but it's a good way to live.

Sometimes it's just not up to me, though. For instance, this Saturday, the one that I was so intense about, went something like this:

By 9:00 AM, I had already called poison control because Kid A had a moment of out of control sugar craving while he was supposed to be going to the bathroom, climbed up on the toilet seat, opened the childproof bottle of children's ibuprofen, and drank the whole thing. Tom the poison control man on the phone was calm, but I suspect he's always calm. I actually wondered if they hired him because of his soothing voice.  He assured me that Kid A would probably be fine, but that I should be listening for any complaints of a sore tummy, though. "Just don't suggest it to him," he advised, "the idea of a sore tummy." You don't have to tell me that twice.

Kid A was fine. Aside from a massive, enormous sugar high.

By 9:30 a new friend had shown up (this was actually the high point of the day) to do some volunteer electrical work on one of our cabins. He ended up fixing the problem, which was that the entire cabin had inexplicably lost power. By inexplicably, I mean that there is no explanation other than our massively jury-rigged electrical situation here, which includes the fact that the power lines are stapled into trees that have grown around them in a loving embrace. The electrical system pre-dates us here, probably by a hundred years or so. It was probably brought here on the Pony Express, which, other than the difference in eras, is quite possible, since one of our buildings used to be a stop on the Pony Express.

Anyways, our new friend fixed our problem for the time being, which was wonderful, but doesn't nullify the fact that the entire time he was here talking to me about work stuff, Kid A was tearing around the house like a three foot tall Doberman Pincher. "Sugar high," I explained, rolling my eyes and shrugging.

By 10:30 I was talking to one of the guys about what kind of intervention we should work on with a troubled girl here.

By 11:00 I had decided to take my poor, poor husband to the hospital. I haven't really mentioned it, but poor Chinua has been sick in bed since last Tuesday, feverish and delirious many times over. On the fourth consecutive day of fever and chills we decided to pack up the fam and take him to Urgent Care.

By 12:00 we were on our way.

By 1:55 I was tearing into the only pharmacy in town, which closes at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday, and arguing with the pharmacist's assistant over whether my insurance covered the antibiotics for Chinua's strep throat.

By 2:45 I was in the midst of the aforementioned intervention. Think drama, pain, and frustration. And grace, lots and lots.

By 4:00 I was taking a break in an effort to get the YaYa Sister in bed for a nap. And by 4:30 I was giving up on an afternoon nap for either of my older kids.

And blah, blah, blahdee blah blah. Sorry for the boring details. I ended up talking with the girl for awhile, talking to about twenty people on the phone, asking for advice, making dinner, and all the other stuff, until:

At 8:30 I absolutely insisted on reading a book and doing nothing else until it was time for me to sleep.

So, I did get some time of rest after all. Thank God. It's funny, and I'm not really giving up, because I know these things come in seasons. Sometimes it is so quiet, and everything goes so smoothly that you look around and wonder what happened, where the turmoil went, why the river is so still. And sometimes all your reserves are called out, and all that peace can serve a purpose.