when i am overwhelmed i clean, a lot. or when i feel like i am about to loose my marbles. i turn on a movie for my toddler (who apparently no longer naps), strap the baby to my chest, and i clean. i download thoughts and emotions and i get a grip. it isn't my best parenting moment, but it is real. and while i clean, i think, and i pray (a lot), and i write out blog posts in my mind which i later wish i would have written down because the words never come so eloquent again. and i sometimes even grow temporarily envious of my husband because he is at work or he is studying and he is with grown, communicative people. and though i know he is actually working his butt off, i tell myself he is getting breaks and social interaction and it'd be easier to be him (even though what he's really doing is closing some gaping wound or tending to patient so-and-so for the fiftieth time that week) at which point i usually (hopefully) stop and pray again for the bitterness i've allowed to creep in and take over. all the while with my most precious newborn strapped to me, who at this point has fallen asleep, who i suddenly realize will also be two, in a day not so far away which is where this whole mess of emotion came from in the get go. and there is my holland, my two year old. my holland who i hold so dear, my holland who picks me all the flowers a mamma could ever ask for, my holland who takes absolute joy in helping me, but whom i have also told no to, or to please stop umpteen times today and yesterday and the day before all for the same action while he continues on seemingly unaffected.

all of which to say, it hasn't been the actual transition of having two children that has been hard for me, but rather the transition of having a two year old. we have moments sweet as pie, and then moments (or days) where i literally feel like i am about to pull my hair out, and it can all change in an absolute instant. today was exactly like that. and this whole nap boycott thing that's been going on around here, it is rough. one nap in EIGHT days. it isn't working for any of us.

and then i remember this is what i signed up for, this is what i asked for, and this is what i have been given. my children are blessings, and this is a season, not eternity, and so i give thanks. my cleaning slows and my joy begins to return.

and so...well, today my house is clean. and i feel a little like i just ran a marathon, and tomorrow, well tomorrow is a new day. a new day to try again, a new day to fall upon the lord, a new day to love on my children. a day to start fresh. and tonight, well tonight, i meditate upon new mercies the morning brings and give thanks both of my children as sleeping peaceful as angels.

motherhood, it isn't always apples, and play dates, and baked goods, though that it is what we read, and it is what i usually choose to share about. in all reality motherhood is tough. and though it is these things sometimes, it is much more. it is humbling, raw, and messy. and my children (and yours), they'll be grown before we know it, and this will all be but a blink of the eye, and we will look back at these days and we will miss them, but today, today was hard. and that's real and we are in it together.

i grew up with grandparents who lived on an apple orchard, where jack rabbits went about, with a water tower painted as a caursouel, and a wood swing hung from a giant tree which an ever faithful woodpecker inhabited. as a young child, most of our holidays were spent there and most definitly easter, with cousins all about and conisistent family dishes served up at meal time. it is where i learned to put chips in my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, it is where i watched the biggest thunder and lightening storm of my life (the kind where the whole house rumbles), and it is where we picked apples at the end of every summer. bags and bags full of apples. many which went into applesauce, or pie, some became fun art projects where we withered our apples into wrinklely little people with clove eyes and yarn hair, and those that hit the ground became cider. so many apples that we traded bags full to our favorite chinese resteraunt for fortune cookies with tons left to spare.

the home no longer resembles the one i remember. my grandparents traded in sunny california for washington when i was about then. the water tower has been painted into something drab, the home remodeled, but i cannot help but to drive by whenever in the area ,and pray my children will have memories such as these, memories so fond they will look back years later, such as myself, and not be able to help but smile. how lucky we were to have them so near to us when we were young, for sleepovers and playdates, and singing jingle bells at the top of our lungs amoungst the windy road to their home regardless what time of the year it was.

with memories so fond i can only but my own children will have the same and so, we took our first trip to an apple orchard this week, with my boys and a dear friend's two children. it in no way compared to the feeling of being in my grandparents orchard as a young child, but it did bring memories i had long forgotten about back, along with a whole lot of fun.

we spent the morning in the orchard picking apples in the crisp fall air, which quickly warmed up, clark strapped to me, holland and his friend bouncing about through the orchard, my friend and i lugging around way too many bags and a baby each.

we left hot and dirty with a bag full of apples and some fresh pressed juice with tired kids and happy hearts. i am already itching to go back and i know for certain pie is in our future.