The past 24 or 36 or 48 hours (I have sort of lost count) have been all about adjustment. Adults adjust more easily to changes in time, weather, sleep habits by mentally preparing and telling ourselves what we need to do in order to make it work (“It is 2am, I need to go back to sleep even though it really only feels like 7pm” – and then I close my eyes, and fall asleep).

Not so with children.

They did adjust to the plane ride, somewhat (each sleeping for about 5 hours), and they have adjusted to being with their cousins (hopefully getting the crazy, screaming play out of the way last night). However, the eight hour time difference is really tough on Naomi.

After getting a small amount of sleep Friday night, she fell asleep two more times during the day on Saturday. Last night when it was time for all to go to bed, she did, but then woke up two hours later, her little brain making the assumption that that was her afternoon nap.

She was up from 1am until 5:30am when she finally passed out in front of the downstairs TV. So of course, I was up until 5:30am as well. I took her little limp body up to bed about an hour before it got light this morning. She slept, so tired and so done with fighting. I slept too, also done with the fight.

Today we went to the neighborhood park for awhile, where she ran and ran and made up for lost time strapped into her carseat on the plane. It was so cold, almost snow weather, but the kids didn’t care. As soon as we reached the edge of the lawn, four little, bundled bodies took off for the four corners of the park, picking up twigs with mittened hands and laughing together.

Hopefully tonight and tomorrow will be a little better and her little body rhythms will begin to move in sync with the rest of us. Hopefully we’ll be ready to get out, brave the cold, and see a little bit of this beautiful country.

Our adventure begins today. I could call myself courageous, or easygoing or “together”, but none of these would describe my current state. Taking two small children halfway across the world might seem brave to some, but I think that it more likely will be evidence for those who would try to prove me insane someday.

I know that someday my children will lose their faith in me. I am not perfect. I am not even that great most of the time: I yell, I succumb to laziness, I want things a certain way, I worry and get scared for no reason.

My girls will look at me, the real me all laid out in front of them, and they will be saddened because I am not what they thought I was. Aren’t mothers supposed to be strong? Unmovable? Aren’t mother’s supposed to look fear in the eye and make it back down? Aren’t mothers supposed to be the protectors and anchors of their families?

I do things every day that scream my imperfection, that emblazon my wimpiness. When they are old enough, they will see through to the core of me and know that I am not strong and not immovable; I get scared often. I also know that someday, I will have to look in a young face and explain the mistakes I’ve made in my life. I will have to share with them all the ways in which I am NOT perfect, in fact, I’ve acted despicably at times. They will know the real me someday.

Sometimes that puts fear into my heart: my children knowing all of my mistakes. Complete and utter honesty, I guess, is the root of it. Most of the time, I don’t worry about this. I know that they will understand, someday, because they love me. I am their mother and I have never claimed perfection. I’ve only claimed forgiveness.

Strength comes in honesty. It comes from having nothing to hide. My life is open and readable for the world, and I know that someday my children will read my story as well.

And perhaps, maybe, they will learn.

I’ve been created simply, so I can take joy in simple things. If I was any more complex, the simpleness of life would just bore me.

I take joy in watching the field taking it first drink of sunlight after the night. There is beauty in running in the hills and feeling the warmth of the canyons compete with the coolness of the hills. I take joy in the sunrise that only I see over my eastern hils.

I take joy in a warm and clean house, with room to play; and in my girls knowing that they are loved and can go barefoot here.

I take joy in looking forward to seeing my husband hug his baby sister this weekend after a year apart. There is simple joy in the adventure of the unknown.

I am not complicated. The tiniest things make me happy: my daughter’s toothless smile and soft face, my baby’s mimicked singing with her sister, my husband’s hand on my waist. These are the simplest of smiles and perhaps the most meaningful.

I am a simpleton, I guess, in every good sense of the word. My little joy-givers are new and fresh-faced every day. My desire is to simply, purely and completely drink my fill of them as often as I am able.

On Wednesdays, at the end of the school day, Hope’s Kindergarten class walks from chapel to music to where the cars pick up. On the way to the car from the music room is a maple tree, now becoming bare and raining orange, curly autumn leaves onto the pavement. The kids walk through them and Hope always arrives at the car with a leaf in hand.

When I was a little girl, on a whim, my parents bought a puppy from a pet store for us to bring home and love. She was a mutt: a hairy, medium-sized Australian Shepherd/Sheltie mix with the sweetest face that loved to run circles in the backyard chasing my sister.

After we’d had her for awhile, she got out of the fence in our yard and ran away. She never came home and no one ever found her, that we knew. We lived on the urban side of a suburban area and I know in my adult mind now that she most likely got hit by a car, but 25 years ago, I just hoped she found a good home somewhere. A good home with other kids to play with her and that she could chase.

My grandmother, who frequently said strange and nonsensical things, would say that she saw Muffy running out on the main street near our house. It was just enough to give me a tiny hope, but then wonder at the truth of her words. It was enough to make me think about it and give me an unfinished feeling. My love for this dog had been cut short because she had left.

She would never come home and I would never know what happened to her. This was completely out of my control but it felt like a loose end nonetheless. Something was undone, unfinished, left wanting.

I still think about her sometimes. Unfinished and out of my sphere of control.

I know that there are things WITHIN my control that are unfinished: things and friendships I can change, things that need tied up and put to rest.

There are people I should call and there are a few that should hear my story. They don’t necessarily need to hear, but I need the catharsis. I would like to tie up loose, unfinished things in my life that are within my power to affect. I don’t want to leave any love cut short. I want the different, sensible peace that rumbles just under the surface, so close to touch. I want to finish things, love people and tie things closed that should be shut.

When I was a new mom with this sweet, albeit colicky, baby, my life was built around her tender schedule and I would nap with her.

Every morning from around her 4th month to her 9th month, I would hold her on my chest, heart to heart, and she would fall asleep. Every morning. We’d put on the Today show and for about an hour, I would sleep and so would she. It was healing and bonding and a short, but beautiful stage in my life. Her breath would even out and her body would sink into mine, even if she was fighting it. Her baby cheeks would be so close to my own sometimes and her arms would fall gently over my shoulders. I would close my eyes only when I was confident she had given up to sleep.

A part of me knew she’d probably sleep longer and sounder in her own crib, but I wasn’t ready to give up this special time. If I ever napped without her, I would feel naked. I knew it would end someday and I would move from napping with my baby to doing chores around my house when she slept by herself.

Let me clarify that she didn’t NEED me to sleep (like some babies need rocking or just being held to fall asleep) – she would have done fine on her own in her crib. I needed the time, the bond, the closeness. At that time in my life, it was one of the most intimate things I possessed.

Eventually, she ended up in her room for her morning nap and I ended up doing the dishes. It was the end of a brief era.

Last week, during Naomi’s afternoon nap, Hope crawled her almost-six-year-old body up onto mine on the sofa. We lay there, heart to heart, as when she was so tiny. But this time, her long girl legs extended so far and her feet almost reached mine. She was so exhausted from her day and week that she quickly fell asleep. Her breath evened out and her body (much heavier now) sunk with trust into mine. When I was confident she was asleep, I closed my eyes to rest.

That might have been her last nap with me in that position, breath to breath and heartbeat upon beat, I don’t know for sure. But I do know that children grow, and they grow fast, and sometimes I feel like I can’t take it all in quickly enough.

Five years, blink.

Ten years, blink.

Blink.