life, presently.

Oh, goodness. Where do I even start?

Maybe I won't begin at the beginning, which was last Monday, when Jeremy went back to work. 

Maybe I won't even begin with this morning, which was a late one for us, although we were all up before seven.

Maybe I won't begin even now, where one boy is asleep in the motorized cradle about 15 feet to my left, head turned awkwardly, which happened when I placed him in the swing. He was-- is-- in too deep a sleep to notice. The other one is upstairs and (I presume) still refusing to take a nap.

I don't even think I'll start at tonight, when Jeremy comes home and takes up the slack where Elias is concerned, providing some daddy horseplay while I hold the baby and warm up the meal someone-- a very wonderful someone-- just dropped off for us.

Maybe I'll start a few months from now, when the brutal heat has abated, and the frantic newborn stage is finished. When the toddler and the baby have become more friendly, and my body is more my own again. When we will be getting ready for a second birthday party and reminiscing about the last year...

No. Let's not do that either. Lets go back to today: the present. When my little boys are as little as can be. Fighting sleep. Both wanting "up". Diapers that need to be changed, and little mouths that need to be filled. Elmo on the television, and a nursing pillow on my lap. All of us waiting impatiently for Jeremy to come home in one hour and 54 minutes. A noisy fan in the background and a brown yard just outside the window, which I can see from my chair from where I type this. Laundry that needs to be folded, and a house that desperately needs a top-to-bottom cleaning. A toddler, still upstairs in his crib, still refusing to sleep, squealing loudly for mommy.

It's good and it's hard and it breaks my heart. It is a very full time.