Apple Adventure

"Yay! Apple picking!" is the first thing Leila screamed when she came into our bedroom Sunday morning.  I had told her the night before that if she hurried up and went to sleep we could go apple picking when she woke up, and of course, she didn't forget.  I have to admit, I was a little excited myself. The last time I had gone apple picking was with my friend Cammie's family when I was still in grade school and me, trying to be the iconic mother, decided a trip to the orchard would be good ol' family fun.  I invited my mother to come with us and she was just excited as we were, since she had never been apple picking at all.

The plan was to "beat the crowd." The orchard was in Connecticut, so I woke up at the butt crack of dawn to get my tribe bathed, dressed and fed before we hit the road.  I packed snacks, drinks and extra clothes and we were off.  We made a pit stop at my mom's and then it was Blue Jay Orchards or bust.  On the way up, Mia had fallen asleep which was perfect, I thought, because then she wouldn't want to take a nap halfway through the our gathering.

We reached our destination and then the real fun began.  The minute my mom parked her car, I remembered that Mia's stroller was still safely tucked away in the trunk of my car.  Which was safely parked at my mom's house. Which was safely 35 minutes from where we were.

Then my darling angel awoke from her nap and began to whine. For no reason. Ad nauseum.  Poor Leila was trying hard to ignore her sister because she was so pumped to pick apples all by herself like a big girl.  She even waited patiently as I sweated (I didn't think to check the weather and assumed it would be cold like it was all week when it turned out to be, like, 80 degrees out and we all had long sleeves and jeans) trying to change Mia's diaper in the front seat of the car which, for those who don't know, is next to impossible due to the fact that Mia squirms like a beached fish at changing time.

Mia threw herself on the ground a few times as we walked to the booth to buy our apple bag, refused to take pictures on the John Deere tractor, and insisted on stepping in every mud pile/rotted apple mush she came across.  We finally get to the picking area, which consisted of one main row with parallel rows of trees branching out on both sides. We turned down the first row and were greeted by a lone woman in a sari cutting slices off an apple with a pocket knife like she was Johnny Appleseed.  And when I say "greeted" I mean stared at from the corner of the woman's eye.  Needless to say we backed out of that row and went to the next.

Leila did such a good job picking apples from the low branches and putting them in the bag, and even Mia picked two or three apples when she stopped to breathe in between fits, but after about 20 minutes, Leila had enough.  I stared down into my huge $35 bag which was only 1/4 full and realized I was going to have to fill it by myself.  My mom had no interest in actually picking the apples, saying that she was content with just watching me pick them. (This is also the woman who made me call the orchard first thing in the morning to make sure the fields weren't too muddy to walk through, since it had rained the day before.) Thanks, Mom.

So my mother fed the girls goldfish crackers while I tried to find trees that hadn't been ravaged bare by the crowds of zealot apple pickers that all decided to come out on the same day I did.  Then we alternated carrying a crying Mia and a 50-pound bag of apples back to the car and then decided that since we had driven so far, we just couldn't leave without visiting the general store.  Bad idea.  The store was more packed than the orchard and the aisles were thisclose together.  Add a bellowing 1-year-old and you have a recipe for disaster.  After a failed attempt to look around in peace I grabbed a few jugs of apple cider and a box of apple cider doughnuts, beelined for the register, and didn't say a word as Leila and Mia rearranged the rock candy display while we waited to be checked out.  I had survived another outing with my daughters and despite everything, we all had a good time.  Mission accomplished.