Mamma

#5 in the series of light-lift, unworkshopped, and unvarnished motherhood essays.

“Mamma,” I hear a soft raspy voice go, away in the distance — faint but cherubic. I rush to the room and spot a sleeping baby in her crib. She is lying turned to one side, her cheeks resting on her cot, her little arms one on top of the other with hands clasped tight, her tiny left foot crossing over her right, her face the picture of peace.

I retreat back to my living room in silence. And then I pause to take it all in.

It’s 10:30 PM, thirteen months in. That baby, somehow — incredibly — is mine.

For thirteen whole months she made all manner of sounds. But it wasn’t long before she graduated to sense-making and world-building alongside the rest of us. There was “bukk” (for book) at nine months, “awtha” (for water) at ten, “pahpaah” (for Papa) at eleven, and “bakk” (for bag) at twelve.

And now, after all these words and about a dozen more, there’s “mamma” at thirteen.

I can hardly believe it.

I look around. Our living room is dotted with little things. Blocks of lego, stackable cups, a little jug to practise pouring and multiple coloured wooden rings are strewn all over the floor. I pick up the activity cube and set it aside, and close up the Dinosaur Dance, and Belly Button Book lying open, abandoned mid-story in opposite corners. I fold up the play mat and gather all the little bits and bobs that make up our days into baskets and boxes, as I wind down for the night — or rather, the night-shift of work I’ve set out to do.

I remember sheepishly that I used to be terrified of the prospect of such a life. I couldn’t bear the thought of my cozy living room turning into a perennial play area. I thought I’d be forever triggered by the mess. And nothing about losing every shred of sovereignty over my time, energy, and body fit within my sense of ambition, purpose, and meaning.

Yet here I am. Awash with oxytocin from just discovering that a baby I birthed says “mamma” in her sleep, and that my living room gets to be her personal play area for life. I will go on to check on her three more times tonight — each time she mumbles in her sleep — pausing over, and over, and over again all the thoughts I hoped to have continuity and command over for the night.

I wonder how I got here.

Was it the day after birthing her, when I accidentally stopped her wailing by laying her on my bare chest, all her little body parts splayed across my heart? Was it the second week of her life, when after a particularly gassy night she fell asleep snuggling against me packed in a baby wrap? Was it the morning of her third month, when she woke up and curled her tiny body into a little c, hands and legs outstretched to shake the sleep off, and without warning, broke into a wide coy smile as I was squealing away at her overnight transformation into a chubby baby? Was it our first holiday by ourselves at a beach house when she turned four months, when we sat by the sea taking in the sounds of the waves and the salty spray , while she slipped in and out of a cozy haze of nursing and napping in my arms? Or each time I went to bed four hours after she did, when she would sniff my arrival, turn towards me, reach her hands out, position my breast, and just latch right on to help herself to a little midnight snack of milk, all the while still totally and fully and deeply asleep? Or all the times she leaned into me, tiny hands reaching around my torso, declaring “hukk” (for “hug”), as if that surreal moment would have somehow escaped my comprehension without her helpful subtitle.

And then I have the answer.

It was actually every banal moment that this mysterious little personality breathed life into, for thirteen whole months, to birth a mother for herself.

Like when she kicked me when I lay her down on her back to change her diaper after she’d learned to move around, or when she reached for my mouth with her starfish hands while nursing, as if she couldn't be the only one who got to nibble on something in that moment, or when she innocently and unsuspiciously inspected each new piece of string, fabric, or fallen hair before promptly and cheekily lobbing it into her mouth for a taste-test, or when she stuck her tongue out for a lick of my ice-cream, or dove head-first into the bathtub to splash all of us with bath water, or face-planted into the blankets to let us know she needed to sleep, or scolded the neighbour’s barking dogs while wagging her tiny index finger at them, or screamed because we didn’t hand her the latest piece of silverware that caught her fancy, or raged at the fact that the food she had determined to eat went into the microwave instead of her mouth the instant she demanded it.

In the everyday, mundane, exhausting, run-of-the-mill, trying elements of mothering, she teased my attention out in flickers to notice the fleeting, funny, wholesome and joyful once-in-a-lifetime memory that was unfolding.

She drew me out of my overthinking head and rehomed me in the rest of my body, as I embarked on the all-consuming yet somehow evanescent project that was keeping her nourished.

She reset my inner clock down to a slower rhythm and had me inhabit each moment fully, almost as expansively as she did while experiencing the world as a new human.

She held me, cradled me, and raised me, till I was able to see what she was doing — creating, from scratch, her “mamma”.