Where's Mommy?
Solidly sandwich generation.
“Nana mama?” my two-year-old son says pointing at a banana on the counter.
He's recently started stringing words together. And, just the other day, he uttered "mama" for the first time. Maybe he’s said it before, but never with such intention.
He says lots of words, and more every day. Popular words as of late: Santa, snowman, candy cane, presents. “Daddy” has been part of his vocabulary for a while. Sometimes, when I get him up in the mornings, he asks, “Where’s Daddy?”
For whatever reason, it took him a while to name me. It happens during a morning diaper change. “Something unintelligible mama?” He keeps repeating this over and over. Though I can’t decipher the rest, hearing "mama" makes my heart grow three sizes.
Every day I navigate motherhood’s joys and minutiae. I let him chase me with his dinosaur puppet, air fry chicken nuggets (then eat them when he doesn’t), stop to watch garbage trucks, teach him to be gentle with the dog instead of pulling her tail and riding her like a horse, show him what to do when his train magnets don’t connect, put bubbles in the bath and get drenched while he sloshes around. When he descends into a gasping, snotty mess because I won’t let him eat tortilla chips for dinner, I offer comfort but I still don’t let him have chips for dinner. OK fine, maybe a few, but that’s it!
It’s not that my son calling me “mama” voiced my role as his mother into existence. It’s that he now grasps the concept of “mom,” and he knows with absolute certainty that “mom” is me.
That morning when he first says “mama,” we enjoy a few pleasant minutes as I help him get dressed. He’s learning to pull up his pants himself and proudly shouts, “I did it!” when he does. I put on his socks and tie his shoes, and we walk to daycare together holding hands. I feel a little melancholy dropping him off. This is the only time I will see him that day because by the time I return home that evening, he’ll be asleep.
I then drive an hour to my mom’s house, where I help her put on her pants, socks, and Velcro shoes. I drive her to her physical therapy appointment. Back at her house, I roll the garbage and recycling cans to the curb, get the mail, empty the litter boxes, walk the dog, Swiffer the kitchen floor, vacuum the rug, start the laundry, empty and reload the dishwasher, try to tidy things up as best I can so she has a pathway for her walker. Later, when I’m reheating chicken noodle soup for us to eat for dinner, I receive a text from my husband.
He’s asking where’s Mommy.
Another first. He’s never asked that before. I feel a pang of longing. I miss him, but I simply cannot be in two places at once. I hope he isn’t too upset.
“Mommy’s not here because she’s helping her Mommy,” is not an explanation he’d understand.
I spent 3 weeks away from my husband and daughter this year to help care for my mom and dad. Wherever we are, it can feel like we aren't there enough.
You're doing so well <3