Issue # 19

this word leads to me

We were practicing standing, like we often do. I offered him my fingers, he gripped them with his tiny hands, and pulled himself up, delighted with himself, delighted with me.

And then, without warning, he said mamma.

Not to me. Not looking at me. Just said it, like it had burst out of him. Like it had been sitting in his chest waiting for a way out.

Something inside me froze, then warmed, then sparked. He doesn’t know I’m mamma yet. But he will. And something about hearing him say the word, any version of it, felt like a key turning. The potential had arrived. That moment where your kid might call to you, and you could answer.

Now, whenever he says mamma, I respond. If I’m nearby, I say “yes?” or “that’s right, I’m your mamma.” If I’m far away, I call to him, make sure he sees me. I want him to know that when he says it, I’ll come. That this word leads to me.

It feels especially clear lately, this sense that he’s in the middle of some kind of mental leap. He listens differently now. We have this routine where we run through a list of animals and objects, telling him the sounds they make. Doggie, cat, wolf, car, airplane, train, chicken, rooster, owl, lion, horsey. That’s the order, not by design, just by rhythm. It’s become our thing.

We’ve been doing it for a couple of weeks now, and the repetition is paying off. He grins when we get to chicken, like he knows what’s coming. When we go bak bak bakawk, he laughs every time. He’s starting to anticipate. To connect. To join in.

There’s this look he gets when he’s listening hard, eyes bright, body still, his eyes flicking between our mouths and our eyes, like if he shifts too much, he might miss something.

And I think part of why this is so moving for me is because language has always been how I find meaning. Some people build their world through games or food or music. I build mine through words. I live inside language. I shape my experience through how I name it. And as a bilingual person, I’ve always had this instinct to reach for the word that fits, even if it’s not in the same language I started the sentence in.

So watching my kid begin to enter this space, the space where sound becomes meaning, where words become bridges, it feels like something sacred. Something really special.

He’s starting to learn the language of our world. And we're learning the beginnings of his.

He doesn’t know what mamma really means yet. But the word is here now, in the air between us. And that feels like the beginning of a new kind of closeness, a new way of knowing each other. The meanings will come, and they’ll keep changing. And I’ll keep answering, again and again, as we learn to speak this world to each other.

A little amazed we've arrived at the start of language,

Aurooba