Issue # 8

Give me space, but stay close too.

My kid is asleep in his own room right now, yes, right now, as I type this on my phone.

It’s something I wanted. A little more space, a quieter night, a chance to reclaim my own bed. But now that it’s happening, I'm glued to the baby monitor. Is he breathing? Is he okay? Is he silently crying and somehow the monitor didn’t pick it up? (It always does, but my mind spirals anyway.)

I check, and recheck. I tell myself he’s fine, I have to literally whisper the words out loud. He is fine. But still, I can’t sleep.

It’s this strange friction of needing rest and feeling totally untethered. Of getting exactly what I asked for, and suddenly missing the very thing that was exhausting me. It’s the kind of paradox parenthood seems to specialize in.

And then...Mother’s Day came around. Happy belated Mother's Day to the mothers, by the way.

I saw post after post of moms taking a break, having a “me day,” being pampered and celebrated and temporarily freed from the routines of caregiving. And don’t get me wrong, I think that’s beautiful. Important, even. We tried to do that for my mom too when I was young.

But when my spouse asked me what I wanted for my first Mother's Day, that's not what I wanted this year.

Right now, we already spend so much time apart. I’m with our son while my spouse gets a break, and then we switch. We’re constantly trading off so one of us can rest, and it works. We need it. But we also need togetherness.

Last night, we were prepping bottles. Our kid is combination fed. I washed while he boiled the water. I poured while he added the formula powder. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t a special occasion. But it felt like something important: we weren’t operating as a relay team, passing the baton. We were in it together, at the same time.

And I want more of that.

More “us” in the mundane. More moments where the work of parenting feels shared, not swapped. More time where I don’t have to carry it all alone, and neither does my spouse.

Maybe one day I’ll want the spa day or the solo hike.
But right now, what I want most is to be in it, together.

A little mush

My kid's laugh from earlier today is stuck in my head. He was laughing at something completely random. I don’t even remember what it was, I think I just did a weird move with my arm or something. But it was just one of those moments where his whole face lit up and his body bounced with joy and he let out this wild, unfiltered baby laugh.

The kind of laugh that has no filter, no self-consciousness, no reason, no artifice. Just delight.

And even though I was tired, and stretched, and maybe even a little on edge, I laughed too. Because sometimes that’s all it takes to turn a day around. Not fix it, but shift the light a little.

Joy can live right beside everything else. And it adds colour, light, and makes things just a little more bright. Y'know?

Till next week,

Aurooba