Mystery

It suddenly feels like I’m in a new chapter as a mother. Our son is almost eleven months old, he’s at daycare, and I’m back at work full time. 

In the early days, my sense for whether I was doing a good job as a mother was pretty clear. I was responsible for keeping Rowan alive. I breastfed, which meant he needed my body to eat. Every few hours, I would sit on the couch and feed him, sometimes scrolling Instagram, sometimes looking at pictures of him even though he was attached to my body at that very moment. It was magical and exhausting to know that every ounce he packed on, every new leg or arm roll, had happened because of the hard work my body was doing. Breastfeeding worked incredibly well until it didn’t, when my supply dropped at four months. After many weepy moments and flip flopping between wanting to wean altogether versus combo feeding him as long as possible, I decided to wean and use formula. 

Nothing about our bond changed at that point. I felt as close to Rowan as ever, even if it still took me a while to let go of the expectations I had set myself around feeding. 

For a few more months after that, my parental leave continued. I spent all day every day with Rowan, which meant that I got to know all of his cues and cries. Even if I wasn’t breastfeeding, I was still responsible for keeping him healthy. I learned how to structure the day to keep him as content as possible. Tummy time had to happen right after he woke up from a nap, before I fed him. Any other time of day and he would scream. 

There was so much satisfaction in knowing Rowan that deeply. And there was a certain amount of confidence in knowing that I was doing a good job as a mom, simply by putting in the time and energy. 

Even since the beginning, though, there have been these mysterious parts of motherhood. Between changing his diaper or feeding him or cleaning up his spit up, there were moments when I would look at Rowan and be transported into another realm altogether. Every time I watched Rowan stare at something, it was an opportunity to appreciate how little I knew about what was going on in his head. I would watch him looking at his favorite high-contrast ball and wonder what he was thinking about. What did he perceive that ball to be? Sometimes he cooed at and flirted with that ball like it was a person. Or when I would look over at him and see him gazing at me with a happy look on his face? What was he thinking in those moments? I never had any idea, but I knew that in those moments I had never felt more seen. 

Now I’m back at work full time and don’t see Rowan for most of the day. Other adults take care of him, change his diapers, feed him, clean his spit up. We prepare Rowan’s food in the morning, we hand him off for the day, and then we pick him up in the evening. Sometimes he’s wearing a change of clothes. Did his teachers do that because he had a blowout? Or did he eat too messily? Or something else altogether? I’m curious about the little things that happen to Rowan throughout the day. 

It’s a relief in so many ways to not have sole responsibility for him and to not have to feed him from my body. And in other ways it’s the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever thought about. I don’t know what happens to him throughout the day anymore, and I find it unsatisfying. It’s like reading the CliffsNotes for a book instead of immersing yourself in the whole novel. 

When I think about this transition into a new stage where Rowan is more independent and I’m accessing all parts of myself again, the mystery of babyhood feels like too much. I crave answers to my questions about what Rowan thinks. Does he know that I still love him the same as when I was with him all day? Does he know that that will never change, even when we’re not even living in the same house anymore? When I’m away from him for hours at a time, does he know that I’ll always come back? 

In these moments, I realize how much I rely on language to make sense of everything. I can’t wait for the day when Rowan can say “I love you” back to me. I imagine what it’s going to feel like, hearing him say those words for the first time, and I imagine it’s going to feel like the very best day of my life, like an absolute miracle, like the mystery has been solved. 

More likely, the mystery will continue, and the uncertainty of parenthood will always feel scary. I’ll never receive a grade or a gold star for my work as a parent, and Rowan and I might always just miss each other with the words we say. I’ll just keep remembering the moments when we looked at each other when he was a baby and couldn’t say anything yet, and how perfect and complete those moments somehow felt, even with all the unsolved mysteries.