19/01/2026
When you were fifteen months old, your Dad took you out for the day. You had reached that point where you could be without b**b for a good few hours, if distracted enough. And so we were apart for the first time. And it felt something like freedom.
I checked in on you at hourly intervals, worried that you'd somehow not nap or eat. Your Dad would appease me with photo updates: you in Nandos munching on a corn-on-the-cob the size of your head. You zonked out in the Cambridge sunshine, head slumped to one side in your buggy. I loved it. My boy in the big city.
I didn't clean. I didn't bathe. I sat and watched the most harrowing TV drama, but I was ecstatic. Beaming from ear to ear. Tea and toast had never tasted so good. I could feel myself recharging with every hour that passed.
As you both headed home, I spoke to you on the phone for the first time. Somehow that baby babble sounded more grown-up down the telephone line. I put the phone down, thinking: I can't believe that he's mine.
In the evening, you toddled drunkenly through our front door looking like you had tales to tell. You grabbed at my top then fed for England. We sat on the couch, reunited. And I finally understood comfort as a two-way street.
That night, the two-hour bedtime didn't feel like such a drag. The wake-ups felt that bit more manageable. We were all the better for that little breather, that first taste of distance.
Art by: This Mama Doodles
Words by: Mother Truths
Taken from "Warm Like Summer: Little Stories of Early Motherhood" Available to buy worldwide: https://linktr.ee/mother_truths
