Half Birthday

Everything about you is round: The fat cheeks, the gently upturned nose, the eyes that widen into saucers when you’re curious, and the tiniest of lips.

You have the Bhargava eyebrows and eyelashes and the Shah nose. You mumble mum-mum-mum, hi-hi-hi, and na-na-na all day. You flash toothless grins to anyone who’ll smile at you. You love the color red, and the cars outside our window, and you are endlessly fascinated by my shiny wrist watch. You try valiantly to crawl, and you’ve adjusted easily to my going back to work.

You are now six months old.

And in the time since your birth I’ve turned into the embodiment of every single motherhood cliche.

When I think of the words to describe how I feel about you, I only find platitudes: “My heart bursts when I think about you.” “You are the best thing that ever happened to me.” “I’m lovestruck.”

I expected it to all be different — for the lines between Riddhi and Mama to be cleaner. For there to be no tug willing me to stay at home with you. For there to be no guilt on Monday mornings, no overwhelm of emotions every time I put you to sleep, no heartsickness by Thursday evening.

Instead, here I am contemplating what it would be like to have another baby. Ruing over the fact that there may never be another newborn cheek on my chest. Wondering whether I should give it all up to be with you.

There is a Pablo Neruda sonnet that I’ve come across often. The love that he talks about in it has always felt elusive. What is this completely selfless devotion? This transcendence of ego and boundaries?

But now? Now I understand it.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.”