Two Months
I was filling out paperwork for Will and one of the questions asked, “Relationship to patient.”
I quickly scribbled in, “Mother” and then, it hit me.
Oh my God.
I’m someone’s mom.
I’m Will’s mom.
How am I a mom?
I can’t be a mom - moms are the font of all human knowledge. They know how to fold fitted sheets and use butterfly bandages. They know which one is the “good” Publix and exactly what kind of lentils you need to soak to make perfectly crispy dosas (urad, right? It’s urad?)
I know that the horse’s head in The Godfather was real and came from a dog food factory and that if you put Monin pistachio syrup in a G&T, it kinda tastes like a lemon bar.
And yet, the universe saw it fit to make me someone’s mother.
Not just someone but literally the coolest kid in the world.
I’m all about trusting the process but I’m definitely operating on a learning curve here.
At some point - probably when I’m like, 80 years old - I’ll know what the hell I’m doing but right now? I’m figuring it out, giving my kid lots of affection and explaining to him that it’s a damn shame that we never got a Robert Duvall vehicle about life as a consigliere because the world definitely deserves that.
Dear Will:
Month two has been a big one for us - lots of holidays (Halloween, Diwali, Thanksgiving), a historic election and personally? You’re starting to move you head and neck more, your eyebrows are starting to come in and your Nanima is obsessed with you. If you’re bilingual, it’ll be because of her and not me.
Big things this month:
- Firstly and most importantly - YOU SMILED AT ME.
You looked at me, recognized that I was your mom and you smiled. It was like feeling the warmth of sunshine for the first time.
My mission in life is to get you to smile every day of your life because you do that for me.
- It turns out you have a milk protein allergy. That sucks and lead to a couple of long, colicky nights for us.
Hopefully, this will disappear by your first birthday because Mommy is on a mission to replace birthday cakes with cheese plates and I have this whole concept for a sweet cheese plate with a lemon-infused Wensleydale and a honey goat cheese.
- Daddy introduced you to seafood. You don’t seem impressed now but Daddy can’t wait to share stone crabs with you. When you’re bigger, we’ll go down to Joe’s in Miami and have a feast. Well, you and Daddy will have a feast. Mommy will eat salad and drink gin cocktails....which honestly? Doesn’t sound so bad.
Oh God. I’m Lucille Bluth, aren’t I?
- We celebrated your first Halloween. Socially Distant Halloween was probably one of the most fun we’ve had. Daddy decorated the house, we made candy gift bags for trick or treaters and set up a table on the street and we had a fully animated eight foot dragon up on the lawn so neighborhood kids could take pictures with it.
We dressed you up as a dinosaur while we dressed up as Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Sorry kiddo but your parents are yabba dabba dorks.
- We celebrated your first Diwali. There’s a whole conversation to be had about growing up with one foot in the West and a tiptoe in the East as I did but we’re not going to focus on that right now. We’re going to focus on how wonderful it is when those two cultures clasp hands. Fireworks (or fatakda) are both an Indian thing and an Elder thing.
Daddy is known for his July 4th fireworks show - he buys his fireworks wholesale from China and makes elaborate boards with timed fuses and a finale board that makes Epcot’s show look like rookie shit. A few years ago, the police and fire department showed up to the party - it was awesome.
This year, Daddy built a mini fireworks board in honor of this occasion and we lit up the night sky.
I’m sure we confused the hell out of the neighbors but next year, Mommy wants to host an outdoor block party with great food, music and a beautiful fireworks display that we can share with friends, family and neighbors because that’s what Diwali is about - celebrating with your people.
Remember when I said you were born in interesting times? That’s a euphemism for saying 2020 has been a real shit carnival. If we take away anything from 2020, it’s this - love hard and when you can, celebrate joy wherever you find it be it with a freshly baked loaf of bread, a freshly baked baby or the triumph of light over dark and good over evil as the story of Diwali tells us.
- The biggest thing that happened this month on a national scale is the election.
We found out about your milk allergy right around election time so Mommy spent a few sleepless nights with you watching CNN waiting for the results to come in. It was....a lot. Especially since the incumbent was a racist, misogynistic bag of dicks who surrounded himself with a cabal of kakistocratic ghouls.
When you were born and I was still numb from the epidural, I had a conversation with you - apologizing for the state of the world and promising to work to make it better.
Approximately six weeks later, more than 70 million of your fellow Americans voted for Biden-Harris and your mama breathed a sigh of relief that has been trapped in her chest for over four years.
There’s a lot to celebrate here but two things keep coming back to me - one big and one small.
The small one is that we’ll have a First Dog again. Two, actually. One of whom is a German Shepherd rescue just like your brother.
I promise you will always grow up with dogs.
The bigger one is that Kamala Harris, the vice-president elect is a half-Indian child of an immigrant...just like you.
That fills me with such hope. Never in the history of this nation have we ever had a female Vice-President much less a person of color.
I hope your future will feature civic leadership much more representative of who we are demographically and I hope that when you turn 18, you vote in every election you can.
Your voice is one of the most important ones in my life.
Make sure it is heard.
Happy two months, baby boy.
It only gets better from here.
We love you.
xx
Mama
