Tiny Cheeks

Notes on softness and surrender.

Photo by the magical Sasha Mart

A few nights ago, I spent two hours trying to get my baby to go back to sleep after what appeared to be a teething-induced 4 a.m. wake-up. There were efforts at feeding, at rocking, at co-sleeping, at pouring Camilia drops into his pried-shut mouth, at kissing his tiny balloon-like cheeks a million times just to get him to calm down and feel safe, at playing his favorite song over and over again until I could no longer bear to hear Bobby Darin’s crooning. It went on for a small eternity before I finally gave up and pronounced it morning, keeping him up long enough to then put him down for his first nap. I rocked him back and forth to Bobby Darin once again, and this time, he passed out in my arms.

The following night, my daughter walked into our room at 2 a.m. and tumbled into her habitual spot between me and my partner. Muttering something incoherent about monsters and frozen bananas, she cuddled up to me in her beloved little spoon position—neatly whacking me in the chin with her 95th percentile head—and passed out in the safe haven where no monsters could reach her. I spent the next hour wide awake, listening for baby cries while mentally planning how to rearrange the kitchen cabinets now that we have officially re-entered the world of bibs and Beaba Babycooks.

Malleable. That’s the word that comes to mind when I think about what my life has required of me over these past seven months. In a material, to be malleable means “to be able to be hammered or pressed permanently out of shape without breaking or cracking.” In a mother, to be malleable is to be soft, to flex to every cry and cuddle, to act as a human pillow, a vessel for restless limbs and aching gums and scary dreams. To sit still and let a tiny fist pull your hair over and over, ignoring the pain ricocheting through your nervous system. To wake up on a whim and drift back to sleep every forty minutes for nights on end. To float from room to room like a delirious ghost, giving love wherever it’s most needed. To be malleable is to surrender your basic needs and your body in a whole new way.

On some days, I feel capable of this surrender—of softness and patience, of scattering kisses and talking away monsters, of handing out love like there’s no limit to the pool I’m sourcing from. Other days, I feel like I’m scraping from the bottom of an empty barrel, and there is nothing left to give. I experience an edge that makes me want to break out of my skin, out of this house, and run away somewhere where my body is once again my own. And so, I lash out at everyone in sight, or just hand the baby over to the nanny (the highest of all privileges on those days) and escape for a few hours with the intention of “getting back to myself.” And yet, even in the meditative comfort of my laptop, I soon find myself working on school apps, or booking doctors’ appointments, or, at best, helping my partner with his projects—intuitively filling the family bucket rather than my own. Before long, I start missing the baby, my mom guilt pulsing through my body even as my mind tries to wish it away. My projects are left untouched, nothing but lofty side notes on a long and uninspired to-do list.

Speaking of mind, lately I feel mine fading at the edges, dulled by logistics and sleep deprivation and social media. It has been months since I read a good book—juicy biographies of iconic ’90s blondes notwithstanding (take Carolyn Bessette’s over Gwyneth Paltrow’s if you must). Months since I watched a movie that made me feel something, since I listened to a challenging podcast for over twenty minutes, or formed an opinion through research and reflection rather than running to ChatGPT. Months since I felt smart, or interesting, or capable, or even beautiful. My body, which came back to itself fairly quickly postpartum, still clings to a soft belly curve I can’t seem to shake, no matter how much I exercise. It frustrates me but also seems psychosomatic, as though my body is molding itself to what I need to be for my children. They don’t need my sharp mind or my vast knowledge or my toned abs. They need my softness, my patience, my malleability. They need their mother.

Seven years ago, before I met Dave, I could go months without being touched. I lived in a kind of quiet solitude that allowed me to go deep within—reading, writing, traveling, collecting reflections for a book left unwritten. I miss it all sometimes: the peace, the limitless time blocks, even the loneliness that opens up space to think and create. And yet, the thought of experiencing that kind of solitude now scares me, for I don’t think I could truly enjoy it again. In a way, I need my babies as much as they need me; my body craves theirs as much as theirs misses mine. My partner and I are leaving on our first solo trip in a very long time this week, and I find myself wondering if I’ll be able to detach, as though their little limbs and breaths are my entire raison d’être. It is the sweetest Stockholm syndrome ever known.

On some guttural level, I’m still trying to fight it. After each long weekend or broken night, I assure myself that there’s an end in sight, that things will shift, that I will sleep-train, that this is the first year of new motherhood and I will soon rediscover a sense of balance, just like I did after my daughter. But then it sinks in that I just doubled my load, and this is actually my new normal—being pulled from both sides, sharing my body, being the source that everyone draws from. Whether I want to push myself to read and write and challenge myself in the interims is no longer a question of time, but of will. It’s about choosing to exercise that small muscle of discipline in the slivers of calm that remain, because the anchor load is here to stay. My kids will need me for a long time, and there is no way around it. Nor do I want there to be.

I was recently lying in bed with my daughter, waiting for her to fall asleep, another masochistic bedtime ritual we’ve carried on for two years now.

“You’re the best, Mama,” she told me.

“Even when I yell at you?” I asked, wondering how it could be.

“No, that’s not the best. But when you hug me, it’s the best day ever.”

She meant best moment, but I didn’t correct her. Because these are the best days for me too.