On the day you were born, I told myself over and over to be present. Don’t let this moment slip through the cracks. The room smelt like hand sanitizer and morning breath, but I forget what colour the walls were. What is more real in life, the experience or the memory?

With laser sharp focus, I awed as you entered the world. Breathe in, breathe out. We practiced this together. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out the door we went, into the city air and out of the hospital on your second day alive. Your eyes could barely open as we drove home to our one-bedroom basement apartment, the green summer leaves rocking in unison while we cruised down the streets. I swayed you back and forth in your car seat, careful not to wake you walking down the steps. I placed you on the hardwood floor, pulled my sweater over my head and you were three months old now. How did my beard get so long and your hands so big? I thought it was the afternoon, but it was dark outside and your wailing wasn’t stopping. I reached to put on the hood fan of the stove with one arm, bounced you up and down with my other. I shut my eyes for a second letting the droning sound of sucking air blanket the both of us. Whooosh. Worried thoughts and anxious feelings pull out of us as a gentle breeze touches our faces. Whooosh. A plane flies above us. The grass is a sun-kissed green. You are lying between Mama and me in a park in Ottawa. You sit up. You laugh at us playing peek-a-boo. We are in your world, only to disappear with the wave of a hand. I cover my face and release to your sweet giggles. I place my hands over my eyes one more time. Peek-a-boo. Where’d you go? I look down and you are crawling through my legs on Grammie’s floor, Jazz the dog is licking your face. How’d you get so fast? I get on the floor and crawl beside you, howling like a wolf. You eat it up, laughing at your silly Dada. I crawl fast, around the kitchen island, turn the corner but you aren’t there. The room gets dark. Dada, book. You come up from behind me in your PJs, holding your favourite story, Hug, the one about the monkey searching for his mama. Baby, we just read that one 10 minutes ago, I say. Hug Dada. I pull you up onto my lap in our new apartment surrounded by boxes. Effant, you say, pointing to the elephant. That’s right baby. How’d you get so smart? Line, you say, pointing to the lion. There are 8 zebras, you say, counting all the zebras to me. We talk for a little while more. You tell me about your day. About the kids in your daycare, the interesting things you learned and the pretty flowers that make you feel like smiling. I ask if you are ready for bed, but you say that the monsters might get you in the dark. I flick the light on, ready to give you a well-practiced speech about facing your fears, but you are already asleep in your soccer uniform from that night. I stand by the door for a moment. I study your eyelashes hanging down your face. When you sleep, you look exactly like you did on the first night we brought you back from the hospital. Now I’m scared to leave the room. I’m scared I’ll come back and you will have grown more. I’m scared you will walk forward through time and I’ll be chasing behind you trying to catch moments from falling through the cracks.

A picture of Mama and me sits in a frame on our shelf. It was taken early on in our relationship, when you did not yet exist. As much as time can skip, it can also linger.