Repeat after me: You're Elijah and I'm your Momma.

I don’t know when it happened. In the blink of an eye, literally. I was sitting here on the computer, Elijah at the dining room table. He’s coloring a picture for his teacher. She gets more pictures than I do these days. Priorities, *sigh* and a slight eye roll. Elijah looks so adorable as he tells me okay to a question I asked him. Too cute. I could have jumped up and ran across the room to hug him. But the moment passed in an instant. He followed it up with a statement I didn’t want to hear.

“Mommmma, I’m going to start calling you mom.”

When did I grow to be a mom? I absolutely loved being a mommy and I was appreciating being a momma. Now, I’m reduced to mom. Listen, Elijah, we do not change our names through the course of time. Pick one and stick with it. Seriously.

Instantly, I had a rebuttal.

“You can’t call me mom.”

He looks at me, baffled. “Why?”

“Because I can’t call you Eli. I can’t shorten your name, you can’t shorten mine.”

He laughs, big toothy grin and all. “Mommma.” He shrugs. “I can’t stop saying it anyway.” That abruptly, I was back to being a momma again. It feels delightful and comfortable. Cozy.

I had went to see what he was writing his teacher. He’d drawn her a picture of his family with Jonah way at the top of the page, looking more like an insect than a child with wings. He always tells me that Jonah is not just his brother, he’s my superhero. When I ask why, he says because he can do everything Superman can but better. I’ll never argue that point. Of course, Jonah isn’t stopping crime or a speeding bullet but he can be Elijah’s hero.

Back to his picture, he draws us proportionate. Small Elijah, medium momma, Jonah lingering above and a large dad. Dad? What?

Elijah looks at me and asks, “It’s okay that I call Daddy, Dad, right?”

Yes, Elijah, it is. I sneer. Let Jason’s name mature but not mine.

I love to relive how it all came about for us to take Elijah home from the hospital. Elijah was born on Valentine’s Day (I think I’ve said that before.) He was sickly, scrawny and sickly. I thought I had given birth to an alien. All I saw was arms and legs flailing around at me. But he was mine, all mine. After a few days, we took Elijah home. The first night home, he slept 10 hours - straight through the night. I couldn’t believe why I had heard some mothers complaining about this. This motherhood thing was a breeze! The kid never ate, he slept all the time - I could do this in my sleep. In fact, I was. The next day, the home health nurse came out to weigh Elijah. He was 21 inches long and weighed 6 lbs. 3 oz. when we brought home. Let’s remember that and see if we can all do the math. Less than 24 hours later, the nurse placed him on the scale to see that he weighed a whopping 5 lbs. 8 oz. Yay…oh wait, we’re going the wrong way. In about 23 hours of my care, he had slept about 75% of the time and lost 9 ounces. You know what they do then? They recall your baby. Yes, we went immediately back to the hospital. He was put back in the nursery and I had to sleep in a tiny little room next to the nursery. I was allowed to see him as much as I wanted, I just couldn’t hold him, nurse him or change his diaper. I basically couldn’t be his mother. He was sick and should have never been released from the hospital. Come to find out, it wasn’t my fault. After four or five days of this, he was back to complete wellness. I packed up my tiny room so quick the room was spinning. We were given our walking papers and I was going to do just that. The nurse brought Elijah out, bundled up, in one of the bassinettes. I finished packing quickly, ignoring Jason saying “this isn’t our baby.”

I looked at him and looked at Elijah. “Of course, he’s ours. Pick him up and let’s go.”

“I’m not touching him. He’s not ours.”

“Jason Cox. He’s ours. Let’s go.” I looked at Elijah. So cute, cooing at us. Anxiously waiting for us to pick him up. I accused Jason of being scared of Elijah.

“I’m not scared. That’s not our kid.” Jason said to me sternly.

I put my bag down as I watched the nurse walk next door to visit with the other family. Their son had been doing well and they were planning a trip home soon, too. I waved for the nurse to come into our room.

“Where’s our son?” Jason almost yelled at her. For fear, they had given Elijah away.

She looked at the baby. “Well, he’s right there. Elijah."

She motioned for our arms to check our wristbands. Horror came across her face as she realized what Jason knew and I didn’t. “I am so sorry. We would have checked your wristbands before you left. I promise. Let me get Elijah.” And she pulled the bassinette away and to the family next door. They came to our room to rehash the story as the nurse went to get Elijah.

There were several issues at hand that was brought to everyone’s attention: why had the hospital brought us the wrong baby, what if we had actually left before the nurse came out, etc. But the only thing that kept going through my mind was: why didn’t I recognize my own son? Comfort me how you will: it had been a stressful week, I was medicated, hormonal, deranged, whatever. I could not have picked my child out of line-up.