Seven Days of Mia

Day One

The door to the bedroom closed behind Anna. It had been a long few days, but her dream had finally come to fruition.

For as long as she could remember, she had wanted to be a mum. And now, in her arms, was her dream incarnate. Mia was happy and healthy, though slightly on the smaller side. Her eyes were the same chocolate brown as Anna's, although they hadn't been open for anywhere near the amount of time that Anna wished they would be.

As she lay down on the bed, placing Mia beside her, she felt only one slight regret. Although she had always wanted to be a mum, she had always envisioned having a partner with her throughout the journey.

But looking at her baby now, scrunched up and sleeping, Anna felt a strange feeling inside her. She had felt love before, Mia was a direct result of it, but never like this. In fact, as she looked at her daughter, Anna couldn't help but feel as though maybe she had never really felt love before after all.

She leaned over and inhaled Mia's scent. She let out a sigh of pure contentment. It was at that moment that a new feeling enveloped Anna. Her heart ached for time to stop, just so she could spend eternity there.

A tear rolled involuntarily down her cheek as Anna kissed Mia's forehead.

"I love you," she whispered, and she really meant it.

Day Two

Anna woke the next day in a mixture of emotions. First and foremost was excitement. This was the first proper day of motherhood and she planned to enjoy every moment of it. A day at home with just her and Mia sounded like bliss.

But just behind the excitement was a nagging feeling of confusion and panic. She hadn't gone into becoming a parent completely delusional. She was well aware of the sleepless nights that she was going to face. She remembered telling her friends that she was actually looking forward to them. She had hoped that the night feeds would be incredible bonding with Mia. In fact, she had got a warm, glowing feeling inside when she thought of the skin to skin contact they would have.

But that hadn't happened last night. Mia had not awoken once. Anna's stomach plummeted. She sat bolt upright, fighting back tears and looked beside her. The feeling of terror intensified. Vague recollections of falling asleep next to Mia in bed were floating through her mind. So where was Mia?

"Mumma!"

Anna froze. She looked to her left and hastily stifled a scream.

"Mumma!"

There, in a cot that had certainly not been there yesterday, was a toddler. She had big, brown eyes. The same colour as Anna's own.

"Mumma, toast."

The toddler's beaming smile vanished when it saw Anna looking at it, replaced by an expression of sudden seriousness. Clearly toast was not something that this toddler considered a joke.

"Toast."

Anna stared at it. The terror and excitement of moments earlier had fled her body as though worried that this small toddler was a monster that ate emotions. The confusion, however, remained. Except now it was magnified one hundred times.

"Mumma!" The toddler said again, this time without the excitement. There was more threat in that one word than Mia had heard throughout her entire life up to this moment combined.

"Toast," Mia whispered, nodding slightly.

The toddler beamed.

A few moments later, the toddler was sitting in a highchair that had also not been in Anna's house yesterday. The toddler was perfectly content there as Anna, still feeling beyond helpless, watched it slam its hands repeatedly down on the table in front of it, its legs swinging madly and unintelligible babbling coming from its mouth.

Anna placed the toast down in front of the toddler and gazed into its face. The toddler had Anna's brown eyes, her straight nose and dimples exactly where Anna had. It couldn't be Mia, surely.

"Are you-" but Anna's question was cut off abruptly by a square of toast hitting her in the face. This was immediately followed by a scream so penetrating that Anna thought she might be vibrating.

"What?" was all Anna managed to get out before another square of toast hit her in the face.

"Ti-gles!"

"What?" Anna repeated, at a complete loss.

"Ti!" A square of toast hit Anna in the face. "Gles!" The final square of toast hit Anna in the face.

Perhaps this final piece of toast unlocked a hidden gene inside Anna that allowed her to translate incoherent sounds, because it suddenly dawned on her what had gone wrong.

A few moments later, she laid down a new piece of toast in front of the toddler, this time cut into triangles. This decision was met with passionate approval by the tyrannical child who was soon wolfing it down with undisguised glee.

"Mia?" Anna whispered, watching the previously screaming toddler now laugh hysterically at a particular funny piece of cooked bread.

"Mumma!" Mia responded simply. And it was that response that finally made Anna smile.

That smile barely left Anna's face throughout the rest of the day. Sure, there were times where it vanished as Mia screamed bloody murder. When Anna sang along to Old MacDonald was one such occasion. Anna had thought that she was just joining in with her daughter who was belting out the tune at the top of her lungs. Looking back at it now, it was clear that this uninvited singing was actually clearly a heinous crime.

But for the most part, Anna enjoyed being bossed about by a tiny person who may only know a handful of words, but damn well knew what she wanted.

And so it was that Anna found herself staring at her daughter who was just beginning to fall asleep in her cot. Once more, that feeling of overwhelming happiness washed over her.

"Lub oo," came Mia's tiny voice as she finally bowed to the inevitable and fell asleep.

Anna smiled. This morning she wouldn't have known what those noises meant. But she knew now, as a tear rolled once more down her cheek. And she also knew how ignorant she had been yesterday. This moment was the one she would have given everything to spend an eternity in.

She leant over the cot and placed another kiss on her daughter's head.

"I love you too," she whispered, and she really meant it.

Day Three

Anna awoke invigorated. A whole day with that beautiful toddler was ahead of her. Even though she was awake, she refused to open her eyes. Instead, she chose to relive some of yesterday's highlights in her mind. Eventually though, the excitement became too much. She had to look at her daughter.

The cot was gone. Anna stared at the blank stretch of wall for a while, feeling herself fall back into the fog of confusion she had spent a lot of her motherhood so far in. Perhaps it was on the other side of the bed? She rolled over.

"Mummy!"

For the second day in a row, Anna sat bolt upright. Her heart pounded against her chest. For there, far too close for comfort, was a small girl. She was bigger than Mia, her hair was shoulder length and it could not have been clearer that she was excited to see Anna.

"I need a poo," said the small child, suddenly serious.

"Okay," said Anna, her voice tailing off as she stared into the child's brown eyes. They were exactly the same colour as Anna's, and at this moment were demonstrating a seriousness that Anna had never known before. "Mia?" she asked, but already knowing the answer.

"Come on mummy," Mia said, a note of exasperation in her voice. "Poo!"

Anna watched Mia as she devoured the bowl of Frosties that had been put in front of her. She hadn't asked for Frosties initially. Instead she had asked for toast, but when Anna put the bread in the toaster Mia had loudly claimed that she in fact did not want toast. She wanted Cornflakes. This also proved to be wrong when Anna got the box out of the cupboard. What she actually wanted was Rice Krispies. No! Not those Rice Krispies! Those ones! The ones with the tiger on the front. The ones that were in fact Frosties. Yes, those ones. Silly mummy.

"When I finish these," Mia said, gesticulating towards the bowl of Frosties, "we go to park?"

Again, Anna nodded, not daring to speak for fear of screaming her confusion.

It was at the park that Anna found that she couldn't stop smiling. Mia's constant "mummy, watch this" left Anna feeling like the most important person in the world. How was it that this perfect little child (alright, her decisiveness could do with some work, but whose couldn't) wanted nothing more in life than Anna's approval?

And so it came to be that Anna stared in awe at her daughter that evening as she drifted off to sleep. Anna had enjoyed reading to Mia so much that she had allowed at least five "last one" books.

"Love you," came Mia's voice as she once more bowed to the inevitable and fell asleep.

And Anna smiled a sad smile. Because this was the moment she wanted to live in forever. And she was scared of what was to come tomorrow because surely no child could be better than this one right here, right? She was perfect. And so she leant forward and kissed Mia's head.

"I love you too," she whispered, and she knew that this time, she really meant it.

Day Four

A sense of trepidation greeted Anna as she woke that morning. As she opened her eyes she saw no cot, but also no child leering over her ready to inform her of the desperate need to poo.

Anna climbed out of bed and opened her bedroom door. Opposite was another door, slightly ajar and covered in stickers of all sorts. In the middle, a sign read: MIA'S ROOM.

Anna pushed the door open and stepped inside.

There, in the middle of the floor, was Mia. She had grown since yesterday and she sat surrounded by sheets of paper and coloured pens. She looked up as Anna entered the room and smiled the same smile she had for the past few days.

"Mummy, look at what I drew," she said, barely able to contain her excitement as she showed a drawing of what Anna presumed was a horse.

"Wow," replied Anna. "That's amazing, sweetheart."

Mia lowered the drawing and stared at Anna, clearly confused. "What's the matter, mummy?"

"Nothing, honey," Anna said, wiping the tear away before it could form. "Shall we have pancakes?"

Anna did not know where this offer came from, but it was clear that she had struck gold with it. Mia leaped up and sprinted towards her, wrapping her small arms around Anna so tightly that she thought she might burst.

Breakfast was one of the strangest that Anna had ever had. It was a miracle that Mia managed to eat anything at all with the amount of questions that she asked. These ranged from the relatively easy, "what are baby sheep called?", to the slightly harder, "do fish get thirsty?", to the almost impossible, "what would happen if you were tied up and..." - Anna had to admit that this last one might have been impossible because she had lost track of the question about a quarter of the way through.

The day continued in this way, with Mia asking questions about anything and everything, while also still being desperate to show her mum all of the things she could do or had drawn. Anna ooh-ed at Mia's cartwheel, and ahh-ed at her twelfth drawing of a horse.

And she found herself with a tear cascading down her cheek once more at bedtime. Mia did not want Anna to sit with her as she fell asleep. She still wanted stories, of course, but once Mia was tucked up in bed, Anna had her orders to leave. So, after stories, Mia hugged her mum tightly and received a kiss from Anna in return.

"Love you, mummy," she had said as she pulled the covers higher over herself and rolled over.

Anna stood up and walked over to the door, not taking her eyes off Mia. She watched briefly as her daughter tossed and turned, and realised that it was this moment that she wanted to live in forever.

"I love you," Anna replied. And this time, she knew that she really meant it.

Day Five

Anna knocked on Mia's door the following day. A small grunt was all the answer that she received. As she stepped into the room, she noticed Mia still in bed, dancing dangerously between sleep and consciousness.

"I thought we could go to the park today," Anna said, expecting a grunt in return. Instead, Mia rolled over and looked at her mum. She had grown even more. Anna wondered how long it would take for her daughter to reach her height and realised that it would happen alarmingly soon.

Mia did not answer immediately, but rolled slowly out of bed and stretched. Once this had been done, she looked again at her mum with something close to pity in her eyes.

"Can we go shopping instead?" she asked.

Anna felt she deserved an award for how well she hid her disappointment. She had managed to plaster on a smile as she agreed to the request, while her heart sank slightly.

It wasn't that shopping with Mia wasn't fun or interesting. Quite the contrary, in fact. Mia was clever, funny and generally lovely to be around. It was clear to Anna that her daughter had big dreams as they traversed the shopping centre. It was apparent that Mia didn't consider herself to be a child anymore. She was on the verge of entering adulthood and was obviously looking forward to it. Yet Anna was not completely fooled. Mia couldn't help looking longingly at the climbing frame as they ate lunch, nor could she fully hide her excitement at certain things that Anna felt sure she would never admit to her friends.

At bedtime, Mia hugged her mum tightly again and received the customary kiss on return.

"Love you, mum," she said as she began walking up the stairs alone.

Anna felt like she should feel sad by this. Her daughter didn't want books, she didn't want her mum to put her to bed. But instead she felt giddy. What would this dreamer become? Anything was possible and tomorrow, Anna would hopefully find out. This moment, full of endless possibilities, was what Anna wanted to spend forever in.

"I love you too," she called. And she knew that she really meant it.

Day Six

Anna did not spend much time with her daughter on the sixth day. Mia spent much of her time in her room. In fact, Anna felt helpless as she watched her daughter struggle with the stress of her schoolwork.

She heard Mia's phone buzz throughout the day but did not ask who was texting her after the first time. A scathing look was the only answer that she received.

She occasionally entered her daughter's room with snacks or drinks, and to watch as Mia drew and drew. Her room was filled with sketches of everything imaginable. Paper and clothes littered the floor as Mia struggled with the pressure of the exams she had assured her mum were coming up.

And so, for the first time, Anna went to bed before Mia. She entered Mia's room to find her still sitting at her desk. Anna gave her a hug from behind that Mia acknowledged with a gentle hand to Anna's wrist.

As Anna turned to leave, a drawing caught her eye. She was staring at an incredibly life-like drawing of herself. Picking it up, she turned to look at her daughter. In that moment, she knew that it wouldn't be fair to freeze time. An eternity in this moment would stop Mia from reaching her full potential. A tear rolled down her cheek once more as she walked towards the door.

"Love you, mum," came Mia's voice as Anna was about to close the door.

"I love you too," replied Anna. And she knew, in that moment, that she really meant it.

Day Seven

Anna rolled over in bed that morning and opened her eyes. She jumped as she processed the sight in front of her. It was Mia. But not Mia as a teenager, or as a child full of dreams or questions. It was not Mia as a toddler, demanding toast. It was none of these Mias and yet it was all of them. For there, on the bed, was Mia still in her newborn scrunch.

Anna stared at her daughter for a long moment. She stared into the closed eyes of her newborn baby and saw all of the things that she would become. She saw all the Mias that she was yet to meet. She thought of all the Mias she had known and loved, and knew that she had loved all of them, with all of her heart. She knew that she would love them again when she next met them. But most of all, she realised that she hadn't finished loving this Mia yet.

At that moment, Mia's eyes opened. Her chocolate eyes seemed to take an age to find Anna's who felt the familiar tear roll down her cheek. Anna leaned over and kissed Mia, who stretched and yawned.

"I love you," Anna whispered gently. And this time, she knew with more certainty than she'd ever felt before, that she really meant it.