I zipped my daughter’s coat and had a sudden memory of doing the same when she was three

Dear Delyara, She rolled her eyes a little because she can do it herself now, and I laughed and let go, but that one tiny movement opened something in me. There are moments in parenting where time collapses. A coat zip. A hair clip. A packed lunch. A hand briefly reaching for yours in the car park. Suddenly the child in front of you is all the ages they have ever been, and you are holding all those versions too. I think that is why mothers get tired in places other people don’t understand. We are not only doing today. We are carrying memory through it constantly.