give it away now
For the past four days, I’ve been packing away my seven-month-old baby’s tiny clothes for my pregnant cousin. She’s six-months-pregnant, 21-years-old, and married to a sweetheart who is going to Iraq for the third time five months after their son is born.
When I was growing up, she was stuck between the little kids and the big kids. Now she’s all round and glowing and it’s so strange to me. And beautiful. I took her out shopping, dressed her up, fretted and fawned over her and felt like something out of a Laura Ingalls Wilder book. With less muslin and more Old Navy.
When I cried over my baby clothes and my infant car seat and the bassinet and the baby bath I thought about the fact that my tiny baby second cousin will be using them. Another boy in our family of boys and boys and boys. It genuinely delighted me to give her so much, to pass on those material bits and pieces of my heart.
But that elusive girl hovered around me while I packed away footsie jammies and soft blankets. What would your name be, if I could call you daughter?
My chubby, joyful son smooched the mesh of his pack and play and watched me fold bright-colored clothes. When he laughs, his arms flail with violent happiness. He is growing.
And growing.
And growing.
And I fit in my normal clothes now. And I can leave the boys for a few hours, will leave them for a few days next month. I can sleep all night without peeing fifteen times. It would be so hard, as my husband says, to start all over.
And my boys. My boys are perfect.
But I cried over little piles of baby clothes as they were packed into a car bound for Fort Polk, Louisiana.
(And I tucked away six freezer bags full of the outfits I couldn’t bear to part with. Two little newborn lifetimes wore out those clothes, have grown out of them in a blink of my heart. Two little boys fill my days with love and pain and love and pain and joy. So much joy.)
Oh, this is hard sometimes.
15 comments:
Every couple of months I pack away clothing my daughter has outgrown. I tear up as I pack away each piece, remembering the last time she wore it, how cute she looked, what we might have been doing on the day she had it on. I mourn each passing segment. Even as I look forward to seeing the girl, and woman she will become, I ache for the baby that is leaving me.
We're still playing the "is this our last baby or not" game. There are so many things our little ones have outgrown, but I can't seem to part with either.
This is exactly why, I am not sure I will ever be able to say this is our last. I am just not strong enough. However, I haven't really kept much from the boys baby days, its been a long time since they were tiny and I figure we will just start over.
Awwh Maria! So sweet of you to pass on that clothing to your cousin. I wonder what it will be like to see her son wearing outfits you recognize.
I find that I think a lot about "endings" as a mom... she is growing out of this clothes, that habit, this mannerism. But we do have so many beginnings to look forward to as well :)
I have been packing away clothes too and I know your pain. When I see those tiny clothes going into the bin knowing that I will never see them again, it makes me cry.
Life is hard.
It's very hard sometimes. I found having my second child very wistful. It's all about endings and moving on to the next thing. And that makes me sad. I'm still clinging to the idea of doing it again, I don't think I'm ready to pack up the baby clothes for good yet.
It is hard to pack away those clothes.... I wanted my second to be a boy so bad because I wanted to be able to reuse some of my favorite outfits. But she was a girl and now when I pack away her little clothes I wish I could have one more little girl sigh... Looks like we are stopping at two... I am glad that you are passing these clothes on to someone else who will enjoy them. =-)
i started a comment & turned it into a post of my own. it's so bittersweet looking over those itty-bitties.
I have bags and bags and bags of my daughter's clothing in our attics. She's 20 years old and I can't part with half of it.
With my sons it is a little easier, because it's so many polo shirts! But each of her little dresses was different and special and how can I EVER get rid of it??
argh
I so understand
It is.
Steph
still cannot bring myself to go through all the wee clothes.
You are the sweetest cousin..she is lucky to have you;)
I just packed away bags of clothing and I'm wrestling with giving them away vs keeping them. You are right. It's so, so hard.
Yeah, the clothes thing always got to me, too. I saved a bunch of them and I'm going to get this lady to make blankets out of them for me one of these days...when I can actually bear the thought of them being cut up.
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