My youngest brother is staying with us this week and on Tuesday he went on a date with a girl from down here. It was my job to "see him off" on this date, which made me painfully aware that I'm not ready to have teenagers. I hated sending him off, letting him go. Even though he's not my child, because we're so far apart in age, I can't help feeling a little motherly toward him. That letting go stuff isn't all its cracked up to be. :)
Then, since we had a couple of cold days this week, I decided to go through the kids winter clothes and pack them away and bring out the hand-me-downs for the little girls. I started with Elise and worked my way down the family ladder, ending with Paige's things. As I began pulling out Paige's infant clothes, I began to get teary-eyed. I don't know how many more kids we might or might not have, but I definitely realize we're closer to being done than getting started. We might have another, maybe even two-who knows?! But I couldn't help but think that I might be packing up the baby girl clothes for the last time. I looked at the outfits that each girl had come home from the hospital in, the dress that had been mine as a little girl, the little tiny onesies and the sweet sleepers. I try to remember to be happy about where we are, look forward to the future and enjoy the past. But sometimes I have to wallow just a little bit in days gone by. Sometimes, life just goes by too fast. I think there are wonderful things about each stage of life, but I just can't imagine there being one more wonderful than this one. :) So I had myself a good cry while I packed things away, ate a twix bar and then got back to everyday life.
3 rays of sunshine:
Oh, I so feel your pain. Since John David is our last one, I went through and got rid of lots of our little girl stuff before he was born. It was extremely hard and I cried more than once about it. I saved some things to just keep and some to make a quilt for the girls out of their baby and little girl clothes. And I had a couple of friends come over and go through and get stuff for their little girls. So at least I'll get to see some of their clothes on those two cute little girls and remember how cute my girls were in them once upon a time too.
i can't feel your pain yet but i totally understand how you feel. even the clothes CJ never wears i hate to give away because they were HERS. now i know why my mom had so many boxes of our school papers and clothes we wore growing up. :)
That brings back a flood of memories of babies, little outfits, going through boxes, and packing things away, stages of life, and the emotion of it all. Those were sweet days filled with little ones and all that goes along with it, and there are good and happy times throughout our lives, whatever stage we're in...joy in the journey.
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