Those Baby Clothes. . . .

Whenever I need to make more room in the babies' closet for new bigger or seasonal clothes, I put the outgrown clothes into plastic bags or bins and put them in the guest bedroom closet. Beyond that I don't pay much attention to all those retired clothes, other than to know that they're there.

Since Laramy was born, I've been asking Zac and Kimberly to come down and go through the girls' old clothes for Laramy to use. We really have a ridiculous amount of clothes (in my defense, there are 3 of them and since they're the same age we can't do hand-me-downs). Finally this past weekend, Zac and Kimberly came down to visit and go through the girls' clothes.

After we ate, I sent Gary and Zac upstairs to pull out all the clothes. Gary was apparently pretty shocked at the amount of clothes we had, because all I heard were mutterings of "I know they never wore all those" and "[censored]" and "what are we going to do with all that stuff" and "how the [censored] did end up with that many clothes" and so on and so forth, with Zac laughing the whole time. Then Kimberly and I headed up there to go through everything. At some point Zac came up to see what was going on.

It was all really going quite well. And then I ran across these little coordinating diaper cover and swing top sets that I had specially ordered for the girls. They only wore them once or twice. I felt a little lump in my throat, quickly determined that my girls would never wear them again, then told Kimberly they would be really cute on Laramy next summer and passed them to her for her pile. I was fine.

We went through a few other things. . . .

Then we got to some summer pajamas. Pajamas that my babies recently wore, but now it's getting too cool to wear them now. And I knew that next year they would be too big to wear them, I felt some tears welling up in my eyes, and I passed the pajamas on to Kimberly for Laramy to wear next summer. I was fine.

We went through a few other things. . . .

Then it started. Out of nowhere, I was crying. No, really, I was more than crying. I was sobbing. Because my babies would NEVER wear these clothes again. Kimberly described it as bittersweet, and I think that is completely accurate. I am so happy that my babies are big and growing and healthy, but I also can't believe that they will never go backwards and be little babies again. Intellectually I understand the concept quite well, but emotionally it's not quite so easy to accept.

Anyway, when I started my sobbing, Zac did as most men would do and quickly left the room, leaving Kimberly there to hug me and tell me that the kids would always be my babies. . . . I somewhat recovered, then worked hard to convince Zac and Kimberly that I really DID want them to take some clothes for Laramy. And this part actually embarrasses me -- but I actually took back some of the things I had put in Laramy's pile. I know my girls will never wear those outfits and that Laramy could put them to good use, but for some reason I feel better knowing I still have those clothes all packed away in my house. I can't explain it, but it gives me great comfort.

I was very blindsided by my entire reaction that day. I still don't understand it, but I'm just trying to accept it for what it is. It makes me wonder what else is going to happen in the future to cause that same reaction, because now I know that it will happen. . . .