The Unique Sadness of Packing Away Baby Clothes
Babies are supposed to grow, so why is it so sad when their clothes are too small?
Juniper has been growing out of things, and as a result, I am spending more time sobbing over Tupperware bins of clothing than ever before.
My husband and I divide and conquer when it comes to Juniper duties. I'm primarily in charge of input (food), he primarily handles output (diapers). He empties the Ubbi diaper receptacle, I pick the boogers out of her nose and administer infant Tylenol. He straps her to his chest and takes her on walks in the carrier; I do her laundry. He gives her baths; I organize her belongings.
But because of this, I’m more in touch with what little clothes no longer fit her, and it has wrecked me.
She graduated from size 1 diapers to size 2 this weekend; at just about four months old, she’s suddenly too long for footed pajamas that are supposed to fit babies until they’re six months old. (I’ve never heard of a baby that didn’t grow faster than baby clothing brands said they would. As parents, we already feel time running away from us enough without a pair of footies implying that our particular baby is growing faster than the average baby. Baby clothing sizes that underpace the average growth rate for babies should be illegal.)
Juniper is weeks away from outgrowing her bassinet. She has rolled over a few times, each time completely dazzled and disturbed by her accomplishment. Her babbles have started to sound like real syllables and not just screams for the sake of screaming. She’s been putting her hands in her mouth and drooling a lot, so I felt along her bottom gums with my fingers. Yep. Little teeth about to erupt.
Every time I do her laundry, there’s at least a piece or two of clothing that no longer fits her. I take that piece of clothing and put it in a storage bin labeled BABY CLOTHES- 0-3 MONTHS. I think about the times that she’s worn the item. I think about picking it out in a store, or a friend bringing it over in a paper bag now that their child is done with it, or the time my book agent dropped off reams of hand-me-downs from her own daughter, including a Christmas dress.
"There are little matching shoes that come with it," she said, and then turned around quickly and left, like she had to get away from those little shoes before they ripped her heart out.
Juniper has this one outfit that we refer to as her “jazz pants,” black and white houndstooth pants that came with a red onesie with a penguin ice skating on the front of it. Josh picked it out for her. It’s too small now, but I can’t bring myself to put it away, like somehow babies can have “short days” like I can have “skinny days.” She's not getting any smaller.
Embracing the movement between one phase and another is part of being a parent, but it’s so mystifyingly hard.
I think about the care and love that comes along with the act of dressing my baby, a person utterly incapable of reciprocating, and the spooky devotion to her that is suddenly an oak tree in my life’s front yard. I know there was a time before this, but: was there? Packing away my daughter's little obsolete things reminds me of the obdurance of progress. I couldn't wait until we were out of the newborn phase, when she was tiny and didn't seem to even like me. But when I got out of the newborn phase, I missed it, because it was gone, because I couldn't have it back even for a second. Nothing will ever be good in exactly this way again, nothing will be bad in exactly this way again. Time marches forward, in tiny jeggings, size 6-9 months.
Sometimes when I’m in the middle of sorting a load of her laundry, I have to stop because it’s too much and too confusing. This is good, right? This is good. But this is terrible. She’s growing up, she’s growing away. She's only four months old. The emotion I’ve attached to her growth feels like low-grade insanity.
Is this how all parents feel? Is this how my parents feel? No wonder they still cry every time somebody gets dropped off at an airport.
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