I know it’s terribly cliché, but I am constantly amazed over the years at how my kids grow. I mean, you start out with this precious little tiny miracle of a newborn baby that used to be in your tummy and then they grow, and grow, and grow until it seems like two blinks later they’re shaving and staring down at you and calling you “shorty”.
Of course as you look back through pictures and all it’s cool to see how they’ve grown and changed but sometimes I swear I can see them growing right before my eyes. Take my little one for example. Dillon is seven years old now and hitting those “didn’t I just buy those jeans last month?” spurts way too often it seems. Just two months ago at Easter time we were heading down to the beach for the day and since I hadn’t bought new swim trunks for the summer yet, grabbed his trunks which actually still fit him big at the end of last summer. Once he had them on I noticed they were a little small and made that mental note to hit up Academy sometime soon for a new pair, but they definitely did the trick for that day. Last week I grabbed that same pair of trunks for swim day at daycare because the colors in them actually matched his mandatory field trip daycare shirt and low and behold he couldn’t get them up past mid-thigh! He wiggled… and danced… and squirmed… but no way, it just wasn’t happening. We finally gave up and wore the red/black/gray newer trunks with his lime green/royal blue daycare shirt. I do try to avoid having my kids leave the house looking like a crayon box when possible, but hey… he could have cared less and I’m long past sweating the small stuff.
This incident did remind me however to go through his dresser drawers and purge the remnants of last years clothes and assorted too small items yet again. Like many little boys his age, my seven year old has few inhibitions and will boldly walk around the house butt naked on occasion or in only his underwear quite frequently. In fact, I recall once he came strolling through the house mid-day butt naked and eating an ice-cream sandwich. I watched him stroll by and thought “Hmmm…. Mommy, perhaps this has gone too far?” Anyway, back to the subject of cleaning out drawers…. Because he’s also been known to put on anything in his drawer whether it actually fits or not including socks and clothes from his teenage siblings that made it into his drawer by mistake. Once when he was wearing about size 6 boys briefs, he came strolling through the house wearing what look looked like low cut bikini bottoms complete with a superhero character on the butt. What??? Turns out he had squeezed himself into a 3T size brief which had somehow remained in his drawer undetected. It didn’t help that he was walking a little funny too, and DJ (my 17 year old comedian) was right on cue with some interesting commentary.
It’s been fun watching each child grow up over the years. Poor Dollie, my favorite (and only) daughter who is now almost 20 years old, was destined to be petite and hasn’t really grown any since about age 16. We have a wall in the house were we measure each child’s height as they grow and Dollie has had the same line for about 3-4 years. While the boys' lines leap up the wall by inches every year, her line just keeps getting a little thicker every year and we add another age number to it. Needless to say, she has grown quite an attitude about 'measuring time'. The bright side of that however, is that she’s still wearing some of the same clothes from high school. In fact I think she may even have a favorite t-shirt or two from Junior High she could still wear if she wanted. This is proof positive that the mother’s chore of size purging does have an end point. Yay!
Though we’ve certainly had challenges with Dollie outgrowing things over the years too. The most memorable was at the State Fair of Texas when she was in about 7th grade. We are blessed to live in a rural area and my kids LOVE showing livestock. I had bought her a brand new pair of boots for our County Fair in April which she only wore a few times. During the summer months, she wore virtually nothing but flipflops and then time rolled around to get ready for State Fair in September. I asked her several times to go try on those boots and make sure they still fit. She assured me she did and they fit. Well, in Dallas as she came back from putting her show clothes on and we’re putting the final touches on her lamb as she was about to walk into the ring, I notice big ole tears running down her face. At this age she was still a little nervous about shows sometimes but I had never seen her cry. I did what I could to cheer her up and off she went into the ring. THEN I noticed the way she was walking! Turns out those boots were a full size or two too small at that point and she had crammed her feet into them rather than admit she hadn’t actually tried them on beforehand like she told me she did. Aaaargh! Hard headed children!! Can’t imagine where she gets it from though? By the time she had walked and stood, walked and stood, and done the show thing for a good 45 minutes in the ring she was walking like some ancient Chinese woman. Ha! That was probably the only time in her life she wasn’t hoping to make it into the champion drive??
I do keep some a select few favorite clothes from each of my kids through the years. A few baby items, a special dress Grandma made, DJ’s favorite little ‘cowboy’ suede vest from when he was 6, Dillon’s little football jersey from 3 years ago. It’s fun to pull those items out sometimes, to hold that physical reminder of just how much my babies really have grown, and to picture their little faces when wearing those clothes. They are like a priceless little time capsule to days gone by. Only I draw the line at size 3T superhero underwear. Sorry, but while they definitely carry a stunning memory they just didn’t make it into the box!
=)
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