The box from the attic

I guess it's time. I don't want it to be. I haven't been able to say good bye to the clothes that have hugged your body this year. The 2 year old clothes that now hug too tightly. I haven't been able to say hello to the box in the attic ...the winter one marked with a 3. You grow, but i don't notice until pant legs grow shorter, and shirts are tighter; until Grandparents comment on "how big you are", until pictures remind me of where you were, until a doorway penciled growth chart marks your height one notch higher.  You are growing too fast. I get the blessing of being by your side.. slowly it seems each day. Yet,  how fast you've changed from baby to boy. I haven't had enough time to process  shoe sizes growing, the sentences forming, the change from diapers to underwear, the subtle dropping of naps, .....

You are always before me moving, requesting, laughing, crying, asking, eating, sleeping, repeating...I move with you and the days go by.

I love your body frame..it's a square, chubby frame that i want to hug and squeeze at all times. It's lengthening. Your face is thinning out, but your cheeks still have baby in them. I kiss them as often as possible, but more and more you turn from them towards independence....your eyes look for adventures past mama. 

You are a daddy's boy...through and through. At times i hurt that your reach isn't for me when he is around...often i rejoice because he is a good "papa" indeed. 

Tonight i will go through your clothes that fit too tightly, and say goodbye to all the days you stole my heart in them...all the days i filled them with your little frame and smiled at how you looked.

I will fold and the memory will flood.....

the little bathing suit... 

At the beach i held you...your little legs didn't want to walk anymore. I scooped you up and you hugged my neck tight the whole walk...cheek to chubby cheek we walked in silence. i held you tight knowing the next year your legs might take you all the way. Without me.  That day i napped with you, frustrated that you wouldn't go to sleep. You kept moving around....being silly.. kissing me and telling me you loved me. You said the funniest things...like " we are nice...i wuv you..you have boobies and boogers"...silly silliness... and still i got frustrated with you because you wouldn't fall asleep. But now,  that moment and those " i love you's...." made their way deep into my heart and forever stained my memory with happiness. That moment...that day at the beach. This little bathing suit. 

 

I brace myself for the folding of the past.....tightly away in the winter box marked age 3. I Praise God for what was...and will be and for the freedom to remember tonight...and to mourn.