I Just Want To Stay Here A Minute

Yesterday, I cleaned a bunch of outgrown clothes out of Zoe's closet. I don't have any reason to feel regretful, because she wore these clothes from last March through the summer and into the winter, before I started putting the "pantsuit" all-in-ones on her. I have lots of pictures of her in all these clothes, but this morning, I find myself with big tears in my eyes every time I think of pulling all those cute little clothes off their hangers and putting them in the box to go upstairs for "maybe someday." I don't think it's so much about the little clothes-they're cute, and we have lots of good memories of Zoe wearing those clothes, but they come out with cute new things every day. It's the little girl who's outgrowing them I'm trying so desperately to hold onto.

I've packed away the little purple and black newborn outfit that fit her all baggy and big when they took her picture on our second day in the hospital, but fit her like an undersized sausage casing before her first Thanksgiving. I have her 0-3m Fluffy Green Dress set aside to be framed (because that one carries special significance). We tried to get extra mileage out of that one, putting it on her when the ruffles seemed to swallow her whole, and finally giving up when we couldn't get the snaps fastened beneath anymore. Now the little orange romper, and the navy blue one with the white embroidery, and the turquoise and brown ones with white polkadots are folded and packed away in the bin, and her closet's full of the next wave of cute little things to wear.

Zoe's ready for the next wave of Growing Up. And here I sit in a puddle, because it seems like just the other day that I could tuck her under my arm like a tiny but chubby little football. I was trying to teach her to roll over and keep socks and shoes on her Feet of Fury. Now, she still climbs up on my lap and grips me like the little monkey she is, and she still delights in going for walks outside, all tucked into her MoBY Wrap carrier, but she left rolling over in the dust a long time ago, and instead, throughout the day, I hear the soles of her little silver shoes she insists on wearing, tapping like a snare drum on the floor as she runs through the house, squealing at the joy of just being her.

She's growing too fast, but at exactly the speed she's supposed to. It's me who's static and getting left in the dust, and I miss her a little bit, already.