Saying Goodbye To The Baby Clothes

Clearing out my baby clothes was tough.

All those tiny little cute outfits, worn once, twice, three times.

Some have been on all three of my boys.

These are the clothes I carefully poppered over tiny little toes, carefully zipped up tiny little bodies, cuddled close after feeds and pegged up on the washing line, unaware or not of their last service towards our cause.

The ones which hold the most emotional resonance, pushed back into a duffell bag to be stored now - but for what purpose?

These are my memories.

I most likely won't be using them again now.

They're not waiting 'just in case'. Are they?

I had to tell myself as I went through them; 'there's no point in them sitting redundant'.

No point in them taking up space or gathering dust.

Someone else should be using these gorgeous little things again.

These gifts so thoughtfully given, the things carefully chosen by me, by friends, by all the visitors.

These are the things I squealed over, carefully opened, were so surprised by, they made new-mummy-me cry over the kindness, the generosity.

It's time to say a fond farewell to tiny baby years, tiny baby things, tiny baby bits and pieces and look forwards now.

My baby is a year old in less than a month.

He's thrown himself into life so fully.  He's grown so much.  Even moved up a centile as if to make fun of my constant chiding: "stop growing, baby!"

He giggles when  say this  Stands up all by himself in the middle of the room all by himself, grins, shows me his little teeth, points, waves, says words, all of the things I don't want him to be doing yet.

But he does.

He's not a tiny little baby any more.

It goes too fast.

Now it's my turn to surprise someone.  To show the kindness. To repay the generosity and to make another new mummy wonder at the kindness of strangers.

So I bundle up the bits. I tell myself it's the last time, but not too harshly. I make sure that I also allow myself to realise it could all happen again maybe one day.

Though I know it won't.

 They're just clothes.

Just clothes.

I can always get more clothes.

If I ever need to...

Change

I've talked a little bit about how things have changed so much for us all in the past year, but I've never gone into any detail.  One, because I'm genuinely so tired and time-poor that I just can't fathom how to, and two, because, well, nobody really cares that much, do they?

This time last year, we had no idea that this one even existed!

Life is life is life, and everybody always has their own thing going on which is more important to them, and that's cool by me.

How did this guy get big enough for school?

How in the heck did we end up here?  It's amazing!

I'm  huge believer in change and the ability it has to surprise you out of nowhere.  And I can definitely stand testimony to the fact that things can change incomprehensibly: what might seem crazy one year, can be your reality the next.

I can't imagine not knowing this little guy!

It is important to keep an open mind and embrace change.

My life, our lives, are so completely different to the way that they were this time last year and I guess it's still blowing my mind a little bit.

We've changed cars, lost a family member and gained two, moved house, struggled with ill health, changed schools, and poor Dave has changed jobs 4 times, all in the space of a year.  Yet, if you'd at me down last year and said that any of this was going to happen, let alone all of it, I'd have laughed in your face.

Where will we be this time next year?

I'm almost too scared to ask!

If you'd have told me that I'd have a view like this on my doorstep, I'd never have believed you!

Gremlins...

It's been a while.

I never meant to stay away for so long, but hey, life is never straightforward and is always happy to throw me a few curveballs.

First of all, Dave was working in a crazy-demanding job which saw our routine with work and kids and childcare and house stuff go completely to pot.  There were simply not enough hours in the day to complete everything.  Needless to say, any spare time was spent catching up with stuff we didn't have time for; piles of washing, dishes, school notes, appointments...life was crazy.

Thankfully he has a new job now and so far  (touch wood), it seems to be a much smoother ride.

There's a lot to be said for work/life balance.

While this was going on, we are also house hunting.  We are hoping to buy our first house in the very near future, so I have been trying to use free minutes perusing house-buying sites, hoping to stumble upon something cheap and cheerful.  Needless to say, it's a terrible time of year for it!

While scouring various domains, my poor wee laptop managed to pick up a few Malware gremlins.  It took a long time to get rid of them - in fact I am still sorting stuff out after having to restore my computer back a few months...grumble.

Add on to this the other pressing gremlin we discovered one day a wee while ago...

They always look very odd in the first photo - although, look!  Tiny wee hand!

Yes, check it out!  Turns out there's a wee guy/gal hiding out inside of me!

I have been feeling horrendous these last couple of months - hence the lack of blog - but I have to say, I am feeling a lot better now, even more so after going to the hospital and actually seeing a real-life baby on the screen! Paranoid-me likes to imagine I was imagining it.

So, I missed a couple of things; my 30th birthday wasn't quite as intense as I'd planned, but the way I was feeling, that was okay by me!  I had a really great meal with my family and had some really lovely gifts given and even delivered!  I certainly feel very loved indeed.

I've had a great time keeping this a secret from real life people too.  Some I told, knowing I'd need support as I felt so rubbish.  Some I told accidentally.  But others, as I have discovered this week when I told them, already knew.  Apparently the bump which I didn't think I had much of gave me away. Ha!

I am going to be huge.

But hey - it's (most definitely) the last time I am going to be doing this and I am determined to enjoy every last second of it.  Pregnancy hasn't been a positive experience for me, but now I am that bit older and wiser, I seem to have a different attitude towards it.  Things are so very different from when we had the boys, it's kind of nice to just not worry quite so much.

We told the boys on the day we got the scan - they were both ecstatic.  Tom really wants a sister.  And you know, sod's law, Ethan really wants a brother. One is going to be sorely disappointed!

So, yeah!

Bear with me - I might not be around so much in the next couple of weeks (although the sickness is fading and I'm getting some of my energy back - hurrah!) but I shall do my very best!