We have a plastic blue tub in the hallway that’s half full of clothes that the kids have outgrown. Every time we do a load of laundry I find another pair of pants or a t-shirt to add to the tub. The other day we were getting ready to go out and Beans started to put on her dragon coat. I love this coat. It’s curly green fabric with purple scales running up the back up to the front of the hood. She loves this coat too. It’s her favorite one. Recently I’ve been dropping hints that maybe it’s too small… the sleeves are 3/4 sleeves now. She didn’t care except this last time. She started to put it on and declared it was too small – it’s for babies. She went and dropped it in the tub.
And there was this little pang in my heart.
Today my husband asked me if I’d looked in the tub recently. There, on top, were Beans’s two favorite baby blankets. He said she’d brought them out to the couch and when she discovered she couldn’t curl up entirely under them she declared they were too small – they’re for babies – and dropped them in the tub.
And there was a huge pang in my heart!
I’m not ready for this. I picture the scene in the Robin Williams Peter Pan movie when one of the lost boys is trying to find Pan in Robin’s face by stretching and squishing his face until finally he says, “Oh there you are Pan.” Except that I’m looking in my little girl’s face trying to find my baby. Don’t get me wrong, I love the little girl she has become but I’m not ready to say goodbye to my little baby. I know, I know. I should’ve seen it coming. It happened with Chickie… it happened with the Boy… I knew it would happen – that it was happening with Beans but something about seeing her favorite things in the give-away tub… That last little bit, the small bit hanging on by the thinnest of threads, is gone.
Somebody better tell me that the best years are yet to come! Right?
