I Want to Have Another Child
My family has a ritual...
My mother buys all of her granddaughters beautiful children's clothing. My older sister has two daughters, ages 7 and 5, and I have a daughter who is 3. Sis hates watching her girls outgrow their clothes, but it gives her some solace to bag them all up and bring them to my house.
My daughter gets her new clothes plus most of her cousins' hand-me-downs. I am overrun with clothes for the child.
Not just clothes, either. I have a truly ridiculous amount of girly accoutrement stashed in her walk-in closet... hats, bows, shoes, purses, swimsuits, sunglasses. Usually by the time the hand-me-downs make it to my place, I can't find what bow goes with which shorts, but I'm sure they're here somewhere.
At the turn of the season, it's up to me to deal with the outgrown clothes (and she grows fast!) to make space for the avalanche of "new" things. I have friends who tell me to have yard sales or donate the clothes to Goodwill. I have sorority sisters that pass down bags of clothes and want me to do the same.
I'm not married anymore, not planning a pregnancy in the imminent future, but I do really want another child. So, I keep most of the clothes in boxes in a storage unit.
As I pack, I take out the irreversibly stained clothes and throw them away. I take out some scrappier ones and make a pile for Goodwill. To my sorority sisters, I donate the fairly cute clothes that my daughter just never wore much. Perhaps they were more my sister's taste...too frilly, or not sparkly enough. But the majority go into a big plastic tub, to storage.
I think about how it will be to re-open these boxes. Will it be because I have another daughter wearing 2T-3T and it's time to sort through this mess of clothes again? How fun it would be to revisit C's old wardrobe, to see another child wearing her cherry jumper or her safari dress! (If that's the case, I already know that I will have the dress in the 2T bin and the matching bows in the 4T bin for two years later...)
Or will I finally open the boxes because it is time to do something else with the clothes, to give them away or sell them at a children's resale boutique? Boy, the shop owners will have it the motherlode if that happens, but it will be horrible for me to go back through all these clothes, all these memories, all these dreams....and let them go.
My mother buys all of her granddaughters beautiful children's clothing. My older sister has two daughters, ages 7 and 5, and I have a daughter who is 3. Sis hates watching her girls outgrow their clothes, but it gives her some solace to bag them all up and bring them to my house.
My daughter gets her new clothes plus most of her cousins' hand-me-downs. I am overrun with clothes for the child.
Not just clothes, either. I have a truly ridiculous amount of girly accoutrement stashed in her walk-in closet... hats, bows, shoes, purses, swimsuits, sunglasses. Usually by the time the hand-me-downs make it to my place, I can't find what bow goes with which shorts, but I'm sure they're here somewhere.
At the turn of the season, it's up to me to deal with the outgrown clothes (and she grows fast!) to make space for the avalanche of "new" things. I have friends who tell me to have yard sales or donate the clothes to Goodwill. I have sorority sisters that pass down bags of clothes and want me to do the same.
I'm not married anymore, not planning a pregnancy in the imminent future, but I do really want another child. So, I keep most of the clothes in boxes in a storage unit.
As I pack, I take out the irreversibly stained clothes and throw them away. I take out some scrappier ones and make a pile for Goodwill. To my sorority sisters, I donate the fairly cute clothes that my daughter just never wore much. Perhaps they were more my sister's taste...too frilly, or not sparkly enough. But the majority go into a big plastic tub, to storage.
I think about how it will be to re-open these boxes. Will it be because I have another daughter wearing 2T-3T and it's time to sort through this mess of clothes again? How fun it would be to revisit C's old wardrobe, to see another child wearing her cherry jumper or her safari dress! (If that's the case, I already know that I will have the dress in the 2T bin and the matching bows in the 4T bin for two years later...)
Or will I finally open the boxes because it is time to do something else with the clothes, to give them away or sell them at a children's resale boutique? Boy, the shop owners will have it the motherlode if that happens, but it will be horrible for me to go back through all these clothes, all these memories, all these dreams....and let them go.
By:
serenityprayer
Age:
31-35
,
Female
