This morning in my closet I came across a mysterious pair of socks. On the surface, the pair looked like the rest of their friends. But, when I went to put them on, I discovered they were just a little too small.
As I began rustling through my sock basket looking for another pair, I remembered where I had seen those socks before. They had been in my son’s room. I was putting away his clean laundry and had seen them in his drawer. They looked too big for three and a half year old feet, so I had assumed they were mine and put them in my closet.
“I’ll put them back in his room.” I thought, while tossing them into the basket of folded laundry, “He’ll be able to wear them later.”
Suddenly, I felt a little nauseous. The sickness I felt when I was newly pregnant with my first baby was only a foreshadow of how it would feel to watch that little baby grow up.
The socks would fit him soon…too soon. Then, I will have this problem with our T-shirts. He’ll want to wear a University of Virginia T-shirt like his dad and I’ll mistake it for an old shirt I wore running. Then, there will be no problem at all. I have no doubt that soon he will be much bigger than me. Soon, this little sock issue will be a thing of the past. Someday soon his large feet begin to require socks that could never be mistaken for my own. My clothes would all be too small. Would my opinions, my company, and my home all soon be too small for him too?
I know a day is coming when he will no longer respond to new, intimidating situations by hugging my legs and burying his face in my torso. He will no longer ask my permission to open the refrigerator or go in the backyard. He will no longer care for my smiling approval over how many stairs he cleared on that jump or how fast his tiny, mighty legs let him pedal his bike. I know the day for all this is coming. But when? I know the answer. Soon.
I already have a problem with keeping laundry straight. I constantly put my 9-month-old baby’s clothes in my 3-year-old son’s room. Clearly they wear very different sizes. However, when I am mindlessly folding laundry and see the baby clothes stacked up on the bed, pictures of my first son wearing them begin to fill my thoughts. In my memories, these little outfits fit him perfectly. In reality, he is far too big for these clothes… and he has been for a long time.
“It’s time to take out the bin of hand-me-downs from your cousin. It’s time to buy a bin for the 3-T’s. Those pants are too short, that shirt is too small, those jammies are too tight and now you think you’re too old for the footsies kind?”
Yes, it’s true. Too small socks and stacks of laundry may make me pause a little longer than the average person should. I realize how quickly time is moving. It is unstoppable.
Sometimes, as a stay at home mom, I feel like my life and my days could be measured in laundry. Sometimes the days drag on and feel never ending.
“So how come they are moving so fast?”
There’s truth in laundry.
