To My Not So Little Boy

The tiny clothes stacked neatly in your closet remind me of how quickly you’ve grown and how hard it is for me to accept it. If the size difference of your shirts aren’t proof enough, the No. 2 pencil marks on the inside of your closet is validation. The baby socks once fit baby feet. The drawstring pants were once big enough to fit your saggy diaper but small enough to prevent them from falling off of your tiny waist. The shirts are big enough to be a washcloth.

Baby clothes come off the hangers to make room for kid-sized ones. They’re neatly folded and placed with the others that you wore not so long ago. I can’t resist pulling them to my face and inhaling deeply to see if I can still smell that smell us parents drool over when a baby enters a room – a sweet mixture of Dreft, baby formula and lotion all bundled into one tiny thing. I hoped the soft cloth still smelled like how you once did, but it was worn and washed, worn and washed, over and over again. The colors and characters on the front are faded, the collars are worn and stretched, and the embedded oil stains from the night we have “squiggly noodles” are now noticeable.

Then there are the mismatched socks in your top drawer with holes in the toes and strings hanging from the elastic around the ankles. Their misplaced counterparts are likely collecting dust behind the dryer. For now, those ones I find are tossed in the pile with the others.

Your PJ tops are next, leaving behind the matching pair of bottoms. The tops always ran small.

The days of buying you clothes are coming to an end faster than I imagined. I’ll miss your face light up with excitement like the time you saw your new bright green jacket with blue and red dinosaurs waiting for you to try on when you get home from school. I’ll miss the times when I buy your “big boy” jeans, like that one pair with a little tear at the knee. Or when I buy you new hoodies so you could “look like daddy.” I’ll miss the times when you would ask me to help button your pants because the button barely makes it into the loop.

I’ll always remember the times when you sat on my lap, with your back facing me, your legs slightly bent and the back of your head leaning on my chest so I can put your socks and shoes on. I could reach your feet back then.

I’ll always remember the time you came home from school with holes in the front of your shoes; your toes were growing right through them. You didn’t seem to mind it. Even the time when I noticed how your pants were a little short around the ankles. It was just enough that you could see the top of your socks.

It’s true, what they say: “They grow too fast. Don’t blink.”

I think I blinked too much.