I’ve been having a blinking problem lately.
Every time I blink, my boys seem to change. There’s nothing gradual about it, and their stairstep ages (20 months apart) doesn’t seem to spread it out at all. They’re neck and neck (literally) in the game of Who’s the Tallest?
Over the summer, constant reassurance was necessary, many back-to-back moments, proving they’d outgrown mom.
Now, in early October, I’ve been left behind. No one even asks anymore. I’m most definitely looking up to make eye contact.
Perhaps it’s this won’t-slow-down thing that has been going on that made it especially painful to find this while searching for an empty hanger in my Laundry Room:
Little bitty ties.
Little bitty clip-on ties.
One of the boys asked for ties for Christmas one year. He wanted to dress like Daddy.
Now they ask for Xboxes.
Again, I was blinking. Blinking back tears.
Their little-boy-ness was gone so fast, and it will never come back.
I want to hold on, and these ties are things I can physically hold.
So I kept one. It’s okay to keep one. The other can go off into Donation Land to be found by someone else’s still-little boy who wants to dress like his Daddy. But I’ll keep this one. Off on the same shelf where I hid the one favorite baby outfit for each. I’ve proven to myself once again that just one little item can bring back all the memories and emotions. No need to keep them all, the one tie does the job this Mama needs it to do.
