the passage of time in clothes

I have been working on a giant project these last few days that has been weighing on my mind for several months.  I am just about waist deep in kids' clothes - sorting, organizing, and labeling to ship stuff to the attic in a way that I can quickly find the correct sizes.  Its taking a long while, as unfortunately, things were have been shoved into any open space in bins through working, moving, and new babies.  Alas, the time has come and it's been quite a tedious undertaking to get them all sorted out.

Logistically speaking, since we have a boy and a girl - the bins are being set up by gender and by size for some future babies (NOT YET, grandmas!) or to distribute as handmedowns to our younger cousins (can't wait to meet you, Lainey!) or our younger best friends.

We are blessed with older cousins and best friends too - which has helped contribute to our massive collection of kids' clothes.  We almost will never have to buy any other kids another piece of clothing through 5 years old.  I was holding up size 5T future clothes for Grey and Gem while packing them up and thinking, "Sheesh, I can't even imagine their little bodies being big enough to fit this shirt!"

After the future clothes, I've since moved onto the smaller clothes (leaving the current/next clothes for last) and I feel quite wistful.  I distinctly remember looking at some of the tiny clothes thinking, "I can't wait until they're big enough to wear this!"  ...and that time has already come and gone.

come and gone.

how?

Like this shirt that I thought made him look like a little man (9mo) and looking at it now, he seems impossibly small.

Grey 9mo

and this summer romper for Gemmi girl (size 3-6mo) and that hat!  Oh, that hat that she wore almost every day last summer.

Gemma 3mo

Gemma 4mo

Gemma 4mo

And all of these jammies.  Jammies just pull at my heart - those sweet sleepy babies that have already slipped away into bigger kids that want to delay bedtime as long as possible now.

Grey 2yr, Gem 3mo

Grey 22mo, Gem 2weeks

Grey 21mo

Grey 15mo

Grey 6mo

How can the days seem so long but the months so short?
Only a Mum would get choked up over organizing kids' clothes bins, eh?
....come and gone.

Sweet babies, slow down, my darlings.
you're breaking your mumma's heart.
xxox