The Faded Yellow Pajamas

There are just a handful of baby clothes that I will not be handing down to one of my siblings when one of them has a boy.  (Odds are in my favor.  I do have four siblings, and I’m fairly certain all four of them are interested in procreating one day, though none are anywhere close at this point in time, and now a moment of silence for the close cousin relationships that will never exist for my children and my nieces and nephews on that side, since there will be a huge age gap.  And now a moment of celebration for the close cousin relationship(s) we are cultivating on their father’s side, since my boys’ one existing cousin is bang smack in the middle of the two of them age-wise, and they all play together well, and she will no doubt, as her mother predicts, be bossing my boys into wearing princess dresses and having tea parties just as soon as they get near her dress-up box, and what glorious photos those will be when they all get married one day.  If they want to get married.  If not that’s ok with me.  End long parenthetical comment.)

There is the newborn outfit I bought when I found out I was having a boy the first time – covered in blue fish, it says “Mommy and Me” on the feet, and I snuck it into The Professor’s suitcase when he took his long research trip to South America during my first pregnancy.  I was trying to trick him into crying, since it’s become a running joke that I’ve never seen a tear from that man, and of course it was a foolish trick since I wasn’t there to witness it anyway.

There is a Pirate shortie onesie thing (onesie but it ends in shorts at the bottom?  Does this have a name?) which Jack wore about a zillion times, and Liam probably will, too.  That is so quintessential Jack at 13 months, the time he learned to walk, that I don’t think I can part with it.

But my all time favorite is a pair of little pajamas that I’ve put on Liam a few times already, though they are ridiculously large on him.  It’s a shirt and pants set, a hand-me-down from somebody, though I have no idea where it came from.  It has unhemmed edges, and a pattern of little bugs and ducks on it, faded yellow.  The material is thin from years of washings, the tag unreadable.  It is soft and still a bit stretchy, and I really did cry when Jack grew out of it, for a lot of reasons having nothing to do with fabric or stitching.

I read a blog of a mother who decided to take all of her daughter’s baby clothes and make a quilt.  It’s not finished yet, but the quilt-in-progress is dazzling – clearly this baby girl was often color coordinated, as every square on the quilt looks perfectly matched to its neighbors.  I understand her impulse.

Minute to minute, I often wish the day away – my arms weary of holding my newborn and fending off my toddler, my mind weary of playing the same games, the same movies, the books, the grinding repetition of toddler entertainment and newborn diaper changes.  But a month has gone by since my baby was born, two years and three months since my big boy entered the world.  Already the Mommy and Me newborn outfit is to small for Liam.

I won’t make a quilt of my boys’ treasured onesies, their stained and spitup-on shirts and pjs.  I’ll give most of them a new home with a new baby one day.  And the handful I keep, til the day I die – well, I’ll keep them intact, to remember just how small my boys once were.  I’ll still wish some minutes away – of course, don’t we all?  I could recite to you Finding Nemo, I can read about five beloved books without glancing at the page.  Life with these two monkeys can be quite boring, as I’ve often lamented on this blog, and I don’t apologize for wanting just one hour to myself, while simultaneously mopping up baby vomit and shouting at Jack to stop whacking the dog with his play sword RIGHT THIS INSTANT!

But anyway, the point is I’m keeping those pajamas.  And I love being a parent, even if every moment isn’t effervescent joy.  And also, Liam smiled at us today.