Bye Bye Baby

I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that my baby, most likely my last baby, is growing up. (Cue the music.)

Last night, our friends Rob and Valerie came over so we could give them some of our baby things - clothes, toys, gear, etc. I had organized and packaged the clothes: 0-3 months, 3-6 months, etc. Vic set up a staging area in the living room for the baby bathub, car seat, diaper changing pad, etc.

I was giddy when Rob and Val arrived and was super happy to pass on our baby items to them. They are expecting twin boys, so we gave them bags and bags of Nico and Nolan's baby clothes. It was great to know that our friends would put them to good use in a happy home. It felt liberating too, to purge things we no longer needed. I didn't think too much of it until today.

My mom was completely floored this morning when she came over to take care of Nolan while I was at work. She got very emotional when she saw that the clothes were gone. Even though we had talked about us giving everything away for quite a while, I think it was hard for her to see emptiness where there once were lots of tiny, cute baby things. She has had such a major role in raising both boys and I really underestimated how difficult it would be for her to part ways with that stuff. She was really upset about it, and only now in thinking about her feeling like that, I'm sad too.

I'm so happy that my friends, who will soon be first-time parents, will enjoy the clothes and other baby items, but it does make me wistful realizing that the babies grow up so fast. Even though Nolan is only a year old, I already miss some of the babyness about him. I think that in being so happy thinking about my friends' impending parenthood, I pushed away my own feelings about leaving a part of my life behind. It's just socks and onesies that I'm giving away, really, but for some reason, there's a deep emotional connection that's just hitting me now because of my mom this morning.

I don't know what I'll do when the boys go off to college, leaving me and Vic with an empty nest.