We Made Lemonade

There's no bigger reality check than cleaning out a child's closet and passing on the clothes that no longer fit. It truly is amazing how fast life changes, how fast the world turns, how fast those little bundles of joy grow up, and how fast it can all change when you're not looking. You hear about it all the time. Just turn on CNN or listen to news radio and you'll hear about a car crash, a house fire, a shootout, a bad storm; something that, in one split second, changed a person's world forever. It's overwhelming and in thinking about it too much you run risk of living your life scared of the "worst case scenario." Reality is...life moves on and if you're one of the lucky ones who's averted true disaster you basically keep on going hoping all the (metaphoric) debris doesn't hit as it flies by.

So, I did it. I opened her closet and I started pulling the clothes off the hangers. I made a pile on her changing table. I heard her in the other room splashing in her bath water playing with her little bug-on-wheels making the "pttttttt" noise as she maneuvers it under the very few inches of water. With each onesie and each pair of pants came a memory. I remembered, on nearly each peice of clothes, who got it for her. I remembered how cute she looked when the little long-sleeved pink onesie that said "Little Girl, Big Dreams" was paired with a little miniature pair of jeans and tiny little sneakers. I remember how I didn't like the shirt with the big horse on it until I put it on her and she loved to play with the horse while riding in her carseat. The list went on and on. It was hard, putting it all into a box for the youngest of my neices to wear come fall. At that moment I heard a quiet "Momma?"...like she always does; predicting my tears at such a young age. "What baby?", I replied and I heard a tiny giggle.
Then it hit me, like a ton of bricks hurling at my chest...
"This won't last forever. God willing, I'll have her with me forever but these days won't last forever."

There's a time in every first-time mother's life that she truely believes the late night wake up calls and demanding motherly duties will never end. We, as mothers, start to believe that things will always be as tough as they are in the beginning. We even make ourselves believe we don't always l-o-v-e it. But when reality hits and we think it could all end someday, our hearts broke. And that's just what mine did.
It broke.
I stopped what I was doing and I sat in the rocking chair. The same rocking chair I used to sit in when I was pregnant. I wondered what it would be like to have a little baby in that room, rocking in that chair, sleeping in that crib, wearing all those clothes and now I can't imagine what it would be like without that baby to rock in that rocking chair, sleeping in that and wearing all those clothes. Her little shoes were sitting next to the crib and I thought, "oh, how things have changed?"

It was about that time I heard one of her "I'm ready for you to help me" whines and went into the bathroom. There she was, as naked as she was when she was born, standing up in the tub with her rubby ducky in hand grinning at me with the biggest smile she could manage. "Madison, don't stand in the tub," I demanded. "You could slip and fall." She reached for the edge and sat down in the water, all the while reaching out for me to pick her up.
"Give me cup so we can wash your hair," I said. She followed the command and we did the routine.
When I got her out and wrapped her up in a big, fuzzy towel she looked up at me and laughed.

She was happy.
Everything in her world was so great that she let out a laugh just to let me know "I may be getting big but we still have 'right now'."
I took her cue, gave her a hug, got her dressed and rocked her to sleep.

As she lay asleep in my arms I kissed her forehead and thanked God for everything he's given me.
There's not near enough people in the world who get feel as content, as blessed and as happy as I've been for the past two years.

And now I can say, with the help of those who love me the most, we made lemonade when we were handed lemons and I'm pretty proud of all of us for traveling down the rocky road and making it over the rainbow.

I couldn't have made it to this place in my life without the support I've had and there's no way I'd change any of it.