So I have a friend named Rachel who is raising twins a few weeks older than Annabelle. A beautiful little boy & girl that she does a fabulous job capturing in photograph and heartfelt posts in her blog. Those posts never fail to cause tears to spill down my face. A few weeks ago she posted about how the twins had given up bottles and as she put them away felt more melancholy and sad than liberated. While having sympathy I could not feel empathy. We still had bottles, they were still taking up my counter, I still had to clean & dishwasher them, air dry, put back together every day. Annabelle showed no sign of giving up bottles, ever.
Fast forward a few weeks. We started “trying” the sippy cup for her milk. The first time she promptly threw it on the floor. The next day she took an ounce and threw on the floor and so on & on. Last week Annabelle started taking exclusively sippy cups of milk. The time had come for me to put bottles away, to open my counters with more space for something, I don’t know what.
The bottles, storage bottles, bottle brushes and bags were neatly compacted into three 15 quart Rubbermaid containers. As the counter was cleaned a lump formed in my throat, it looked so
empty. I just stood there staring at the vast space that had housed all this paraphernalia for over a year feeling lost. We were letting go of a piece of infancy, and letting go is so very hard.
My beautiful Mom Grace walked into the room just then to observe me standing there, tears filling my eyes and asked what was wrong. I just nodded to the counter, not trusting my voice. She looked over; saw the empty space, tears filled her eyes as she said “Oh - our baby is growing up. We’ll just have to get another”
Dolly Parton had it right when she said in Steel Magnolias “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion”
