Laundry is the currency of a young household, I think. Okay, currency is probably the wrong word, but man oh man, there's a lot of dirty clothes floating around. So I spend a good chunk of my time washing them.
Over the weekend, I pulled a freshly cleaned load of the Boy's laundry from the dryer. I took it upstairs and folded it while it was still soft and warm. I grabbed a pair of the Boy's jeans, and found that they were worn and fraying around the pockets. There was even a little hole near the waistband.
No sense in keeping jeans with holes in them, right? Besides, he's on the verge of having grown out of them. So, I headed to the garbage can and lifted the lid to pitch the jeans on top of the coffee grounds and banana peels. But I stopped. I couldn't do it. Why?
Because these are jeans that I bought for him about a year ago. They've never been worn by another little boy, unlike so many of the other of my son's clothes. He was the only one who ran in these jeans, jumped in them, climbed in them, fell in them, and danced in them. And I imagined him doing all of these things, and smiling, and giggling, and yelling, and I couldn't part with them. Not yet. Maybe in a little while, my practical side will overrule my sentimental side, and I'll pitch them. But for now, I'll just put them in a little memory box.
Now, watch, I'll forget and in twenty years when he opens his memory box to sift through the items I thought were crucial, he'll think I'm some kind of hobo nutcase. Ah well...
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