Mazzygrowing5

This weekend I finally went through Mazzy's drawers and got rid of all the clothes that are too small for her. I've been hanging on to stuff way longer than it fits for reasons that I've got to get over— FAST.

'The Peanut' was born tiny (we took her home from the hospital at barely 6lbs) and has remained on the small side for her age. I've come to realize, oddly enough, that I am in love with her miniature status. I react to a stranger saying, "She's so tiny!" like it's the adult equivalent of, "You look great!" I almost have to stop myself from saying 'thank you'.

On a practical level, raising a lightweight means she's super easy to tote around without using a whole lot of arm strength. Plus, all the clothes people bought us for the first few months have lasted almost all year. But another benefit to raising someone with Mazzy's pea-sized stature is that milestones like crawling and pulling to standing seem that much more impressive when they are performed by a tiny baby. You should see the doubletakes we get when she waves at passing strangers and says "hi." She looks like a freaking baby genius!  But The Peanut's growing and as she does, I shudder to think how people will view her when she starts walking— like she's just a plain old regular baby.

Besides hanging on to her size like it was the last life raft on the Titantic, I also struggle with her getting older. Mazzy will be ten months in about a week and a half but just as I do with every month that passes, I act like she is a 29-year-old who is about to turn 30. Just yesterday at the park, my husband told someone she was ten months and I snapped, "She's still nine months—don't age her!"

Why do I feel this need to keep Mazzy young and tiny like I'm some Hollywood producer who's worried the baby's gonna age herself out of the being-my-baby role? Why do I feel a twinge of jealousy whenever I see a pregnant woman who is about to start from the very beginning? Is it because like clothes and handbags, I prefer everything brand new? Is it because my biggest fear in life is living in the same house as a teenage girl? Or is it because having a baby is the first time I've had such an obvious way to gage time passing for myself? (Oh god, let's save that massive therapy session for another time).

No matter the reason, one thing is sure, Mazzy may have many new talents but one of them is not the ability to stop time. The other day, I put Mazzy in a 3-6 month-old outfit. The shirt barely covered her belly and even with my patented pull-and-stretch technique, the bottoms of the pants were lucky to clear her knee. I realized dressing the baby in clothing a size too small is a lot like squeezing into my skinny jeans when I've gained a few pounds.  Even if I'm somehow able to wrangle them onto my body, that doesn't mean everybody else is fooled into thinking that they fit. Like it or not, Mazzy is getting bigger. And since this baby is my child, and it's my job to raise her into a well-adjusted person that doesn't need therapy the second she learns how to talk, I better learn to like it.

So yesterday, I bit the bullet, and did some much needed shopping for my soon be ten-month-old. Truth be told, I went a little out of my mind in Baby Gap. Everything was so damn cute and I guess I've been denying myself the pleasure of buying my daughter clothing all these months. And then today I dressed her in one of her new fall outfits and an awesome thing happened— the new clothes are a little too big! Turns out your baby looks tiny again when their thigh folds aren't about to bust through the seams of their pants like The Incredible Hulk.

If I was smart, I would learn from this and buy myself a new pair of jeans.