Laundry

Do you ever stop to smell your kids clothes as they come out of the dryer? Your nose, pressed to soft blanket, inhales deeply taking in the wonderful odor of childhood. The smell of clean lingering in your mind before it becomes overtaken by dirt, grass, play dough, food, or worse...

Or, does seeing the clothes flash you back to a moment in time where your child was wearing that outfit? Maybe the new jeans for the first day of school? Or, the orange stripped shirt he was wearing when he was sent to the hospital for the first time. Or, maybe the sweet little footie jammies she wore as her arms chubby arms stretched out to you when you entered the room and you clearly heard "mama" for the first time. (tear) The carpenter jeans he wore when he took a first step. Each piece of clothing representing a day, a season, a moment along life's journey. Do you ever smile doing the laundry?

Do you ever neatly fold each piece of their clothing, pressing along the seams, realizing they won't be wearing those clothes too much longer before they move on to the next size? Realizing it is but a passing moment and all too soon those little clothes will be taken over by something much larger, resembling that of your spouse? Do you ever pause to be thankful while you're doing laundry?

Do the clothes ever trigger a conversation or a sound? The sound of padded jammies running down the wood floor hallway. The sound of a zipper being discovered for the first time. A conversation about who makes clothes, who makes the people that make clothes, who is God? A conversation between you and your child. Do you ever feel connected to their thoughts, their dreams while doing laundry?

Have you ever washed clothes, neatly folded them and set them aside in a box in order to pull out the next size? Have you changing out the newborn clothes for the 0-3 month or put your 3 year old in 5T and realized he isn't so little anymore? Do you ever cry doing laundry?

Yea, me neither... ;)