An End & A Beginning

Today was such a productive day for me. 

I love having these days. 

They are my fave.

I finally made the returns to Target that I have been meaning to get to for about 2 months. Luckily for me Target has a 90 day return policy. I also payed my questar gas bill... for whatever reason this is the one bill that always slips my mind. I seriously need to get it on auto pay or something. I am totally that lady who gets the pink slip on the door for disconnect purely because the check that I wrote 2 months ago is still sitting nicely in my wallet. I went to Urban Renewal and dropped off some gently used items that I finally gave the eviction notice to.... it was hard to see them go but they had definitely overstayed their welcome.

I put away the boys' clothes that have been taunting me in a huge pile on the floor. It's like they were saying to me...

"oooo I'm gonna get cha"

every time I walked by. So I gave in and finally put them in their proper place.

I attended a modern class and I taught my pointe class today, so me and my old, worn out & out of shape body is tired.

But the thing I did today that was the "big thing" was a really big thing for me. 

Today was the day I said goodbye to one chapter of my life and hello to another. 

Today I packed up my car with 4 big Rubbermaid containers full to the brim of all of my babies clothing, bottles, blankets, receivers and shoes. One tupper contained the last set of baby bedding I will buy (at least for a while, God willing). And lastly I piled in the infant car seat and base that had been the mode of transportation for my tiny & very premature baby.

I remember putting his teensy little 4 pound body 

into the seat 

when he was a month and a half old 

and thinking that the straps would swallow him whole... 

and they did. 

We went all the way to Las Vegas just to get this car seat that would go down to 4 pounds. See the NICU has regulations that preemies must pass a car seat test and that the weight requirements are met. ie: if you have a 4lb 6oz baby and a 5lb & up car seat... no going home for baby. So... we had the special preemie car seat ready to go. (ps... Ash hit 5lbs the day before he went home so the very expensive, i mean preemie-safe, car seat was not needed after-all.)

Long story short, my sister in law Lyndsie will become the proud new owner of our gender neutral baby bedding and my soon to be step sister will be the proud new owner of the rest of it. (Sorry Lynz... I had already promised that stuff out. I will work on getting new stuff for the little padewon inside your belly.)

I cried a little bit as I left the UPS store with nothing but a bunch of empty Rubbermaid totes that had contained such important elements of the last 6 years of my life. Every onesie, every pair of shoes, every blanket, every everything triggers such a sacred memory of my babies lives.

I know they are only things and that the memories stay with me but it that knowledge did not help the twinge in my stomach as I unloaded the empty totes into my garage that had stored all of these memory keepers for so long.

I am so thankful for the stages that my boys are in now.... 

but I will always cherish those precious first years with my little ones.