Only Fitting.

When I had my first child, I swore I would not over-buy clothes. I promised myself (and Brad) that the clothes would not overtake the closet. I promised myself that I would buy only as many clothes as the kid could wear in two weeks or so since, if I haven't done laundry in more than two weeks, then the problem is really my laundry-doing habits.

When I had a second child - especially since it was another he, to match our first he - I made the same promise. Here, it got a new caveat: I wouldn't buy too many new clothes for Pierce, since he has all of his brother's in-good-condition, only-recently-worn, was-cool-enough-to-spend-money-on-then-so-it-should-still-be-cool-enough clothes. And, again, generally I stuck to it. Pierce got a nifty, new bring-home-from-the-hospital outfit and some new stuff for holidays, but generally, he's wearing what his brother wore. This has led to two phenomena.

Phenomena 1. Telling apart baby pictures of the boys is harder than it should be. My boys aren't identical, but they're definitely siblings, they're both boys, they're in the same house, with the same backgrounds, in the same positions, and wearing the same clothes. I have, on more than one occasion, looked at the date of the photo to definitively determine which of my darling children I'm gazing at.

Phenomena 2. Watching my kids grow out of stuff. It blows me away that they can wear something one day and it fits; then, a little more than a week later, it doesn't. Suddenly, Colin's pants are too short or Pierce's shirts become midriff-baring (like Gus from Cinderella). It's hysterical to watch my kids grow out of something. They do it because they're growing. They're literally changing shape. Amidst all the jumping-on-couches and chicken-nugget-eating, they're finding time to make more cells and grow up. Literally. I haven't grown up (as in: the direction) in a long, long time. But these kids do it all the time. They're champions about it, too. I remember growing pains (the actual physiological pains, not the show), and they hurt. So next time Coco's a little naughty, I might cut him a little extra slack. For Heaven's sake, the kid is busy with cell replication, bone expansion, gray-matter growth, and mastering his 6-foot jump shot. The least I can do is credit him with multi-tasking and ease up on my requests not to play with the water dispenser on the fridge. Since growing-up is exactly what helped him reach the water dispenser in the first place.