You might think this post is about a house. Or maybe a clothes closet, or a hat rack by the front door.
It’s not. Its about children.
My oldest just turned 9, and my youngest is about to turn 7. They are growing like weeds, in a very measurable way:
But they are also growing in so many immeasurable and almost-unrecognized ways.
A while back I made a post on the Milestones that nobody tells you about, and here we have reached one of those again.
Maybe someday I’ll look back on this post with a fondness. A sort of, “Wow, I had forgotten all about that.” Because it’s so minor in the grand scheme of things. But what it signifies is oh-so-much.
Today, I made my way from the laundry room to my son’s room, ungracefully banging around the hallway with an overfull basket, and then began to lay its clean clothes on his bed. I sorted the short-sleeves from the long, threw the pajamas and underwear and socks in their respective drawers. I turned pant legs right-side out and attempted to smooth out the wrinkles.
Empty hangers clung to the wooden bar spanning his closet. I eyeballed them: pale green, white, and baby blue. Miniature versions of hangers designed to accommodate the tiny proportions of baby and toddler clothing.
I snagged a t-shirt off the bed and slung it on to the hanger, then moved to grab the next. But, when I turned back around, I saw a puddle of vibrant orange cotton pooled on the floor beneath the hanger. The shirt had slid right off, its collar too large for my baby-sized hangers.
This is it, I thought. This is how I know that my little boy is a big kid now. Had you told me, five years ago, that the biggest milestone in my son’s maturation would be his graduation to adult-sized hangers, I would have laughed. What about when he learned to form complete sentences? To use a fork and drink from a glass without a sipping spout? What about when he could tie his own shoes and write his name?
No, it would be none of those things. Those things were organic and natural. They were the right of passage that everyone prepared you for. You looked for them and expected them.
No one prepared me for this milestone.
It was measurable. Undeniable. Unexpected. I picked up the orange shirt and placed it again on the hanger, taking extra care to center the shirt so that the ends of the hanger just barely grasped either side of shirt’s shoulders. It settled, listed precariously, but did not fall.
I needed a moment and as I turned to collapse on his bed, still decorated with cartoon characters and stuffed animals, I stubbed my toe on the laundry basket. I cursed, then I started to cry. I was blindsided by a pile of clean laundry and 99 cent hangers from the discount store.
Sometimes, you know things. And you think you know them – I mean really, really know them.
But you don’t.
You know what you’ve been told, you know what blossoms gradually before you. You know what was and what should be.
But you don’t know that one day you will have to buy new hangers, bigger hangers, and it can be just enough to tear your heart wide open.
Parenthood is filled with so many moments that humble you. We are told to expect that. To be awed, to be tested, to be overwhelmed. But sometimes, when it comes in the most minute and unexpected of ways, we still are blindsided.
It is beautiful, and amazing, and oh so true. This is why, if you ask me the most surprising thing I discovered after I became a parent, I will tell you: it’s the hangers.
We are officially on to the big kid stages, now. And eventually the tween and teenage years, but I’ll tackle those when I get there. And I wonder, what kind of unspoken, unpredicted milestones mark those transitions?
