Gender neutral clothes are on their 4th (and some on their 6th) baby..

Handing down clothes after the loss of a child has been pretty easy.  I think partly because there is 4 years and 2 children in between Clara and Haleigh.  I find that the clothes I find myself reusing are the ones that I also used for Lincoln and Preston (and some from Damon and Mason).  No she isn’t dressed like a boy but onsies that say “I Love Mom/Dad” or “My Dad/Mom is a superhero” just work for both genders.  Finish off the outfit with a cute pair of girl pants and no one knows that it is actually a boys onsie.  Even less boyish is the pretty headband and bow to top off the girly look.

Okay…so she looks a little boyish in the picture but if you saw the ruffles on the back side of the pants you would think girl 😉

I kept much of Clara’s clothes after she passed…at least the stuff she wore anyway.

Seasonally most of the stuff is correct but I can’t believe how much of it now is sort of out of style.  I also find myself looking at the outfit and saying, “this isn’t Haleigh” and taking it off and putting it away to sell.  Who would have thought!?!  It isn’t that the outfit reminds me of Clara or makes me uncomfortable, it just isn’t Haleigh’s style.  I find myself attracted to blues and yellows for Miss Haleigh rather than the greens and whites for Clara.  Maybe it is my way of making sure Haleigh isn’t compared to Clara or maybe it is simply an excuse to shop the hundreds of girls racks once again.  I love seeing her in the old sleepers, probably because those haven’t changed, I mean even the colors and cute little shoe feet of them are the same this year as they were 4 years ago.

While it has been easy for the most part there was one item that has too many memories to reuse…

The one thing I unpacked that was immediately repacked was the duplicate to the outfit Clara passed away in.  We got 2 “you are my sunshine” outfits, one in 0-3 and the other 3-6.  Clara was wearing the 3-6 the day she passed.  That outfit was given to us to take home from the ER after her death.  To our surprise that outfit was cut up the pant leg and shirt front when they took her clothes off trying to save her.  That, my friends, was one of the worst surprises ever.  No one mentioned that they would be like that.  I still vividly remember discovering it and quickly hiding it from Chris.  When I told him about it, he didn’t want to see it.  I discarded that very bad memory in the trash.  When I unpacked the smaller sized one, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it but I don’t think I could ever put it on Haleigh either.  I think it will be one that goes in Clara’s special box.

New things for the new girl

We have a few favorite outfits that are getting much use but for the most part it has been fun to pick out new things for the new girl in our lives.  I was so excited to have a girl, the first thing we did after we left the hospital was go pick out her Easter dress!  While it is nice to be able to reuse, it is also nice to have a few new things.  I think it is a matter of balancing out the old things and memories with the new things and creating new memories of both.  We do this while still remembering the good memories from before 🙂