The sad truth about baby clothes

So I'm doing laundry again (still?) today and of course, I have to put some more of the baby's newborn clothes away because he's grown out of them. That is the tragedy of newborn baby clothes, they make them so cute but they have such a short life cycle, rarely surviving for three wearings. It goes something like this:

Wearing 1 - the outfit doesn't quite fit, though it looks about the right size, when you put it on and the baby kicks, his legs get lost and jammed up in the pant legs somehow and you're forever straightening them so the feet stay in the feet-parts.

Wearing 2 - the outfit fits perfectly! WOOOO HOOO! Within three seconds, the baby will spit up all over the outfit, and you'll have to change him and put it back in the wash.

Wearing 3 - the outfit appears to fit perfectly, until the baby stretches his legs and you notice he can't straighten them completely because it tightens up around the neck and his toes are absolutely crammed into the feet. And you think, he's a baby, how often is he stretched out anyway? He can keep his knees bent! But after three different people say "oh, looks like this outfit is getting a little small!" you realize you're just fooling yourself.

With that, I'm packing away some of my favorite little baby boy clothes, and it's breaking my heart. The only consolation is bringing out some of the equally cute 3-6 month stuff that is starting to fit him, even though he's just barely a month and a half old by my count. Hopefully he gets a few more wearings out of those ones.

It's undeniable, he's growing. But the trade off is he's smiling, and paying attention to things around him, and he's learning to bat at his toys and grab things to shove in his mouth, he's making interesting noises and attempting to mirror our facial expressions. I just love to see him learning to do stuff like that.