There is a dress hanging in the wardrobe waiting for an occasion.
A beautiful jumper we reach past on the way to something more practical. The shoes that are still almost perfect because we don't want them ruined at the playground.
We do this with children's clothes without really meaning to.
We save them.
For lunch somewhere nice. For a birthday. For a photograph. For a day when there won't be mud, paint, tomato sauce or an inexplicable amount of sand involved.
The trouble is that childhood isn't particularly good at waiting for the right occasion.
Children grow. Sometimes seemingly overnight.
The trousers that were slightly too long in September are showing ankles by spring. The jumper we were saving suddenly doesn't quite reach the wrists. The beautiful dress comes out of the wardrobe and we realise there may only be a handful of chances left to wear it.
Perhaps the occasion was all those ordinary days in between.
The walk to school. Tuesday lunch. An afternoon at the park. Going to buy bread.
There is something especially lovely about beautiful clothes that have been properly lived in. Cotton that gets softer every time it's washed. Knees that begin to fade. A cuff that shows the smallest signs of wear. A stubborn little stain with a story attached to it.
These aren't necessarily things that make children's clothes less beautiful. Sometimes they're the things that make them more so becase children don't experience their clothes as carefully chosen purchases.
They remember the dress that spun properly. Or the jumper that was soft enough to pull their hands inside the sleeves.
The coat with pockets big enough for stones and the shoes they could put on themselves.
And often, years later, we remember them too.
Not because they stayed perfect, but because they are part of our most important memories. Those small moments at the playground, on holiday, sitting at the kitchen table, being carried home asleep.
Eventually, some of those clothes will be folded away. Some will be passed to a younger sibling, a cousin or another child. They might arrive a little softer than they began, carrying faint traces of the childhood that came before. That seems like a much better ending than hanging untouched in a wardrobe.
Beautiful things don't need to be saved from childhood. They can be part of it.
This Week's Invitation
Choose the thing you've been saving.
Put it on.
Go somewhere completely ordinary.
And don't fret about the stain.
All photography by Fliink