Sloshing.

I was the youngest in my family (three older brothers), so I know all about hand-me-downs. Love 'em or hate 'em, they are a fact of life. Luckily for me, there were some things I simply wasn't required to wear, since I was a girl and my mom thankfully realized that I may not want to wear all my brothers' clothes, but I definitely received hand-me-downs from a lot of my mom's friends' older daughters. 

I've kept pretty much everything Sonja has ever worn and Haven is wearing all of it. I've bought her new things for sure, but 99% of what she wears belonged to Sonja. And I find it interesting that at Haven's age hand-me-downs are freakin' awesome because she knows they used to be Sonja's and she's pumped about wearing things that belonged to her much-idolized big sister. 

I'll never forget the look of sheer pride on Haven's face when her feet were big enough to wear Sonja's first pair of winter boots. She practically strutted through our dog walk that day in the park. And she is always so pleased when Sonja remarks that an outfit Haven is wearing belonged to her "when I was a baby." 

So when I pulled out Sonja's too-small rain boots yesterday and put them on Haven's feet, Haven was busting. I could see that they were a tad big (as they were when Sonja first wore them), but I also saw that there was no way I was going to get them off Haven's feet without tears. No choice; it was time to test them out for real.

I had a big plan to walk some of the trails at the park, but I couldn't get Haven way from this group of puddles. I can't say that I blame her. Her pants were drenched above the boot line from so much sloshing, but she didn't care; she just kept walking back and forth, again and again.

And when she eventually slipped and fell and was covered in muddy water, it was definitely a sad end to an otherwise joyous occasion. But you know, once I got her home, dried her off and emptied the two inches of water out of her "new" boots, I could see in her face that even falling in the mud couldn't take away from the freedom she felt out there sloshing in the puddles. 


More of a big kid every day.