hand-me-downs

Piper’s closet is full.

Overflowing.

Brimming to capacity.

Full.

She owns five pairs of jeans.

That’s more denim than I own.

(Who can afford that many grown up jeans at the cost of Gap these days?  And by Gap, I actually mean TJ Maxx or Target because I think those are the stores of choice for any jeans I have purchased in the past five years.)

Skirts?

Uh – probably a dozen.

Dresses?

Fuh-get about it!

Too many to remember.

Now wait.

Lest you think I favor my fifth child more than the others

or that I spend our weekly grocery budget on attire for a three-year-old,

I must say . . .

essentially all of her clothes

have been inherited

from her two older sisters and a few friends.

So.

Yes.

Her closet is full.

Her jeans are many.

Her dresses weigh down the rack.

But the problem is – they are all far-less-than-perfect.

Of those five jeans, only one pair is minus rather enormous holes at the knees.

Holes through patches, as a matter of fact.

Piper’s favorite dress is the dress Mosely wore as a flower girl.

And it’s really so small that she can no longer wear it as a dress.  It would be too immodest for even the preschool set.

She now wears it as if it were a shirt.  Over holy jeans.  Or over snug-fitting pajama pants that I tell her are tights.  (It’s actually still pretty adorable.)

So her closet is doubly full because she is wearing clothes that are

too small,

too large

and all

handed down.

Although there are certainly days when I wish a few items of her apparel looked a little less scuffed, a little less faded, I am so grateful for the pass-it-downs.

A hand-me-down start for a little girl who somehow makes everything she wears

as well as everything she says

unique and precious.