Hat

Yesterday Mabel and I met some friends at the park.  It was a gorgeous day-- one with high temps, lots of little kids cavorting about the playground, and activity everywhere we turned.  We eventually grabbed the kiddos from the playground area (after Mabel's tenth or eleventh time down the slide) and put them in the strollers so we could chat about some stuff for my friend's upcoming writing course, for which I am flattered to help out.  Both of our little ones sat while we talked, taking up the gorgeous sights and sounds of the historic park around them.

I had put Mabel's pink hat with the chin- tie on her as to avoid sunburn (she was also covered in SPF-- but with that little sweet apple face you can never be too careful).  Somewhere in the transfer of playground to stroller, she either got the hat off and dropped it, or I took it off and left it on the ground.  Because we have a sun shield on the stroller, I didn't even notice the absent hat until we were across the street in the lot, packing up the car to take off for home.  I felt a pang of devastation when I saw the hat was gone-- I knew looking for it on those expansive park grounds, with a toddler at my shins, would be an unwieldy process to the say the least.  Alas, we let the hat go.

As I drove back onto the highway, I couldn't stop thinking about this stupid hat.  Trust me- we have lost our share of baby items over these 14 months-- a "Luvy" blanket, a car seat toy, a snow boot-- and I have always chalked it up to the nature of parenthood and haven't really cared.  So what was it about this hat?

The hat was a plain one, rose- colored.  I'm not even particularly a pink person, so it certainly wasn't the aesthetics of it that was making me sad.  My aunt gave Mabel the hat, but she has given Mabel lots of clothes... so it wasn't a sentimental "the only thing you've got from your grand- aunt!" reaction.  And we've got three other tie- hats at home.  So what was it??

I kept driving, and next to me on the passenger seat was the diaper bag I had brought with us to the park.  I glimpsed Mabel's sunglasses sitting near the top of the side pocket.  And I immediately thought of the first time we brought Mabel down to Newport-- she was three months old, still using one of those Bumbo chairs.  She wore a new pretty little royal blue jumper, her sunglasses, and... her pink hat.  It was the first time she wore the hat.  After that day, we took Mabel on a lot of firsts in that hat: first time at the beach, to the pool, and out in the yard to play.  And that's when I had a sort of epiphany: the hat was Mabel when she was a baby, and now she's a toddler.  The loss of the hat was weirdly symbolic, a la Holden giving his little sister his red hunting hat in The Catcher in the Rye.  I was nearly choked up.  The hat was gone, somewhere on the fields, for someone to find and probably throw in the garbage bin.  My sweet little baby, that sweet little hat-- it's all... disappearing.... so very, very fast.

I told my mom once that Mabel's growing and learning new skills kind of made me emotional-- and a little gloomy.  She was confused.  "She's turning into a such a fun little girl!  You should be happy!" she pointed out sensibly.  And of course I'm glad to see Mabel do new things and change.  Of course I want her to make discoveries.  But there is this crazy sentimental tag attached to those first few months-- when she was a stranger in our house- a teeny- tiny teddy bear of a stranger.  We didn't know what we were doing, but the newness of it!  It was amazing, and if you know me, you know I HATE the word "amazing."  But is there a word more fitting?  Every time we left the house with her and did something new-- be it a trip to the grocery market or a meal at the deli-- it was an adventure.  Mabel's teeny (though big!) infant eyes would sometimes open and look around, and sometimes she would just sleep.  It was all so beautiful and insane and novel and scary and difficult and awesome.  And the hat was those days.  The hat was that little sleepy teddy bear.

Somehow the hat still fit her as of late, which surprised me.  It was great as an infant (was probably huge on her back then), and yet still covered Mabel perfectly these past few weeks for outdoor play at day care.  Since I didn't know I cared about the hat, I was sending her to day care with it in case she got dirty.  We wouldn't wreck any of the nice new ones before summer.  The hat has left us.  I feel a wistful longing for the hat, but I had to swallow hard and accept it was gone.  Mabel needs to start wearing her new yellow and white hat, which is slightly larger, even though she will need to grow into that one too.  She is growing into that hat as I type.  And soon, that one will blow away or be tossed into the charity bin.  This whole transformative thing is really something I am going to have to get used to.