A great appeal of hand-me-downs

I cannot possibly know what the future holds but for the time being Eddie enjoys wearing hand-me-downs from Sasha. Not that I make him do it, he chooses his clothes himself. Eddie adores his older brother, and for him Sasha's clothes have a great appeal, he thinks he looks very trendy and handsome. He never saw Sasha wearing them, as there is an 8-years difference between them, but if I say that these clothes were Sasha's, Eddie wants to wear them.

I have been digging through my old digital albums, looking at the old photos of Sasha, and putting together a series of photos of my two boys in the same outfits. Don't know why but I was very surprised to see how much alike they are, even if Eddie is a blondie and has blue eyes, while Sasha was darker at that age and has dark hazel eyes.


I love this pale green knitted jumper, this was a gift from my mother-in-law. She keeps us in good supply of trendy Italian clothes.

This photo of Sasha and I confuses Eddie to no end, he actually says "It's Eddie", pointing at it. It was taken in Woodstock, not long after we moved in there. Eddie's sporting the same blue coat in our garden. He also took a shine to this red knitted hat. It has a slogan on it "Here comes trouble", it made people smile when Sasha wearing it, and it brings smiles now, when Eddie has it on. For some reason the old men find it particularly hilarious and keep commenting on it when we go shopping.

A funny t-shirt with the Zoo animals: here is my Sasha in Austria, when he was about 3 years old, a bit older than Eddie now. It is still a bit too big for Eddie but he insists on wearing it.

Another of my favourite clothes, a long-sleeved yellow stripey t-shirt. The difference is that Sasha was (and still is) quite indifferent to what he is wearing, while Eddie is rather particular on what he wants to wear for the day.

Perhaps when Eddie is older, he wouldn't want to wear any hand-me-downs. I actually never use the word “hand-me-down” (I remember how demeaning it felt to me, when I was a kid, and some of Mum's friends offered her clothes for me when their girls would grow out of them, I felt like my identity was compromised. Silly, I know, but that's how it felt).

I do keep Sasha's clothes (not all of course, some end up in the charity shops) as some of them hold memories of the fun times we had together, or of the very special occasions, like the outfits I brought Sasha and Eddie home from the hospital in, don't think I will be able to part with them.

For me seeing Eddie wearing Sasha's clothes is a bonding moment between the boys, and so far my little man sees it in the same way.