My Rocker

Babies have been on my mind lately. With four grandbabies on the way, how could they not? As I have thought about the next generation of the family and how it is growing, coupled with the fact that we celebrated 37 years of marriage this past week, I have done a lot of reflecting on my own babies, my children, and their past, as well as the new family members-to-be.

Those baby-memories often center around this:

 My cherry rocking chair.

It was our first piece of furniture as a couple, purchased in 1976 with money my Grandma and Grandpa Honeywell gave us for our wedding. Comfy as well as comforting, I have spent many hours in it, soothing a fussy baby, easing the ache in my back that pregnancy caused, or just holding a child while rocking and singing.

It has quite a history from its time with us. One time, when Kyle was a newborn, Sarah and Jessie were rocking together in it as I fed Kyle on the couch. They tipped too far forward, overturning and sending the top of the rocker through the plate glass living room window. This trapped the girls underneath the rocker while I frantically tried to unlatch Kyle and get to them before they cut themselves on the glass. (They were fine, and our neighbor, Alex Kriculi, fixed the window that day and refused payment for his trouble.)

As the kids grew older, they used the rocker to make tents. They'd flip it forward and drape it with blankets, then climb underneath, snug as a bug.

As time passed, somehow a slat was broken out of the back of the rocker. (I think it happened when Curt went over backwards and broke it out.) I had the two pieces, but Craig was unable to mend them. Finally a friend's husband went to Menards, bought a broom handle, carved a new slat, stained it, and replaced the broken one! I have to look closely to see which slat it is as he did such a good job.

Fitting (although just a coincidence) that the kids' baby pictures hang over it as it waits in the corner of our bedroom for more babies who need rocking. And those babies will be arriving soon.

I love this chair.