Friday, August 1, 2008

farewell to swings

A few weeks after the baby was born, my husband found himself pacing up and down our (short) hallway for long periods of time every night to rock our daughter to sleep. His mom said: get that girl a swing! In a fit of desperation, he did, and it changed our lives. Initially, it was some sort of dream equipment. We put our daughter in, hit the white noise maker, and tada! the baby fell asleep.


Oh, yes, sometimes it took a while, but we weren't doing the rocking, and that was the beauty of it. As an extra bonus, she seemed to really enjoy when she was up too.



So, the swing was a big hit. And it worked for many months. I often moved it into the kitchen so she could hang out while I cooked and did the dishes. The only downside was that it took up a lot of space in our already cramped home.



But, it served other purposes. As we started introducing her to solids, we were reluctant to add a high chair to the room, so we just fed her in her swing. This was an added bonus to the utility of the swing. It was particularly valuable because my girl is taking her time to master the sitting skill, and the swing supported her, because she seriously wanted to eat "real" food.

[so i've used this picture before. it's super cute. can you blame me?]

But then she got a little older and eats solids more often, and a little more proficient at sitting (key word: little), so her grandma got her a sweet chair to put her in for eating, and all of a sudden, the swing seemed to have outgrown its utility.

Our daughter was still finding uses for it though:

So last weekend my husband asked me if I still put the girl in the swing anymore. I mentioned that it had been a long time, and I was just thinking that maybe we should put it away. He had been thinking the same thing, so that night we packed it up, and reclaimed the space it took up.

It was a good swing.