The rocking chair that rocked

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I spent my nap time furiously cleaning our living room. It never gets cleaned very well and it is our main hub, besides the kitchen table, and that is just a whole nother' nightmere.

I got to the rocking chair and really looked at it for the first time in a couple years and thought, "gross”. That is it. Just plain nasty.

 I think my mom cleaned it once after I had a baby.

 I woke up from a nap and she casually mentioned she cleaned the chair like she hadn't been vomiting in her mouth the whole time. I mean... this thing had spit-up cakes and milk drips on every square inch of it. I took a steak knife to the crap that was built up around the spindles. As I scraped away I started thinking about people with beautiful homes and beautiful things and how their houses were always pristine on TV and in the magazines.

What was wrong with me? Wait. No. What is wrong with these KIDS?
This rocking chair was a gift. Brand new when we had our first little one. A beautiful chair, delivered from the NICE furniture store in town. It felt so luxurious as I rocked my first baby in that chair. Now the oatmeal cushions are stained (what was I thinking when I picked that color, so naive) the walnut stain is half-there, half running for its life. Where did my beautiful chair go and who left me with this burp rag?

Then I thought about all the babies rocked here. All the forts that have been tucked under the foot stool. All of the songs sung, all of the prayers said, and stinky blankets snuggles. The houses in my mind don't get the kind of traffic we do. We have to use our things and hang on to them for life because we live on one income and we want dad to actually be able to sit in the house he bought.

Kids don't care about what kind of stuff we have in our house. A used bunk bed and a $1000 bunk bed with matching comforters sleeps the same to them. A beat up rocking chair and a new, made-to-order, rocking chair, rocks the same. I have to remind myself of that a lot. I hope my daughters will enjoy the gift of this hand-me-down rocker some day when their little ones come, with all the memories imbedded in it. Maybe we will re-purpose the cushions before that happens... the memories might smell sweeter!

Reminding myself of the beauty in the filth, the joy in the busyness, the sweetness in the chaos.