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My Inspection of Baby Furniture 

The other day I drove my car down Lincoln Boulevard, a route that I had taken many times before. That day I noticed a store that I had passed on many other occasions. On previous days I had had no interest in the contents of that store, but on that particular day I did. It was a baby furniture store, and I had just learned that I was about to become an aunt. 

I pulled into the parking lot and walked into the store. The first thing that caught my eye was a sign that said “Baby Dream Furniture.” That sign got me thinking. I had recently read in a psychology textbook that little babies dream about drinking milk. I wondered what baby dream furniture would look like. I wandered over to where the sign had been posted.  

I could see that the store had good quality baby furniture. Well, I thought, that is good. I did not want to purchase any sort of discount baby furniture for my niece. I wanted to invest in the very best type of baby nursery furniture.  

I paused in front of a bed for a baby. I did not want to buy a bed, but I wanted to determine whether or not other types of baby nursery furniture could be found in that same store. A saleswoman mistook my pause for interest in the bed, and she walked over to where I was standing. “You can order that in pink if you want,” she said.  

I almost burst out laughing right there in the store. My cousin, the expecting new father, had just told me about the bed that he was storing in his parents’ garage. He had complained about the extra money he had had to pay just to have that bed painted pink. The baby’s mother had wanted it in pink. My cousin usually avoids buying anything that contains a great deal of pink.  

I then recalled some words of wisdom that had come from the lips of my father’s cousin, a man in Virginia who once worked for Voice of America. He had said, “You never know how much your parents did for you until you have a baby.” I could see now that my cousin was ready to do just about anything for this baby, his daughter and my niece.  

The saleswoman waited patiently while my mind drifted off to points far from Lincoln Boulevard. Suddenly I realized that I needed to look at more baby furniture, at items other than baby beds. I explained my needs to the saleswoman, and she directed me to the other side of that same baby furniture store.  

I looked at dressing tables and dressers. They were all beautiful, but I hesitated to buy those items. I was not sure how much room the parents would have in the area around the baby’s bed. Then I saw a lovely wooden rocking chair. I fell in love with it at once. I sensed that that chair “called out” the fact that it was not discount baby furniture.

In a way the real reason I fell for that rocker had nothing to do with furniture. It had more to do with my aunt’s love of books. I could picture my aunt sitting in that chair and reading to my niece.  I knew that my aunt would make sure that that rocking chair got plenty of use.   

In addition, a rocking chair can be used for many years after a baby has grown up.  It is one of the few pieces of furniture that matches with both the needs of parents with a baby and the needs of parents who want to dream about the days when they used to care for a baby. It might be called “parent dream furniture.”  

written by Sue Cher