The high chair sat on top of some old boards in our garage ever since we moved to this house in the early 90's. We had talked about giving it away but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. My mom gave it to us when we had Kseniya. Bruce refinished the wood and made a tray for it.
I think the chair came from Ernie's house but I am not sure. Ernie was a guy who lived with us for 30 years - we were his family as he had none. It's a long story and a different post for some day, but the short version is that Ernie came over one night and was too drunk to drive back to his farm - so he stayed. For the rest of his life. My mom and dad had a habit of taking in strays - people, dogs, cats, whatever. I learned from them to be kind to the underdog (human, canine or feline) and look for the good. When Ernie died, the only photo in his wallet was of my kids.
I am not sure how we got the chair. My mom never drove out here and when Kseniya was little we didn't drive back there too much. But somehow we got it and put it to good use for all of our kids. It was a nice sturdy wooden chair and we had to use a dishtowel to keep the kids in it because there was no seatbelt. It also folded into a little desk type thing that they could use to sit and read books or color.
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| Kseniya at about a year, in the chair - in our old apartment |
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| Billy in the same chair at about 18 months or so |
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| Dan at about 15 months or so |
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The chair continued to collect dust in the garage for 17 years. Even before Desmond was a gleam in his father's eye, or a hopeful egg making it's way down Scarlett's fallopian tube, I had plans to clean it up and put it in the kitchen to use as a plant stand. When Desmond was born, my plans changed to use it as it was intended.
Finally one sunny morning about a month ago, I got the chair out of the garage and cleaned off years of dust and cobwebs (and maybe some dried peanut butter) and scraped off the rusted hinges and it was ready to be of use once again.
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| Desmond in the chair, eating yogurt |
This time I used a reflective running belt that attached with velcro to keep him in the chair.
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| Des in the chair in it's folded position |
As I get ready to run my 17th St. George Marathon tomorrow, I think of this chair and how some things should not be given up on even though they have been shelved for a while. They still have the potential to be useful someday and we should not give up on them. The same goes for people. We should not give up on ourselves or others too quickly. Sometimes we might just need a little cleaning and scraping to get the rust out and we can be as good as new.
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