let's swing!

so as my mama knows, my husband and i were very opposed to excess baby "stuff" before eliana was born. jeff was already concerned with the "ecological footprint" that our baby would leave. i was just concerned that our little house would turn into one of those junkyards of fisher price crap (you know the houses - chain link fence and tons of decaying yellow and blue plastic slides, castles, barbies, strewn about....i was determined that would not be my life!). so even though my mom has been dying to buy eliana a swing since before she was born, i always said no. besides, these things are not cheap and my mama doesn't need to be spending hundreds of dollars at target. so i kinda forgot about the swing. but then the other night we were eating dinner at bobby and joellen's. jeremiah was sleeping completely soundly in this swing. he was there when we arrived and continued to sleep on as we did the dishes. when he finally stirred and joellen brought him to nurse, jeffy and i decided to try little els bells in the swing. she is not a huge fan of being left and loves to be held or attached somehow to one of her parents. but we put her in that thing and she just adored it. her eyes got really big and beautiful and her little head was strong and alert. she checked out everything, the cool orange glow of the fire in the fireplace, lucy and sitka's doggie faces, the pattern on the rug. we left and i secretly couldn't stop thinking about the swing. suddenly i really wanted one. but there was no way i was going to go drop a hundred bones on a silly swing. that's why i'm glad to be a teacher! so at work yesterday, one of my mom friends asked if i needed any more baby clothes. clothes i don't need, i said. but, do you by chance have a swing? oh yeah, it's sitting in my garage, i'll bring it down to your house when i pick up the girls. and there it was, on my porch, a few hours later. she loves it (even though just as i write this, she has decided to flop over to the side and make herself really uncomfortable and after trying to stop her fussing, i picked her up and now she sits back in my lap again...and i wonder why she always wants to be on me...). so even if it's just fifteen minutes of excitement, even if she won't sleep in it for hours because i've trained her to sleep on me, it does provide a little break in our sweet routine.