The Magic Chair

I think I may have mentioned it’s existence before, but up until this past week, we had no appreciation for the power that is the magic chair. It’s just a plastic, rather unattractive Fisher Price bucket-style baby chair/rocker – the sort of thing you’d totally pass up at yard sale since it’s so cheap looking, especially compared with the modern loungers available today. Friends of ours whose children are now all school age lent it to us once they heard we were pregnant. I specifically say lent because the chair is no longer sold and they want it back once we’re done with it to continue bestowing it’s mystical powers on other parents with infants.

What makes the magic chair so, well, magical? I think the power is two-fold. First the bucket shape sort of imitates how a baby is supported when you hold them cradle-style in your arms and the padding keeps them nice and snug, making it feel even more like they’re being held. Second would be the rocking, as constant motion always seems to quell a panicky baby. We use it when the small one is clearly in need of a nap, but just won’t go down in his crib (or while being held and rocked in arms). It’s a total win-win, as he gets the sleep he so obviously needs and I can do things like play on the computer or eat breakfast or just not have to hold him until my back gives out. I’ve even gone so far as to put the small on in the magic chair and place it in the bathroom while I take a shower on those days when he is just so not having his crib.

What’s the point of this story if I can’t advise you to go out and buy one for yourself, you ask? I don’t know exactly – maybe it’s that sometimes all that advice that gets so overwhelming that you ignore it when it comes to parenting sometimes really does have nuggets of gold, maybe it’s that you can’t always judge good baby gear by looks alone, maybe it’s that parenting a new baby is both as simple and complicated as a magical plastic bucket chair you never would have bought yourself but it all works out in the end. I couldn’t tell you.

The small one is in it right now, and I’m rocking him with my foot as I type.