A Tale of a Bouncy Seat

When Jeff and I were students in Israel--way back in the very early stages of our relationship--we had a friend there, one of the other students at the small school we were attending, named Debbie; and once upon a time, after Jeff and I were married and were living in southern California, Debbie and her husband Shawn came to visit us.  They gave us a gift: a cheery little bouncy seat for our firstborn baby, Josiah.  I flipped through an album earlier this evening and found a picture of Josiah in it when he was just a month or so old.

This morning I took a picture of Josiah with that same bouncy seat right before we walked out the door to give it to someone else.

Not much has changed in the last 14 years, right?  ;-)

Recently, I was looking around at a few baby items here in my house that Benjamin no longer uses, and I was thinking that it was about time to get rid of them.  And then when our violinist friend Ari happened to be in David's class at swimming lessons and I had the opportunity to see his mom again (something I used to do every week but hadn't this past year because Josiah and David didn't take violin lessons) and I saw that she had a tiny baby(!!!), I decided to ask her if she might be able to use this bouncy seat for sweet little Kai.  Was I ever thrilled when she said yes!  And what joy to take it today and hand it off to Ari and Kai's daddy and hear him say, "This is exactly what we need!"

It was exactly what we needed, too--14 years ago; but when Debbie and Shawn gave it to us, I had no idea just how useful it would be.  It's hard as a new mom to know, among the overwhelming amount of baby stuff out there, just what is truly essential stuff and what is kinda-nice-to-have-but-mostly-just-takes-up-space stuff.  This bouncy seat, it soon become apparent, was firmly in the essentials category; and every single one of our children have used it many times through the years.

Here's Benjamin when he was one day old...

Moriah when she was about a month and a half...

Shav when he was four days old...

Tobin when he was four days old...

And I'm certain I have pictures of David in it when he was a baby, too, but since I didn't blog then, I can't find them quickly.  I do, however, have a picture of David in it when it was supposed to be for Tobin...and Tobin in it when it was supposed to be for Shav...and even Josiah in it when it was supposed to be for Tobin.  :)  I've put my babies in that bouncy seat to feed them, and they've sat in it to keep me company in the laundry room and to enjoy the fresh air on our tiny front porch.  If I had more time, I'm certain I could scrounge up even more pictures of my children in that bouncy seat.

I'm sure Debbie had no idea on that long-ago day in California how useful her gift to us would be and how long it would last and how many times it would show up in the pictorial record of our family history!  :)