Notches in Time

I took my children's crib down a few weeks ago. I was taken aback at the flood of emotions that ran through me as I was disassembling the worn, teeth marked bed. By the fourth boy it was being held together by a rafting strap, plastic ties and a lot of love. By the Tanno years as the kids would jump, bounce or build a tent on it, I always found myself saying a silent prayer that it wouldn't collapse and devour them whole. We first got the crib when Carver was a couple weeks old. All my boys as babies have slept in the same crib (or should I say, have not slept in that crib, as goes the Booth boys sleeping habits). It's function I always thought, until now, far surpassed its' looks. But, as I started the disassembling process, its' beauty became much more than skin deep. I reminisced about the never ending games of Peek-A-boo through the side railings, that always garnered pure delight and giggles. The marathon games of hide-n-seek where a little Booth baby was always found hiding under the same blanket, in the same corner, but the joy of being found never appeared to be repetitive or redundant. Then there were the countless number of tumbling and acrobatic feats performed within it's walls to the accolades of a onlooking brother. I suppose that this was the early training grounds for our boys ability and love for climbing, balancing, tumbling and jumping without fear. A slew of lullabies began to play in my head as I unwound the rafting strap; Silent Night, the I love basketball song (the one from a NBA commercial awhile back), A Dream is a wish Song (from Cinderella), a slew of country songs that were 80% made up, I am a child of God, A Child's Prayer, etc. And then I thought of all those long, long nights where it seemed as if a little baby would never fall asleep and I would never be able to lay my sleepy head down. Somehow those moments, now, seem like nano seconds. When I removed the side of the crib that is supposed to move up and down (I believe it only worked for Carver), my hand felt all the bite marks along its' profile. They were like notches made on a primitive calender marking time that somehow slipped by without anyone noticing. And then I found myself humming the "I love basketball song" and tearing up.