To Little Rocking Chairs

Think Whistler’s Mother, but for the toddler set.

Much of what we give our children is a scaled down version of the adult world. The little kitchen with a sink the size of my hand. Plates big enough for half a sandwich and cups that hold little more than a tea bag. Three year olds can wrap their hands around it and feel “big.”

They have kitchens and cars and tables that fit their height. They have grocery carts and bikes. They have recliners hardly bigger than a doll. Tents. Pots and pans. A vacuum cleaner. All the equipment they will likely need as an adult, scaled and painted in primary colors.

Of course,when they play, they copy us. They scold the teddy bear for not wanting to take a nap and they cook dinner furiously. They sweep, though they never take the final step of putting the dirt into the garbage can. In so many ways, they are horrible at pretending to be adults. They drive their little cars without any regard for the traffic lines and they park any old place. We are lucky they have years and years before we have to trust them with anything.

But they are good at rocking chairs. Whit was. I could give him a picture book after lunch, a busy one like Where’s Waldo, and he would sit, study it. He would rock without thinking about it, a habit or an instinct. He didn’t nap so this was quiet time. He must have, at three, understood the way a day grinds you down, the need for stealing even just a few minutes to collect yourself, hush the brain, make no demands to be or go or do. He would rock the way a toddler needs it and I would rock next to him. In the exact same way.