Not Ready and Ready

I love our high chair. Both our children learned to sit up in this chair. They both ate baby food here and eventually finger foods and on to eating off plates and using little forks and spoons. I have cleaned this chair a couple of thousand times if you consider that I do it three times a day and both children have each used it for a year at least. Makenna would probably love to sit in a 'real chair' at the table. But I'm attached to this high chair for all the memories it holds. As I scrubbed it, trying to get off bits of dried food, ketchup, and grape jelly, I knew the little smidges of food would be there when and if I took out the high chair again for a little one to sit in, whether it was another child for us or a grandchild. And it would remind me of when Makenna was very small and in that high chair herself. And then I knew I wasn't ready yet.

David had brought in the booster seat and we were going to put it at the table and transition Makenna tomorrow. I detailed the high chair, thinking the whole time that this was a milestone that I wasn't ready for. I didn't want to be silly about it, but when I told David it was clean and ready to be packed away, I also told him that I didn't think I was ready yet. He recognized my dilemma and suggested she wasn't ready since she throws her food and her plate onto the floor at nearly every meal. And she hasn't learned yet that we sit at the table the entire meal and don't have free reign to get up throughout the meal. Giving her free access to the entire kitchen table would be oh-no-fun.

And so he came up with a 'good excuse' to keep our beloved high chair there. Maybe she'll move out of it next week or next month. And maybe not. I know she won't go to high school sitting in that high chair. Until then, I'll keep her my baby in the high chair, until the right time comes. And I'll know it's the right time, just like I knew when it was time to transition Kyle to a toddler bed and then a big boy bed and when it was time to get Kyle a 'real haircut' with the razor. I knew when it was time for Makenna to experience a piece of chocolate for the first time. It just felt right when it was time for Kyle to start preschool. And I knew when it was time to wean both of them. You just trust yourself. Somehow you just know these things.