The Wooden Cradle

I suppose its no secret I am really hoping for a grandbaby now that Melanie and Casi are married. I was looking at the plans we have for a hooded wooden cradle to be made when there is a need.
I just love things old fashioned and a cradle is to me a necessity for a baby.
When I was a child, strolling through places like Old Sturbridge Village, Strawberry Banke Museum and Shelburne Museum, I developed such a love of the ways of the past. I loved the way so many kinds of wood was used in each home, the brick ovens, simple furnishings, homespun fabrics and always a cradle by the hearth. Some where huge and made for elderly members who were bed fast and needed to be kept warm. Those cradles amazed me, and to this day I can see so many of them in my minds eye. It seemed so loving to me to rock a frail old person by the fire, tender love like we all have for babies.
I found this poem in an old copy of a Ideals magazine. It made me smile. It made me realize that things like automated baby swings have robbed us of this simple pleasure of rocking a baby in a wooden cradle.

The Wooden Cradle
by Patience Strong

We think we have improved upon the quaint old fashioned ways--but what a lot of useful things they had in olden days... What a good idea it was, that cradle made of oak--where baby lay protected from the dust and draught and smoke.
You could rock it with your foot when passing through the room, or as you sat and watched beside it in the twilight gloom. It left your hands quite free for all the jobs there were to do. And the gentle movement of it quieted mother too.
What could be more restful than to sit by lamplight gleam--knitting something for the child or sewing at a seam... With your foot upon the cradle where your baby lies--till the rhythm of the rocking closes sleepy eyes.