Stefania Butler writes a lot about Portland on her blog, CityMama. She used to write about San Francisco. No matter where she is, she writes about her kids.

My baby sleeps in the crib that I slept in when I was a baby. “It’s not safe,” a friend said. “It’s so old. It can’t possibly be safe. I wouldn’t risk it,” said another. But I do. I have. Twice, even. This is the second of my babies to sleep in the crib of my infanthood.

I have never doubted for one minute the integrity of the crib. My grandfather, a landscape architect and hobbyist furniture designer, envisioned that crib especially for me. How could a piece of furniture, lovingly designed by a grandfather for his granddaughter be anything but safe?

The crib is the same honey-brown hue of my older daughter’s Korean-Italian-Irish skin, and the exact color of my baby daughter’s eyes. (She has the Irish genes and will live in SPF 45.) It is smooth and cool and satiny to the touch. It’s made of rosewood, a tropical hardwood that smells faintly sweet and spicy at the same time. Like my girls, I used to teeth on it, so I distinctly remember its clove-y taste.

When I outgrew it, my crib was wrapped in a blanket and carted from house to house as I was growing up. I took comfort in knowing that it was always in the garage. “Someday, your babies will use it,” my mother said. And I always knew it to be true.

The crib currently resides in Portland, Oregon. It has traveled the world stopping in Honolulu, Hawaii and the cities of Menlo Park and San Francisco, California since it was created in Hong Kong, from my grandfather’s sketches, 36 years ago. It has traveled a long way to protect my babies, and it is still holding its own. But then, good furniture, thoughtfully designed, and built from solid materials is supposed to last.

When I was pregnant with my older daughter, my parents had my old crib delivered to our house. I hadn’t laid eyes on it in 15 years. It needed a little attention, but overall it was ready to do the job it was created to do. My husband wiped the entire crib down with a damp cloth, then carefully buffed it with wax. He considered sanding the tiny teeth marks on the edge of the crib and then thought better of it. We ordered a new mattress and covered it with soft cotton sheets and waited for our baby girl to be born.

Yes, the crib is safe. There are no slats to catch tiny calves or chunky elbows. There is no shiny, metal hardware to attract baby fingers. There is no paint, nothing to be ingested while teething. The crib itself is one solid piece. It doesn’t fold up or come apart. Of course not. It was made in a different time. The four sides are comprised of solid rosewood panels. One of the long panels can be removed completely to make a day-bed. There are long openings along the horizontal and vertical edges, and it is adorned with stylized, carved clouds and butterflies. My grandpa chose the butterfly motif especially for me, after a childhood nickname.

In 1969, my grandfather designed a crib for his granddaughter, sent his sketches off to a factory in Hong Kong, and then he died. Three months later, the finished crib arrived at my mother’s door. It pains me to imagine how bittersweet that moment must have been for her. My grandfather never got to see me sleep in his crib. He never got to see how tiny my older daughter looked in it when she was a baby, and how her arms and legs completely filled it up as she grew. He never got to see the way my 11-month-old pulls herself up and then plops herself back down, giggling the whole time. I don’t know if my grandfather ever imagined that his 35-year-old granddaughter would still be carting her crib around with her, but I think he would be pleased to know that it lasted that long.

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