Our Chair

I recently read the book "The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections" by Amanda Blake Soule and found several great ideas that I plan to do for and with the boys in the future. One of the things that she encourages people to do is take pictures of areas of your home that are your children's. She makes the point that as an adult she wishes she could look back at what her room looked like when she was a child or a special place that she sat at and read, etc., etc., I thought she made a great point and here is my first installment.

One of the first places that I thought of that brings special memories to mind for me is our rocking chair. I remember shopping for the perfect one. Walking around the store with swollen feet and plopping my tired, pregnant, self into chair after chair in order to find the one that would best suit me, Jared and the two babies growing inside me. I remember looking at it longingly after coming home from the hospital without the boys. I remember Jared sitting in it with both boys just minutes after we brought them home from the hospital. We've read "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb", "Goodnight Moon", "I Love You Through and Through" and numerous other books to them in this chair. I rocked and sang them to sleep in it every night for a long time. I sit in it and try to read a bit while they play on the floor in front of me. Some days I plop into it exhausted from the raising of two year olds. They've sat in it for their "chair pictures". There are a lots and lots of memories in this chair. I don't anticipate ever getting rid of it. It is stained and already a bit worn but it tells a story, our story.

whether it contains piles of feet

or pajama clad, inquiring, young minds

it is one of my favorite places in our home, our chair.