The Chair

There is a glider chair in Sophia's room that has been there since the day she came home from the hospital. I love that chair for so many reasons: it's soothing the way it rocks, it's comfortable to fall asleep in and it holds so many memories.

The chair was a hand me down from a wonderful family that I babysat for when I was pregnant with Sophia. I swapped a day of sitting their amazing, energetic two boys for the chair. It seemed only fair. It had been with them for both of their boys younger times and now they were making space. (Side note: they also gave Sophia her Giraffe lovey, which, 4+ years later is still her favorite friend.)

I have some of the best pictures of Sophia, and now her and Theo in that chair. Sophia loves to lock it tightly and sit on it to read to herself or make a little bed for her animals. Theo gets the biggest kick out of rocking it as hard and fast as he can (which often sends it barreling back at him!)

Some of my favorite memories involve the hours I spent rocking, nursing and snuggling Sophia in that chair. The hours that she wouldn't go to sleep or that I just wasn't ready to put her down. The hours I fell asleep from rocking her and felt her warm body snuggled against me. First in my arm, then slowly extending across my lap as she grew, then from arm rest to arm rest, and then spilling over, as she does now, legs longer than the night.

Every night, we sit in that chair and read books and sing. And she still snuggles into me as we read and to talk about whatever is on her mind - her "animals," the new tower or rocketship she built, or what her stuffed animals are up to.  And for a moment every night, after the lights are out and we've sung our songs, I remember what a tiny little baby she started off as, in that very same spot. And I hug her a little tighter and carry her off to bed.