The Rocking Chair

Our sweet little Arwen beckons her hand to me to say 'come with me,' she then takes my hand and leads with me to where she wants me to go....the rocking chair. If the cushion isn't on it she places it neatly then indicates I am to sit down in it, but not alone. This is her place. Mine and her place. We sit here and I give her what she wants, she wants to be breast fed and have a snuggle.
After she has fed she snuggles in and places her hand up inside my sleeve and rubs her hand on the bare skin of my arm. She continues this until she falls asleep and I then take her to her cot.

It is a special time, a bonding time, a time I would never give up willingly.
The rocking chair has so many memories for me in regards to our family.
I remember asking my dear husband if we would please get a rocking chair when we were expecting our second baby. I had always wanted one but we had a very tight budget. We were able to lay by one we saw in our local homemakers shop, for want of a different word. It had furniture and gift ware and all sorts of home decorating needs. As we lived in a relatively small town and were know at this store we were able to pay it off over some time.

The rocking chair is European beech and was made in Yugoslavia it was a very significant investment for us. At the time over 19 years ago I believe it cost us over $800 dollars. It was so different from other rocking chairs with it's curved arms and quite high back and extra wide sitting area and I fell in love with it.

Each of our children has been rocked in this special spot, even Kynan 2 year old that he was when we got it has still been read stories in and had special cuddles and fallen asleep in my arms.

Each of the children has been breastfed in this chair and spent many hours on my lap just sitting cuddling and reading. Stephen too has often comenderred the rocking chair for his own cuddles and stories , he keeps taking my spot when ever he gets a chance. I keep wanting to buy him his own rocking chair but he continues to say he will just use mine when it is available.

We have gathered around it reading stories to little ones while older ones perched behind to listen.

I have spent quite times in prayer and bible reading in this comfortable spot and my craft projects have also been crafted from here too.

The memories of sitting in this chair to feed each of our precious babies is so sweet. It is actually harder to express the sense of family and contentment I have when I review our family history in regards to the rocking chair. I just can't seem to put it into words.
When I was out shopping one day and received a phone call to say my rocking chair had broken, I was at a loss for words. Thankfully I was still able to remember a saying that I have tried to live in my vocation as a mother "people are always more important than things"
I was very calm as I had visions of it being snapped from the top of the back all the way in two.
Thankfully it was nowhere as bad as that but only the seat had cracked along the join line.

Having said this Stephen was still working away at this stage and I had no idea when he would be back home. I rang around the furniture restoration places and got some frightening quotes not to mention what they actually wanted to take it all apart to fix and then re-lacquer etc.
I really didn't want to do this partly because restoring it would lose some of the 'memories' that it held, it wouldn't be the same rocking chair with all its imperfections that had come as our family grew.
After much discussion with Stephen we decided to wait for him to come home. This was hard in itself as I use this chair daily several times a day and I had to sit else where with my dear little baby and feed her and read stories else where.
It was very hard to adjust.

When Stephen came home he took my rocking chair to the garage and sanded off all the old glue from between the two pieces of wood.
He then used some very strong glue and clamped it together making sure it was level from above as well as from the sides. We waited for 3 days and then we could have it back in our family routine.
I was so thrilled to have it back and we all were very careful to not push and pull it all over the place as we are known to do when moving it from room to room. This lasted a little while and while we are still a little careful when moving the rocking chair it is just like having an old friend returned to our family midst.

I look forward to adding many more memories in this chair with my darling Stephen and most precious children, and who knows we may still be blessed with more little ones (we pray) and hopefully many grandchildren to add more stories and memories to .....the Rocking Chair.

Blessings,