If this Rocking Chair Could Talk…

It’s been quite some time since I last posted….mainly because I’ve been chasing after a two year old while managing to get some work done and having a bit of family time. But the other day as I was rocking in this chair, this idea for a post came to my mind and while riding in the car back from a night away in Wellington, I had some free time to get my thoughts out so here it goes…

A little more than 7 years ago I had just gotten divorced, I moved into an apartment, my parents were moving house and having a garage sale and had this rocking chair tagged to sell. For those of you that know me, you know I’m not one to be too sentimental about things. My opinion is that they are just things… And things can be replaced.

That being said for some reason when I saw this chair in the “for sale” pile, I got emotional. I really did not want mom and dad to sell it. That being said, I had absolutely no place for it in my apartment and had no children of my own to rock in it let alone any thought of having children in the near future. However, because mom knew how unattached to things I typically am, she saw the emotion that was brought up with this chair and offered to keep it for me. But she also wanted to know why I was so attached to it. Especially because, like many other things a second child uses, it wasn’t even “mine”.

I don’t have many memories of childhood but I do remember I used to have bad dreams and I remember rocking in the chair with my mom. I also remember being rocked the night before I started kindergarten, and the night before I had to go to the dentist to have my first tooth pulled. Why these memories? I have no idea. I’m sure a psychologist could possibly provide some reasoning behind it … But nevertheless mom kept the rocking chair.

When I moved to New Zealand and put all of my stuff in storage, the rocking chair moved from mom and dads garage into the storage unit, and when we came home in December 2013 with the news  that we were having a baby, we decided to call the international movers and ship most of my “stuff ” to the other side of the world including this rocking chair.

Madison is nearly two now. I spent many nights in this chair breastfeeding her when she woke in the night, and rocking her when she was upset. The other day I got very philosophical about the chair. Madison has decided that napping is overrated at home… And most days that’s ok but some days she is truly exhausted and I know she just needs some sort of catalyst to get her to nod off into dreamland. So I was walking around the room with her, until finally she pointed to the chair and said “rocking”… And I happily obliged.

So we rocked and rocked and rocked and finally she fell asleep. And instead of trying to lay her down like a normal mom would do to try to get some work done around the house, I took a time out from life and just rocked with her, cuddled her , and loved on her….

And although I only remember a handful of times of rocking in that chair with my mom I can be certain that if that chair could talk, it would tell you of countless times of my mom rocking both my sister and I to sleep, giving us kisses, cuddles and hugs. I can only hope for Madison to have the same types of memories with the chair and maybe beg me to keep it 20 or 30 years from now.