Flashback Friday: The Glider

Don't laugh.

I'm totally doing this.

A farewell post to my favorite piece of baby furniture. ;)

I don't actually have a million pictures of me sitting in it with the kids but I did take a bunch of just them throughout the past four years. Despite the lack of pictures of myself in this chair, this is where my hiney got very comfortable for many, many, many hours as I became a mother. Nursing and rocking and reading and soothing and chatting and just being with my children.

I can close my eyes and remember happily sitting in this glider with my first big, pregnant belly... hand propped on top of my unborn baby... just dreaming of what it would all be like and how we would get to know each other.

Then I can remember that first morning after our first night at home. Nursing still wasn't going well for Will & I, and I was scared. I can remember looking at the little lambie clock on the side table and it reading 6:25 in the morning as I desperately tried to latch my sleepy baby on for a feeding. I called my dad because I just needed to talk to someone and he was the only one I knew would be up at that hour. I remember a little while later trying again to get him latched and trying to maneuver this crazy position that my aunt suggested to help him learn... and Will just looking completely revolted by my efforts and me feeling so defeated and terrified.

Months later after we'd figured it all out and he was happily nursing for 30-45 minutes whenever I'd let him, I used to take him fresh from the tub, wrapped in a towel with a cloth diaper under his hiney and we'd snuggle there while he got some "naked butt time". (I always called it that because I hated the idea of having a delicate bottom constantly sitting in a diaper.)

Many a nights, I'd stumble sleepily down the stairs when I heard him wake over the monitor and we'd settle in for a middle-of-the-night feeding and I would inevitably fall asleep and wake up an hour later with a very sore neck. ;)

My mom used to stop by to see Will for no reason other than to snuggle him and they'd sit in the glider and she'd read him a book.

On the night stand beside the glider, you could always find a book that I was currently reading because Will used to nurse for so long and I had no other children to tend to but him. I miss that opportunity that I had to just sit and relax, read and nurse and rock.

As will reached his first birthday, he was already in love with books. He'd often sit in the glider by himself just browsing for impressively long periods of time.

And then when my belly got too big with my second pregnancy for him to sit facing out in my lap, we started to have him turn to face me and basically straddle my belly while we read books every evening.

When we transitioned Will to the big boy bed in a different room, we of course left the nursery set up and just changed it a bit for a newborn again. Our bedtime routine then became books and rocking in the nursery and then carried to his room across the hall for a couple songs and then tuck in.

When Sophie arrived, our time spent in the glider was considerably more brief than it was with Will. She nursed very quickly and when she finished, I had to pop up and be available to both kids. I can vividly remember Will walking in the moment I sat down to feed her and asking "hold you?" EVERY TIME. So I was often reading picture books and entertaining a toddler while my new baby nursed.

Lots and lots of rocking took place at bedtime as I struggled to get her to sleep in those early months.

No more of MY books beside the glider this time. She was too fast. Will needed me and might also run off with said book if left within his reach. And later she was too distracted by every little thing - we often sat in a dimly lit room while rocking and holding hands so that she could focus on the task at hand. :)

Quite a few more memories of rocking and reading and nursing with my girl since she stayed in that room with the chair for quite awhile longer than he did.

Rocking is such a soothing motion and the most natural instinct for a mother to do when calming, settling or just snuggling her baby. I couldn't have done it without this chair and I love all the memories we made here. Thank you, Grandma, for making this investment for us!

{February 2007 - sitting in the chair we were about to purchase while registering at Babies R Us.}

{April 2007 - Preparing the nursery.}
{October 2007 - 4 1/2 month old Will.}

{June 2008 - 1 year old Will.}

{February 2009 - his last month in his nursery room.}

{April 2009 - 4 day old Sophia.}

{April 2009 - 6 day old Sophia nursing in the background with 22 month old Will just up from a nap. He hadn't had his first haircut yet and he always used to sweat so much when he slept!}

{May 2009 - the beginning of my progressive sibling pictures in the glider - Will at 23 months, Sophia at almost 1 month.}

{May 2009 - just a few days later.}

{June 2009 - 2 month old Sophie with Nana.}

{July 4th, 2009 - 2 1/2 months and 2 years, 1 month old. Look at how much chubbier Will was at age 2! Just like Sophie is now. Now, Will is [as my friend Kelly referred to her son of a similar age] a string bean! :)}

{August 2009 - 4 months and 2 years, 2 months.}

{August 2009 - 4 months old.}

{September 2009 - 5 months and 2 years, 3 months old.}

{Halloween night 2009 - nursing Sophie after trick-or-treating with Will.}

{December 2009 - 2 1/2 years and almost 8 months.}

{June 2010 - 13 1/2 months - very much the climber.}

{September 2010 - 16 1/2 months and 3 years, 3 months.}

{November 2010 - 18 1/2 months and 3 years, 5 months old.}

{November 2010 - nearly 19 months - bedtime with daddy.}

{January 2011 - 20 months.}

{February 2011 - more story time.}

{February 2011 - reading with "Miss Hollywood".}

{June 2011 - rocking Sophie before bed - and dozing off myself.}

{July 2011 - one last picture of both kids and I, sitting in the glider we've grown up in just before moving it out of the nursery. So bittersweet - look how they've grown!}

Ya, I know. I'm a little overly sentimental. But I didn't cry! Not even when I rocked Sophie for the last time in the chair on Saturday night...

I'm totally tough. :)

Goodbye, chair...