Siblings Project - January 2018

The photos of my girls this month are ones I took really quickly to capture a moment but they are ones that I already treasure. This month I sold my rocking chair which has been in the nursery for the last six years or so. It was a really special chair and one I've spent many hours in over the last few years but more recently it has just become a bit of dumping station for clothes that need to be put away. After Oli and I carried it downstairs on the morning it was being collected ready for it's new owners I suddenly became quite reflective and asked the girls to all hop in it for a quick photo before it went to it's new home. I hadn't really realised how much it meant to me until I saw them all in it. If you're a regular here you'll know I'm all about the bright colours but this months photos are in black and white for nostalgia's sake!

When I found out I was pregnant with Ellie and we started planning the nursery I knew I wanted a traditional rocking chair for the room. This chair was one I scoured second hand selling sites for months for, one which Oli drove an hour and a half to collect for me before sanding and waxing it for me and proudly putting it in place. 

I sat in that chair with Ellie as a bump whilst we were waiting for her to arrive, trying to imagine the cot with an actual baby in it and what it might feel like holding her in my arms. 

I then sat in that chair to snuggle and feed her and then Phoebe and Lottie when they arrived. I've smiled my biggest smiles in that chair, cried from sheer exhaustion and rocked back and forth in it trying to settle all three of my babies. I've sat it wondering if my babies are asleep enough to put them down in their bed, stood up from it so carefully and slowly thousands of times with a sleeping baby girl in my arms only to sit right back down in it as they promptly woke up! 

I've read stories in it, comforted poorly children in it and even set up my blog in the middle of the night in it!  There are three times I have sat in that chair much longer than I needed to - the last time I breastfed each of my babies, staring at their sleepy contented faces with a mixture of relief and sadness. It's so much more than just a chair to me but it was time for it to go to a new home. 

When I look at all three of them in that chair I feel proud, proud of myself, proud of each of them and proud of the lovely little trio that they are. They are growing up so quickly, it truly feels like yesterday that they were all tiny babies in my arms in the rocking chair. I am so grateful for them, so grateful they have each other and so grateful for every second, minute and hour that I have spent sitting in the rocking chair with them. 

Me x