Big Green

 

Tonight we had to say good-bye to a very special member of our family.  Our big green chair-and-a-half.  I know it sounds strange that a chair could be so special to a family, but it has been with us literally since the first moment we became an us.  You see, it was in this chair that a certain nineteen-year-old boy asked a certain girl, "will you be my girlfriend?"  He actually asked me just like that, isn't that cute.  Even cuter, we took a picture that night :)

Yup, that's me with long hair and no bangs.  You can see why I made the change.

This chair started out it's life as my mom's furniture and I have fond memories of my mom sitting in this chair each night when I was a teenager.  The number one spot for a nap in my house was this chair.  The comfort was uncompairable to anything I have ever sat in and I have MANY friends that would testify to this.  It was big and roomy for one and comfy and cozy for two.  In years to come it would hold as many as it needed to at any given time. 
My mom passed on her furniture to Neil and I after we got married and I think she regreted giving up this gem the moment she did it.  It moved all around with us from our one room apartment in the back of the barn in New York, across country to Colorado, into student houseing at CU, and finally to our apartment we are in now.  When we first moved into the apartment we had exactly two peices of furniture, the big green chair and an office chair.  As we waited for our furniture that was on order for eight weeks, we took turns with the two chairs.  Whoever had the harder day at work got the big green chair.  Then we decided that since we didn't have ANY furniture this might be a good time to get a puppy and do some house training.  Enter Cooper.  Even he loved to cuddle in this fluffy chair.  I remember after we first got him and he got sick, I stayed up all night cuddled with him in the chair so I could hear him breathing.

A few years later, I would hold my new baby in this chair.  Countless nights spent holding and comforting this new baby.  Cooper was happy that Tristan didn't take up too much space, but the green chair always had room for one more.

It spent about four minutes of it's life as a "time-out" chair, but I quickly realized that was not the kind of chair this was.  Not this loving, hugging, all welcoming chair.

 

This oversized piece of heaven has been in just about every room of our lives.  In Tristan's room it was where we read bedtime stories and also where I spent the nights training Tristan to stay in his big boy bed.

When more babies came home, our chair seemed to expand it's love to fit them all.  I would not know where to begin to calculate how many bottles were fed to these boys in this chair.  I do know that the number would be obscene.

It's where Tristan taught Neannie how to play Angry Birds.

It's where my baby boys sat the morning we had them dedicated to God.

It's always where I cared for my children when they were sick. 

It was great at holding up forts

In this chair, even my three crazy boys could be calmed enough to sit near eachother. 

Even on this last night it was with us, she creaked under us all but held on tight to hold the love of our now big family.  Hard to believe we stated as just two kids who wanted to be boyfriend and girlfriend and have filled this chair with such wonderful little boys.  It was indeed a sad night to say good-bye but it was time to end her suffering from the jumping and climbing.  Her stuffing was down to nothing and the children now banged thier heads on 2x4s instead of her original fluffy pillow sides.  We cut open the back panel to make sure there were no lost remotes inside only to find her poor broken back.  You were so good to us even through your aches and pains.  You will be missed Big Green Chair!