The Big Red Chair No More

As I have mentioned before, Ella is a child of habit. She likes routine, normalcy, the expected. Did I mention that we are a LOT alike? When we moved into our current house almost 4 years ago, we bought a red rocker/recliner and matching sofa for the playroom. It is that micro-fiber material. You know, the kind that can be wiped off a million times over? Well, from my experience, not so much.

The big red chair, which was once a beautiful, pristine red is now more like a dirty reddish-brown. It has been thrown-up in, had milk spilled all over it and had food crumbled into the crevasses. It is a mess. None of this matters to my Ella, though. She loves this chair as much as she loves the warm chocolate milk she drinks when she is in it. It is a ritual. Twice a day she drinks a cup of milk...but only if she is sitting in "Big Red" as she affectionately refers to it.

We recently hosted Supper Club at our home. Anyone that know Erik can attest that he does not usually suggest that I spend money...on ANYTHING! However, he knew that Big Red needed to be replaced in bad way. It was totally unacceptable to host a part with that monstrosity in the play room. So off to the store my mom and I went with both girls in tow. My thinking was that if I included Ella in the decision making process she might just be a little more accepting of this new family member.

WRONG! The child cried in the furniture store when I told her what was going on. It was awful. It was not a whiny cry, but rather a cry of the brokenhearted. I was so sad for her. This is a picture of Ella holding on to her chair for dear life before we moved it.

We moved the new leather chair in by Big Red for several days. You know, as a transition strategy. It worked fairly well. Although Lucy quickly started referring to the new brown chair as her own. (poor ol' dad may never have a chair to call his own)

I am quite sure that Ella would tell you the only redeeming quality of the brown chair was the big, huge, ginormous box that it came in. Like most children, my girls would always rather play with the box than the toy!

When it was all said and done, we ended up moving Big Red upstairs into my sewing room/study. I had originally planned to send it to Goodwill, but Ella would just not have it. It was not worth the fight and now she only visits the chair 2 times a day---chocolate milk in tow.