Going Up

This picture isn't very good, but it represents a sweet moment and a reminder of many others.

All afternoon and evening, Sylvia was saying her legs were sore from playing a game called Grasshoppers and Giants at church yesterday.  Apparently the grasshoppers do squatting jumps...I'm not familiar with the game.  Anyway, when she'd go up or down the stairs, she'd howl a bit.  So she asked her daddy if he would carry her upstairs at bedtime and tuck her in.

Her daddy was more than happy to grant that request, as she is still pretty small and he is still pretty strong.  But, he did mention that she hadn't asked him to carry her up the stairs in a long time.  And that was a realization of a tradition that has slipped away unnoticed over the past couple years...

Sylvia and Annah used to ask Jeremy to carry them upstairs every evening.  And he would carry them both up--one in each arm.  So many times I would stand at the bottom of the stairs and watch my strong husband carry his sweet, admiring, tiny little girls up all 16 squeaky stairs...knowing that someday they would be too big for him to do that.  I'm sure he could carry them both now if he needed to, and he can definitely carry either of them separately. But they rarely ask, because they are growing up so much. 

It just made us pause and remember those sweet times of Daddy carrying his kids up the stairs, and we were thankful for one more time.