“I will put it up for you mama.”
She grabs a stool and pulls it underneath the doorway while I grin and watch her climb onto it.
She stands on tiptoes and reaches, only half as high as she needs to be to hang up the towel.
“Oh. I can’t.”
She turns to me and a giggles. “That was silly.”
I hang up the towel for her and pick her up into a big hug and squeeze her little body close.
“What are you doing mama?”
“Someday you will be tall enough to reach that hook,” I quickly kiss her cheek, “I want to remember you as a little girl, my little tiny girl when you are a big girl and then a woman. I want to remember you as you are right now. So I’m trying to memorize you and this moment to keep it for always in my heart.”
She glows. Her whole face lights up, even brighter than before and she lets me hold her, and hug her, and kiss her for a very long time. She squeezes me back, hard, and then climbs onto the stool beside me to “help” make lunch. For this moment she would rather be with me than playing in the sunny backyard and I wonder how much of this little moment she will remember when she is tall enough to hang the towels on the hooks by herself.