Ryker and I were upstairs tonight getting a start on putting the house back together after an insane hectic week when I heard something bump down a few of the stairs and then a quiet sound of breaking glass. There was Ryker at the top of the stairs, his mouth in the shape of an 'O' looking at a broken bottle of red nail polish three stairs down, with a path on each step and up the white baseboard leading to it.
Oh no. I kept calm on the outside. I started to wipe away the puddles of polish with paper towel while he stood at the top and took it in. I raced to get a dish cloth wet with hot water and returned to him with the roll of paper towel in hand sitting at the top of the stairs. He threw the other bottle of nail polish down the stairs (And no, I didn't think to take it away from him). It didn't break and when I continued to scrub the polish away, the paper towel started flagging down the stairs from above. Bless his little heart, he was just trying to help.
By the time I got to the biggest mess on the third step it had started to set in and I was starting to panic a bit. I got up to soak the dish cloth again in the bathroom sink and was greeted by Ryker unrolling the toilet paper roll. "Not a good time, bud," I told him.
I returned to the third stair and added some more elbow grease when I felt something touch my head. Oh my God. For real, Ryker was sitting on the stair above and brushing my hair with the toilet brush. I actually burst out laughing, and I couldn't stop.
After a nearly impossible-to-manage busy week, strangely, it was kind of just what I needed.
Anyway, it's the red nail polish stain on the hardwood stairs that remind us of the memories that make a house a home, right.... Right?
And a little while later when he was rolling around on our bed with 'Beebee' while I was trying to tuck in the freshly washed sheets, I just stopped and came in close to his face, touching nose to nose and asked out loud, to no one in particular, "How did I get so lucky?"
20.4.13