I was lying on my back on the floor yesterday, just pausing and resting for a moment while Mama and Thalia napped upstairs, when Siena, as she often does, came up to me, lifted up my head, and put one of the throw pillows from our couch under me. She then grabbed a blanket and draped it over my body. She really does want to take care of people, and she loves putting blankets on things that seem like they would benefit from having blankets on them.

After a few minutes she decided she wanted to rest too, so she got down on the floor, put her head on the pillow, pulled the blanket over herself, and snuggled in close to me to rest for a minute with me.

I put my arms around her, and we stayed there a moment, holding on, a daddy and his wonderful, kind, caring, loving four-year old daughter. Then, as she usually does because she is four, she started squirming, ready to be off on the next activity of this or that. And as I usually do, I restrained her with a hug and wouldn’t let her get up. She squirmed for a bit, grunted some, and finally said, “Daddy, you can’t keep me like this forever.”

Maybe it’s the time of year, maybe it’s the tension easing after a hectic travel day to get back home in the blizzard of 2010 the day before, maybe it’s the occasional feeling accentuated by the family trip we just took that we just don’t get enough time with each other, and the kids will grow up right before we know it, but this brought a tear to my eye. I told her, “I know, but sometimes I wish I could.”

She wriggled herself free and got up to play with more of her Christmas presents.