The Stairmaster

Lately, the only thing that seems to calm my son’s cries is picking him up and carrying him up and down the stairs. If I stop or pause too long to catch my breath, he starts to moan and cry again. Sixteen stairs up, sixteen stairs down. When you spend half an hour every day walking up and down them, you get intimately familiar with them...their number, where the carpet is worn a little more in places, which ones squeak.

He doesn’t even seem to mind the fact that I end up sweating profusely. He’ll lick my shoulder, presumably because he likes to taste of the salt. He also doesn’t seem to be bothered by my hoarse, wheezing last breaths before death. He has even started mimicking the sounds, presumably as encouragement...not sure if that’s encouragement to push through it or to hurry up and get it over with!