Five minutes of free write on a given one-word prompt with Five Minute Friday. See more linked posts here.

Photo by Ryan Lilly

“Can I hold you?”

He says it all the time, my three-year-old affectionate one. There’s scarcely an hour that goes by without him begging to be held. But when he really wants a cuddle, he wants me standing, lifting 36 lbs of his squirmy, smoochy self.

There are many days that I grow weary of it. Most days he climbs on me like a jungle gym at 5 a.m., and then I have fourteen hours of his incessant touch.

But I don’t correct what he says because he is holding me, too. He disrupts me, but it’s mostly for the best. Maybe I do the heavy lifting, but he does spirit lifting.