Marlo saw this when she got home from school, asked if it was a massager (where has she seen this before? Do I dare ask that question?) and then begged me to roll it on her legs last night. She’s going through some major, terrifying growing pains, and she wanted me to focus on her calve muscles. I did it before singing her to sleep, and when I came upstairs to watch TV with Leta she asked, “Did I hear Marlo giggling like a maniac down there?”

“Yes, you did,” I answered and explained that I was rolling out her sore muscles. “And then, I guess I got to one really tight muscle near her ankle and she asked me to push it into her leg as hard as I could—I was afraid I was going to hurt her—and she froze and suddenly whispered very slowly, ‘I AM FLYING THROUGH THE AIR.’”

My kid has said and done some funny things in her life, but that moment is absolutely near the top of them. And now whenever I experience a moment in life like witnessing a beautiful sunset or a painting that moves me to tears, this will be my slowly whispered exclamation to the stranger I walk up to and poke on the shoulder. “Hi. I am flying through the air.”