Memory: Stair Slide

I had a brainwave today, and I think that I'm going to add it as a new feature to my blog. Now, not only will I recount events from my day, and my dreams, but I will also tell, every time one occurs to me, about some old memory; today, as I followed Hope down the stairs, I reminisced about when I was her age. She sat on the top step and slid all the way down the stairs.
When I was little, we lived in a house with three floors, if you count the basement level, which consisted of a computer room/guest room and a work-out room/library. My mother and I rag-rolled the work-out room/library ourselves using plastic bags balled up and dipped in purple paint; it looked super-cool. But anyways, the bottom set of stairs had five steps and the upper set of stairs had ten, both sets carpeted in deep brown.
The ceilings had popcorn in them (not the food, but that crumbly consistency of some ceilings), and I would get scolded every now and then for getting up on a bed and picking at the ceiling. The two staircases were set right next to each other in the living room, one going downstairs and one going upstairs, where my bedroom, the upstairs bathroom, and the master bedroom were.
My dad used to have this long pillow that was very firm, like a temporpedic bed (don't know if I spelled that correctly), and it fit into a tattered, beige, flowered pillow case that had a zipper. He would lay on this in the living room while watching basketball. I would sometimes join in with him, and cheer only for the Away teams because they had the pretty colored uniforms while the Home team played in boring white.
One day, when I was about four or five, I got a brilliant idea; I took this pillow to the top of the upper staircase, sat on it, and slid down the stairs like I was on a log ride. I soon learned how to sort of steer it, so that when I got to the bottom of the first staircase, I could swivel on the pillow and go down the remaining five steps to the basement level.
I particularly remember having my three cousins (who are all within two years of my age) over at my house, and we would all pile onto this cushion and slide down the stairs, pretend we were escaping from some great danger in a speeding car.
But yes, watching Hope slide down the stairs brought this all back to me instantly.