Chasing shadows
Deerfield Beach, FL, December 2010
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About this photo: We're sharing late-themed scenes all week long. Click here to share your own. It'll make you smile.This wasn't my finest hour as a parent. We were on vacation in a warm, happy place, and I learned of an impending lunar eclipse. Since these are much more kid-friendly than the solar kind - the whole going-blind thing always scared me - I got it into my head that the kids should watch it.
Slight problem: I'd have to wake them up at an ungodly hour, like 4 a.m.-ungodly.
Much t
o my pleasant surprise, the boys insisted that I wake them up and haul them outside. So when the happy hour rolled around, I rousted myself out of bed with no fewer than three separate alarms, then quietly ushered them onto the front lawn for a celestial show.As they stared at the strange scene of the moon with a chunk bitten out of it, we talked about the orbital mechanics that made this possible, the differences between lunar and solar eclipses - they liked the not-going-blind part - and the relative rarity of events like this. They were tired, of course, and soon trundled back inside for a few more hours of zees. But the buzz around the breakfast table later that morning confirmed the fatigue was worth the middle-of-the-night wakeup call.
Sometimes, it's worth losing sleep to see something special. Sometimes, I guess it pays to be a lousy parent.
Your turn: What interesting things have happened to you in the middle of the night?
