Once in a Lifetime Event

Yeah... Normally we're thought of as being a little strange. We get excited over some pretty odd things by the world's standards, but last night the whole world joined US in our excitement!!!

Full Moon Lunar Eclipse - within hours of the Winter Solstice!!! A truly once-in-a-lifetime occurrence! I'm sure there are plenty of those normals out there who are still scratching their heads and wondering what all the excitement was about.

We prepared. Darling Man went to bed really early. The boy retired to his room about 11 because I wanted him to get at least a little sleep before I woke him again (didn't happen, but I get Mommy Points for trying, don't I?). And I stayed up sewing a felt fish ornament. I'm one of those people who once they go down for the night, I'm pretty much down for the night.

Around 2am, ZBoy appeared in the kitchen ready to go.

He looks so cute wearing his hat, his daddy's sweater and his glasses. I made real cocoa (the kind you have to cook and add vanilla to) for the event.

Darling Man's alarm went off and he came shuffling downstairs. A sleeping bag was dug out and pillows from the old sofa - then he and Z esconced themselves next to the flower bed with a marvelous view of the moon right outside our front door.

We tried to take pictures. This one looks vaguely obscene, but Z insists it looks like an alien ship.

I guess I held a little stiller for this one.

While we sipped our cocoa and watched as the moon disappeared into the darkness little by little, we told stories and looked through the binoculars for alien ships and colonies on the moon.

I told my boy about when he was new and we lived in the dark woods of Wakulla. His first winter was very cold and he was not a baby who wanted to sleep when the rest of the world did. I don't know if it was being scared or cranky or having a tummy that didn't want to settle, but we spent many a night on the front porch, him against my chest as we sat bundled up in blankets for hours on clear cold nights. The stars were so close it felt like I could reach up from my chair and touch them from my porch. He always fell asleep quickly, but I loved sitting out under the stars in the cold with him.

The moon began to glow a bit and took on the luminescence of a ping-pong ball. Like someone was shining a light through the moon rather than having it reflected back onto the surface.

This looks like blurry time-lapse, but really it's just me and my shaky hands trying for the umpteenth time to get a real picture of this amazing event.

Ha... this was NOT taken by me. I only wish I could take pictures like that. This was pulled off the internet because I knew SOMEONE would have gotten a better picture of this than I did!

Once the other side of the moon started lightening up, we gathered blankets and pillows and went back inside. Bed where sleep found us quickly, though my son decided he wanted to stay up ALL night. He didn't make it. I doubt he even made it 10 minutes. When I got up this morning, I turned off the light that was still on and left him to sleep - which he did until 1:30 this afternoon. A new record! But worth it, because I love filling his memory banks with stuff like this.