Thursday, August 13, 2009

one starry night

The Perseids meteor shower was slated to peak this last Tuesday, August 11th, 2009. I originally heard about the meteor shower on Twitter earlier in the day (thanks, Twitter) and thought it might be something that Liam would enjoy. I mentioned it to him and was immediately greeted with "YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!".

Then I went online and found out it wasn't supposed to really peak until after midnight.

Oops.

I broke the news to him and was greeted with predictable moaning and gnashing of teeth. Even though I could feel Peter's eyes boring holes into the back of my head and could already hear his thoughts on me waking our six year old at midnight, I promised Liam that I would wake him up when it was time.

Before heading to bed around 11pm, however, I stepped outside onto our little front porch, looked up and saw... clouds. There would be no meteor shower for us.

Or so I thought.

Andrew woke to nurse as usual sometime after 1am. Being the amazing mom that I am (*snort*), I decided to drag myself out of bed and take another look outside. Although there was now a clear sky, the lights of the city (even a smallish city like Gatineau) drowned out any chance of seeing the meteors. I thought about just going back to bed, but instead snuck into the boys room and quietly roused Liam from his sleep.

He didn't wake up right away, but when he did, the first words out of his mouth were an excitedly whispered, "Is it time?"

Even though it was a lovely night, I grabbed a light blanket and wrapped him in it. We tiptoed down the hall to the front door -a door that squeaks loudly during the day but is absolutely deafening at night- and went to sit on the front steps.

Liam blinked the sleep from his eyes as he squinted at the light from a nearby streetlamp. I knew that he wouldn't see anything, but instructed him look up at the moon and stars that were visible. We sat huddled together on the steps, wrapped in a blanket, talking softly and looking at the stars for probably only fifteen minutes.

We didn't see a single meteor.

Neither of us cared.

6 comments:

  1. Building those memories and something neither of you will ever forget!
    Love ya, A. Dianne

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  2. Absolutely sweet post. Your boys are so adorable -- you're a good mom.

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  3. It sounds like you made a lovely memory to share. It's the small joys that keep me going.

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  4. So sweet, and so sweetly recorded.

    Once upon a time, I would stay up for meteor showers -- now, like you, I catch them if I'm up anyway.

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  5. So, so sweet.
    Definitely a night you will both remember :)

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  6. Sniff... that sounds lovely. That is so sweet.

    Such sweet memories.

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