It was just before 11 am on the day of the total solar eclipse. A quick rap at the front door let me know that my dad arrived. He engineered a viewing party of sorts, offering to take turns holding HP and glancing outside, so I could experience the eclipse. It was, after all, a once in a lifetime event.
Going on 11:30, more clouds rolled in. TV news anchors trilled on about how cloud coverage could limit visibility. The thousands of people stationed at viewing parties in Chicago and in southern Illinois bemoaned their bad luck, terrible timing, and grave misfortune on live TV. They were going to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity.
Shortly after 12 pm, a sun’s ray peeked through the skylight. HP slumbered steadily, so my dad ducked outside, eclipse glasses in tow. With the cloud coverage still so dense, it was difficult to see anything other than black squares through the glasses. He challenged me to try. I handed off the baby, slid the awkward one-size-fits-no-one cardboard frames up the bridge of my nose, and stumbled out on the back porch. I couldn’t even tell where in the sky I was supposed to look let alone see the start of an eclipse.
Just before 1, my dad ducked out again. The clouds had parted. He informed me that he could, in fact, see the eclipse. Totality—or the 86% that we would see—was a mere 19 minutes away. No sooner than I looked at the clock to calculate the time did HP start to fuss. And fuss and fuss in a way that only he can do. He wailed for food. Feed me, feed me, feed me, his cries trumpeted. As I prepared a bottle, I knew with certainty that I would likely miss this once in a lifetime opportunity.
At 1:02, I scooped HP out of his chair with the same amount of impatience as he’d shown me. His cries faded as I watched him begin to gulp back his bottle. That’s when I realized that through all the media buzz and Internet hype, we’ve all missed something. Or at least I missed something. As intriguing as the solar eclipse was, as rare of an event as it is, it is no more once-in-a-lifetime than any other given day. And that’s what I’ve missed. That’s what we all miss, I’m afraid.
The mortgage payments we make, the credit cards that are paid in full each month, the small net worth hikes that won’t amount to much on a spreadsheet or graph. Those are quickly overlooked. Instead of celebrating small moments and savoring each day, we hold our applause. We wait and wait some more. We muddle through our days, hoping for excitement, waiting for the next milestone, the big celebration, the blog post title that is sure to go viral. That’s not to say that the grand moments, the eclipses don’t happen. They surely do.
At 1:18 pm, the moon crossed in front of the earth. The viewing conditions were far from perfect. According to the news stations that reported people leaving in droves, the conditions were downright disappointing. But when HP miraculously finished his bottle in a reasonable amount of time, I got to dash outside and see the darkened sun. It was a once in a lifetime event, and it was breathtaking. But so was the smile—surely more gas or reflex than actual reaction—that greeted me when I went back inside and scooped up my baby.
There will be hundreds upon thousands of baby smiles in my lifetime. I can’t say the same of eclipses. But each smile makes up a moment that will never happen again. Each smile is once in a lifetime.
Introducing HP, my favorite once-in-a-lifetime.
So Tell Me…How will you make the once-in-a-lifetime event of today special?
Hee hee hee, I love little HP! What a cutie. 🙂
I felt the same way about the eclipse. I planned to take a nap during that time, but I got up and watched because I realized it may be my only chance to see something so monumental in our natural world. And missing out on that moment might make me regret it for the rest of my life.
Experiences matter.
Yes, they do! They surely do.
Each day is a room in the house of your life. At the end of the day you open a door and leave today’s room for the next day’s room. You leave the door open so you can look back and see the rooms stretching off into the distance behind you, and you can see the closed door of tomorrow on the other side of the room, but you can’t know what, if anything, is behind it. Today is your reality. Today is what you can enjoy. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow, if there is one, is unknown. But today, that is ours. Enjoy it Penny. I appreciate your insights. You always leave me with a little smile.
Your comment is beautiful, Oldster. Better than the post perhaps. Thank you, friend.
Oh Penny, what a beautiful and heartbreaking post. You are absolutely correct that we are missing once-in-a-lifetime moments every day, waiting for things that seem more significant. I really do try to savor as much as possible, but those memories are too often overshadowed by the regret of missing other moments.
I don’t write in it nearly enough, but you might want to start a mommy journal. Not a baby book. Just a place where you write miscellaneous stuff about HP, like funny things he says when he gets a little older. Of course, then you’re running into the issue of whether to spend time experiencing life or documenting it.
PS – Hi HP, you’re adorable <3
That’s brilliant, Harmony! And that is my struggle even with photos. Do I take the photo or tickle his belly? That kind of thing. Though I am determined to get a video of him laughing in his sleep if it kills me! It’s too cute!
All moments are once in a lifetime moments. The trick is to remember to savor the small once in a lifetime moments as well as the grand once in a lifetime moments, yes?
There is little that’s more thrilling than sharing a grand once in a lifetime moment with your children though. My daughter remembers her mother screaming like a maniac for her to come in the living room immediately. She and her brother skidded into the living room expecting mayhem and murder at the very least….to find me glued to the TV set (a rare occurrence). I insisted they sit down and watch as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down…..a wall that had stood since before their mother had been a twinkle in their grandfather’s eyes. We talked about the Nazis and Hitler, the Holocaust and the Jewish concentration camps, German families risking everything to help Jewish families to escape, the reality of Anne Frank’s life, families torn apart and good and evil. She remembers her mother crying as the first blow landed on the Wall and cheering as it was destroyed. Many years later, as a grown woman, she had a chance to visit the Ronald Reagan museum which had a recreation of a portion of the Berlin Wall. It had actual pieces of the wall integrated into it and a tunnel like the ones people had escaped through. Visitors were encouraged to go through the tunnel and touch the pieces of the Wall. She did. She said she keep having flashbacks to watching the Fall on TV, her mother crying for joy, the stories I’d told her. She remembered me telling her that she was witness to a a pivotal moment in history. As she made her way through the tunnel she said that she imagined the fear and grief and hope of those fleeing through those tunnels towards freedom and life . She said it was one of the most moving experiences of her life. And she came home and held my hand as she told me about it. And thanked me for that day years ago when I made her stop what she was doing to come and watch a wall being torn down. I thanked her for bringing home her experience so we could share the awe of that once in a lifetime moment together yet again.
Oh my gosh! That is an incredible experience to have witnessed as a family. Reading your lovely description of it sent chills up my arms.
This is beautifully written and HP is the CUTEST!! I actually had a similar realization on our honeymoon. It was amazing to stay in luxury resorts and splurge on whatever we wanted but as we were on the plane back home, I realized that my favorite thing about our relationship/life together is just the small moments that we share—evenings on the couch, morning runs and reading out loud while the other person does the dishes. Like you said, the tiny things are what make up our lives and they are worth celebrating, no matter how often they occur.
Also, the eclipse was cool and all but idk, not THAT cool lol
That is, hands down, the most important thing that we’ve learned about our marriage, too. The trips are nice. The dinners out are delicious. But the little moments, both good and bad, are where you really see what it’s all about. Sending huge congratulations your way, Taylor.
This! Oh my goodness. I think there is a general problem is assuming we can’t be happy until the circumstances are right, different or perfect. But what about right now? Celebrating everything, including and especially, the small things is so important! No day will ever be the same as it is today. How amazing is that? You rock Penny!
Thanks so much for saying that, Brittany! It’s definitely a reminder that I need frequently.
What a great post Penny. Look at little HP giving us all a quick reality check! Honestly, I didn’t get all the hype about the eclipse. Sure it was kind of cool but I certainly wouldn’t have been heart broken to miss it. We’ve got another one heading through Alberta in 2044 so maybe I’ll start psyching myself up about that one 😉
I totally flip over all sorts things like this. But I’m a sucker for a beautiful full moon, too. That being said, I don’t think I’ll likely ever get excited enough to fight some of the crowds that I saw. Yikes!
Squishy baby! I love it. I’m so glad that you realized this in the moment because when we adults respond to the frustrations of our babies as if they were fully fledged humans, we forget what sort of a miracle we’re seeing right before our eyes. HP drank his whole bottle! And that’s amazing! And it’s amazing when you can take that for granted because it’s such growth and development.
I think we tend to remember moments in flashes, and let go of the wonder that is daily routine. I used to marvel every morning – PiC would scoop JuggerBaby into his arms and whisk zir away so I could sleep a little longer. Then I’d come out of the bedroom to see zir hanging out in a Boppy, holding zir own bottle gulping it down in seconds, foot in the air like zir brother-dog laying HIS back nearby, feet gently waving in the air. I still miss those mornings. Now I hear *clomp clomp clomp clomp* “What doin, mama?” “Shh, mama’s sleeping.”
I will never, ever, ever tire of JuggerBaby stories. Oh, how I love them! If he finished a bottle in under a half hour it is a MIRACLE. If he doesn’t spit it all up afterward, it is a double miracle. That’s a thing, right?
Totally. Give him time.
JB used to be all KINDS of challenging as an infant and then we suddenly got to know each other and quit wasting time on warming up bottles. Ice cold bottles straight out of the fridge or suffer pierced eardrums! You too will start to discover the keys to unlocking the mystery of HP’s needs 🙂
We had a weird throwback today where I had to rock zir to sleep and ze fell asleep on me. Hasn’t happened in over a year! And even though it was physically wrecking me, it did my heart a world of good.
This was beautifully said. The reality is that we’ll have another eclipse in the next decade and yet again in the 2040’s. We’ve got chances to see those, but every “must-see moment” is something we choose to prioritize over our attention on a hundred other “must-see moments”. Soaking up the moments with your kids is a decision I don’t think you can ever regret 🙂