Watching the sun rise.

I woke up this morning at 5:30 with a full bladder and Tad not in the bed next to me.  I got up and could hear him upstairs dealing with whatever blanket, pillow or other issue that Coen might have been having at this early hour of the morning.  When Tad got back into bed, we snuggled back in, but I couldn't fall back asleep.

So when I heard Coen's voice from upstairs, calling, "Daddy?"  I got up, grabbed a sweatshirt and shut our door behind me.  When I got into Coen's room, he said, "Oh! It's you Mommy.  Can you fix my sheet?" He thought it was still night.  I climbed into bed with him and he exclaimed in contentment. We cuddled up together and he played with my hair.  He's growing his long and is very interested in my length.

After a while, Coen got out of bed and went to the window.  "Mommy!" He said, "Come look! We can watch the sunrise."  He pointed out of his window, raising his blinds.  "See that star? That's where the sun is rising."  Never mind that the 'star' was actually the radio tower. Never mind that we were looking entirely in the wrong direction to see the sun.  I was watching the sun rise with my son.  The sky was blue-ish purple and he put his smaller hand into mine.

I thought about a Saturday morning like this in 1998, when Tad and I -- just neighbors, becoming friends -- went down with a few others to Lake Michigan to watch the sun rise.  It was a spring morning after a night at the bars--likely we'd either not slept at all or only slept an hour or two.  We stood silently at Bradford Beach and watched the sun come up, and went to get bagels and coffee afterwards.  Remembering that, watching the sun rise with my friend Tad, who would someday help me create this child I was standing next to, really made me think.

When I was in my twenties, it was so easy to just go with the flow, and appreciate moments.  To sacrifice sleep for a special moment, to forgo one plan for one that might be better.  Now, in my thirties, as a parent, it is harder to do that naturally. There are so many routines, and there is so much more work in my life than there was then.  But this moment, at 6:00 in the morning, standing with my baby boy at the window I thought, I must remember to allow moments like this to happen more often.