Eclipsed

Trying out her new boots in the mud behind our house on Monday.

Maya trying out the downward-facing dog on Sunday.

I know I shouldn't feel guilty. It's 9:45 p.m. and all 4-year-olds should be asleep at this hour, but the view of the lunar eclipse is amazing right now and Guillermo is in bed, sawing logs. 

He loves space and the moon. Several times a week, he drags out his encyclopedia-type space guide to try to determine the phase of the moon. He looks up at the sky and down to his book. He can't quite remember all of the names (but who besides astronomers actually remembers Gibbous), but he is pretty good at matching the pictures. His favorite is the full  moon. I prefer the crescent. 

I stood on my neighbor's porch and looked. Our cul-de-sac was lively. At least one person was out at every home. My neighbor knows Guillermo's obsession with the moon and questioned why I didn't bring him out. He wouldn't really know what he's looking at, I said. She said that if he looked through the binoculars, he would know the moon is different than on most nights. Maybe so, I said, but I'm glad he's asleep.

He would have had a great time and watching the moon with him would have been more fun, I know that. He would have been  full of questions and really proud to have been outside with the adults so late at night. But getting him into bed after such excitement would have been hard and I don't need a struggle at 10 p.m.  And besides, when the next lunar eclipse comes around, he'll be nearly seven and he'll enjoy it even more.