Sunday, March 15, 2009

Night Lights

Susan- thanks for "Heads Up"! Amazingly enough, it paid off last night.

Poor little Beans has caught yet another cold. Good grief. I think we are destined for every single virus this winter.
What that means for me... a few restless nights and an increase in nursing (which is increasing contractions, BTW, something I'm sure the midwife is going to be just thrilled about.)
Last night was no exception. Around 11 pm, right around the time the Tylenol wore off, Beans was up and calling for "Mama", only with a stuffy nose, it sounded more like, "La Bamba". After nearly an hour of nursing, she was finally dozing off again (and I was contracting about every 3-5 minutes, and finally decided I had enough of that). She thankfully accepted being put back to bed, snuggled in with baby and blankie, and I tiptoed out of the room to visit the potty.

On my way back to bed (midnight-ish), I glanced out of the spare bedroom window at the night sky, and I'm glad I did. The sky was dark, with that alien green glow moving along the night sky. They hovered just over my favorite constellation, Orion (my favorite, because it's one of the few I can actually identify, plus, knowing Orion once helped me win a Trivial Pursuit game for my mom and her team, ages ago). Orion's position in the sky, along with the aurora made it look like he was pointing his bow and arrow directly at the lights, poised and ready to hunt them down out of the sky.
As an added bonus, pressing my aching and contracting belly against the cold window (it was below zero again last night) had a soothing effect on the contractions, and I stood, feeling a bit like a hokey hippy, but letting Alaska soothe me enough to return to bed.

The days are numbered, where we will see the aurora. Days are getting longer and longer, and you can almost tell a daily difference in the light patterns. I was amazed when I put Beans to bed last night around 8 pm, and discovered there was enough daylight left to read by, and it was after 8:30 when I had to finally turn a reading lamp on to finish my book. This morning, another trip to the potty around 6:15 already had dawn-light peeking through the windows, and streaks of color beginning to form in the sky. It wasn't long after that the brilliant sunrise colors started up, and the sun filled the house again.

Oh, I have mixed feelings on it, of course. I am beginning to look forward to my little part of the world thawing out, and blooming and softening enough to be working the soil again. On the other hand, I also know it won't be long before I am nursing a new baby in the wee hours of the morning, confused as to why the sun is trying to creep into any crevice and crack it can find in the shades, blinds, door jams, and windows.

Meanwhile, I definitely plan on taking the advise of my friend Susan, and keeping my eyes to the sky in my hours of insomnia. The light show last night was worth having to be out of bed.

Until Next Time,
Happy Moose Trails!

2 comments:

Susan Stevenson said...

Woo Hoo! Glad you saw them! They were out again last night, but I went to bed after having a little too much wine. It's amazing how light it is at 8:30pm. Before we know it we'll be without darkness.

Orion is my favorite too. The bright star southwest of his left "leg" is Sirius. I love that star because it sometimes flashes red and white and blue.

Victoria said...

I went to babyfit to find your blog address. I love your writing style. So you have another follower! April's coming up quick!