Special Moments

Great moments with Teddy come in all forms. I get a special thrill every morning when I am getting him ready to go to my Mom's house for the day. He is so excited and happy for the new day. He coos and smiles and talks to me while I change him and feed him before we leave the house. I don't know anyone who is that excited for each new day. For Teddy, pre-7am on a week day is a magical time.

Other great moments come unexpectedly. One of these moments occurred in my groggy, sleepy state at about 5:30am on Saturday morning. Teddy is not yet sleeping through the night and requires feedings early in the morning. He generally wakes up between 12a-1:30a and then again before 3a-4a. Jenna and I have begun trying to sooth him back to sleep during the 3a-4a time. Sometimes this works and Teddy will sleep until 6a. Other times this doesn't work at all.

Saturday morning, Teddy needed to be fed around 5a and was simply having a rough time. I fed him and found that he wouldn't settle back down. Whenever he was laid down he'd begin wailing all over again. He was gassy or fussy or afflicted by some other strange baby nighttime ailment. I resigned myself to holding my little boy so that he could go back to sleep.

I closed the bedroom door so that we didn't wake Jenna. One handed, I managed to get my headphones and plug them into the back of the TV. Scrolling through available movies, I stopped on Boyhood (2014). I'd read about the movie and was interested in seeing it. Richard Linklater is brilliant at times and this was an ambitious project. The movie was actually filmed over 12 years using the same boy as an actor. In the film, we follow the main character from elementary school through graduation from high school and the start of college. Each step along the way was spaced out by a year or two. The audience sees the main character grow up during the length of the movie.

While the movie wasn't as amazing as other Richard Linklater work, it felt 'special'. Watching the film while holding my own son in my arms felt even more special. During our early morning viewing, I would occasionally look down at Teddy. He had no idea any of this was going on. All he knew was that he was in Dad's arms and was warm and happy. He slept with his mouth open and snored from time to time.

I couldn't entirely relate to the story of Boyhood. The main character, Mason Junior, and I have very little in common. My parents didn't have me 'too early' in life. My mom didn't date a string of alcoholics. I never felt like too much of an outsider in life. The specifics of the story aside, the themes of growing up and the challenges the character faced rang very true. I could relate to moving to a new school (multiple times). I could relate to being disappointed routinely by my father figure. I could relate to the struggle of attempting to find out who you really are. I believe that we all would be begin to reminisce of times from our teenage years when presented with these common themes.

As the sun began to rise and light split by the trees started tracking across our living room, I thought about how I was exactly where I wanted to be. While sleep is a distant oasis that I am continuously chasing, I wouldn't have traded a week of sleep for that moment.

Teddy has a lifetime of happiness, excitement, sadness, challenges and joy ahead of him. He's going to grow up just as Mason Jr did in Boyhood. He will become his own person and build his own little place in the world. All of that can wait for the time being.

At the end of Boyhood there's the line, "You know how everyone’s always saying seize the moment? I don’t know, I’m kind of thinking it’s the other way around, you know, like the moment seizes us". On Saturday, Sept 20th at sunrise, Teddy was happy to hold onto my shirt while he slept in my arms. Richard Linklater couldn't have been more right.