Spaceships and Pirates

Five. Four. Three. Two. One. BLASTOFF! With floor mat puzzle pieces as our spaceships, we zoom into outer space with one objective: the moon. I can see the earth shrinking away from us out of the round window of the ship, but when I point it out to the punk, he just looks puzzled. As we land on the moon, I ask him what he can see. He looks around. "Trees," he says. When we descend from our spaceships, he announces to Pirate Mama that we are going to hunt for some treasure. "Aye, Pirate Calvin!" And a-hunting we go. Rocks, pine cones, and weeds fill our treasure wheelbarrow.

When negative thoughts creep in about early mornings, muffin tops, whiny demands, and piles of laundry, I try to push them away with musings of my pirate astronaut punk and his little brother who happily comes along for the ride.