{"id":5378,"date":"2017-06-30T00:02:33","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T06:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=5378"},"modified":"2017-06-30T00:02:33","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T06:02:33","slug":"a-rocket-ship-built-by-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/a-rocket-ship-built-by-two\/","title":{"rendered":"A Rocket Ship Built by Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

I reach to pick up a scrap of popped pink balloon, when I hear the dreaded words.
\n\u201cMommy, what are you going to do with that?\u201d
\nHe caught me again.<\/em>
\n\u201cMommy, I\u2019m going to use that for my rocket ship.\u201d
\nMy dubious expression elicits further campaigning from my four-year-old son: \u201cIt will be one of the control buttons.\u201d<\/p>\n

For over a month now, Alex has protested my attempts to throw away the detritus of daily life. The McDonalds milk bottle? A rocket blaster. The fruit snack wrappers? Those will make the crinkling and whirring sounds of the ship flying through space. His used Band-Aid? He\u2019ll stick it on the ship\u2019s wall to mark the location of the first-aid kit.<\/p>\n

Then, of course, I feel that tug of ambivalence; I really want to be left alone to get rid of this trash (I mean, come on! I\u2019m finally getting around to cleaning up!), and I also want my son to journey to the moon. At this point, I usually pause and imagine Alex in the tinker space we don\u2019t have; a space where he is free to collect his flotsam and jetsam (it would look like Ariel\u2019s cavern of jarred forks and pipes!) and free to hide away and build and paint his rocket ship.<\/p>\n

Most days, Alex\u2019s salvaged goods have been snuck into the trash, but summer is coming \u2013 that expansive time of year when we stay up late and gaze at the stars. A simple plan will do the trick: a bucket in his closet. If Alex wants to keep the next fruit snack wrapper, I\u2019ll say, \u201cPut it in your rocket ship bucket.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer, we\u2019ll start with a box \u2026 maybe that big one in the garage with the cutout robot eyeholes and armholes \u2026 because you know, heaven (or Alex) forbid we recycle that cardboard! We\u2019ll build the ship together.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll start by walking to the library. We\u2019ll check out some rocket ship books, so Alex can use pictures to help me visualize his design plans. The books will help us write our own launch checklist. We\u2019ll cut windows into the box, and we\u2019ll tape cardboard triangles together to form the ship\u2019s roof. We\u2019ll dump the collection bucket on the deck and decide how to add on the blasters and the control panel. A rocket ship requires sturdy craftsmanship, so this may be the year I get that hot glue gun I sometimes dream of.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll pull out the tarp and the paints. We won\u2019t just paint the inside walls and outside glaze of the ship. We\u2019ll find a frayed pillowcase and paint our flag. Perhaps my daydreaming of Alex\u2019s own certified tinker space was foolish; this is all the tinker space he needs. This space outdoors, with a paintbrush in hand, and a mom who\u2019s jumped off her soapbox lecture circuit about why we can\u2019t keep every little thing. Because as we all know, if we give ourselves the space to remember, it\u2019s the little things that help us count 4, 3, 2, 1, blast off!<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll let the paint dry. We\u2019ll glue our pillowcase flag to a meter stick. Then come a rainy day, we\u2019ll dress all in orange and don our bike helmets. We\u2019ll climb into our ship with our checklist on a clipboard. Together we\u2019ll say, \u201cT minus nine minutes.\u201d Then I\u2019ll read off the checklist, \u201cAlex, are you ready?\u201d<\/p>\n

And he\u2019ll say, \u201cCheck!\u201d We\u2019ll keep marking the minutes to launch, and following our checklist, until we reach \u201cT minus 31 seconds,\u201d when Alex will say, \u201cGo!\u201d Then he\u2019ll start mimicking those engine sounds that boys make so well, and I\u2019ll just smile as I silently count down from 30 \u2013 because you know I can\u2019t make those sounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen!\u201d I\u2019ll shout, and Alex will join me in the final countdown to blast off. We\u2019ll listen together to the whirr and crinkle of 20 fruit snack wrappers shaking in the air until we land the ship on the living room carpet, and walk along the moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

What an adventure we\u2019ll share \u2013 searching for craters and moon rocks! Jumping and bouncing all around. We\u2019ll ceremoniously carry our flag from one end of the moon to the other, and plant the flagpole in the crack between the sofa cushions. Then of course, we\u2019ll have to say, \u201cOne small step for Alex, one giant step for Mommy!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Katherine Dalland has been teaching sixth grade for 15 years and is regularly in awe of the young writers she nurtures. She and her husband relocated to Madison, Wisconsin (for the cheese!) and are raising Alex and Aubrey.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I reach to pick up a scrap of popped pink balloon, when I hear the dreaded words. \u201cMommy, what are you going to do with that?\u201d He caught me again. \u201cMommy, I\u2019m going to use that for my rocket ship.\u201d My dubious expression elicits further campaigning from my four-year-old son: \u201cIt will be one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":241,"featured_media":5430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[108,1146,55,957,1147],"class_list":["post-5378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fun","tag-adventure","tag-blast-off","tag-mom","tag-moon","tag-rocket-ship"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}