Rocket Men

I haven’t blogged for ages due to returning to full-time teaching but I wanted to share something from this morning that really highlights the differences between the personalities of my two youngest boys.

M and Z are playing out in the glorious sunshine; hubby finally got round to building their new trampoline last night (with the help of next door and a cold cider in his hand) so they’ve been happily bouncing on that for a good part of the morning.

I came inside to tidy up and when I went back out, M was busily dragging the garden chairs over to the empty box that had stored the trampoline.  He informed me that he was building a rocket.  He carefully placed the chairs so that he had a driver’s seat and a passenger seat behind it.  He arranged another chair to act as a ‘steering wheel’ and was completely absorbed in his task.  Z carried on bouncing on the trampoline.

When M was finally finished and the ‘rocket’ was complete, Z came over and decided he wanted to play.  M sat in the driver’s seat and Z sat behind him.  M made sure they were wearing seatbelts and checked that everything was working properly.  Z sat back and enjoyed the scenery.

I took them a drink and a snack for their ‘journey’.  M carefully opened his crisps, took a couple and then stored them safely in the bottom of the rocket.  Z asked me to open his crisps, held onto them for dear life and put all his energy into steadily working his way through them.

Max took off the ‘hand brake’ (OK, I know, but not surprisingly they’ve never been in a rocket, so this one has controls very similar to a car).  They counted down: 5…4…3…2…1…BLAST OFF!

They finally landed on the ‘moon’.  M couldn’t wait to get out and explore.  He undid his seatbelt.  He put on his pretend space helmet.  He got out and did some exaggerated walking to emphasise the lack of gravity.  He decided the trampoline would make a good pretend moon because they could jump on it and imagine there was no gravity.  He wanted to hunt for aliens.  He realised he was on his own.

‘Come on!’ he demanded of Z, who was still in his seat.  ‘I not coming’, Z replied.  ‘I staying in the rocket and eating my crisps.’

And there, my friends, you have it.  My two little rocket men. One, imaginative, hard-working, creative, clever and inquisitive.  The other…how can I put this kindly?  The other…one of life’s passengers.  Content to sit back and observe (at least when there’s work to be done).  Happy to join in (once the work is completed).  Doesn’t mind the idea of travelling to another planet to see if other life forms really do exist…but not when there’s someone else there to do it instead.  They can always tell him about it when they get back.  He’d much rather stay in his comfy seat and eat crisps 😉