"I have loved the stars too fondly...

...to be fearful of the night."

I have always had a strange fascination for space. I remember spreading out my dad's big blue sleeping bag in the backyard on summer nights and watching the stars appear, or lying back on our snow tubes after some night sledding and looking up at the brilliant sky. I told people I wanted to be a biochemist one day and become an astronaut like Shannon Lucid. I did eventually realize that acheiving these goals required more than a passable understanding of mathematics and more complex science than my brain could handle, but if I could get there on pure heart, I might have been to space and back again by now!

Liam shares so many interests with both Aaron and me, and seeing things like the universe through his eyes is so amazing to me. We talked about the Rosetta probe reaching comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko and sending out the Philae lander to explore and send information back to earth; hoping to discover more about the origins of the universe and the beginning of life as we know it.

"Mom, I don't think it is such a good idea to find out exactly how life began," Liam said after thinking over our comet conversation. When I asked him why not, his answer stopped me cold.

"Because if we find that out, people will think they are just like God."

He is 8 years old. He grasps the ethical dilemas of scientific discovery as a second grader. He amazes me every day.

Tonight I snuck him out of his room after Max fell asleep to watch Apollo 13 snuggled up in the chair with me. We get one wild and crazy life to live, buddy, and I can't wait to see the things you will do.