An Astronaut & Her SpaceTweep Mom

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Towards the end of the summer, my daughter starts to draft her list of Halloween costumes. I promise you, this list, every year, is nearly as long as her Christmas list! It takes a while for her to whittle it down, and this year, when she did, she decided that she wanted to be an astronaut. But not just ANY astronaut, she wanted to be Astronaut Suni Williams. Astronaut Suni is her favorite. Her costume was a generic store bought jumpsuit, so she insisted that we make the right patches. At one point, while I was sewing on her mission patch for ISS Expedition XXXIII (the mission that Astronaut Suni commanded) I couldn’t help but wonder what Commander Williams was for Halloween when she was six years old.

I’m fairly certain that most moms feel the same way about their kiddos that I do about my girl- that one day she will do great and amazing things! But I would love to know what the moms (and dads too, of course) of astronauts did to help their child acquire the tools for perseverance, determination, imagination and courage that is required to become an astronaut? Regardless of what my daughter will eventually do with her future, those are the very attributes that I wish for her to hold on to for all of her life. That’s what I was thinking with each and every stitch; a meditation, a prayer for my daughter to continue to look up to role models like Sunita Williams.

And just as we were to head out the door to start the night, she turned to me and asked where was MY costume. It took all of two minutes to grab my NASATweetup lanyard and badge and tell her that I was her adoring SpaceTweep fan, of course! (I should have planned in advance to have a “Bill Ingalls” with us to get a few photographs!)

Lastly, as much as we are HUGE fans of Commander Williams, I feel it necessary to end with:

“Go Army!”