Today’s post is written by none other than my amazing husband and Jackson’s incredible daddy!!!

History was made on February 16, 2018. SpaceX and its founder Elon Musk launched a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle, called Falcon Heavy, into space.  The Falcon Heavy is the world’s fourth highest capacity rocket ever built and the most powerful rocket in operation as of today.

Falcon Heavy is designed to carry humans, but on February 16, it was a test launch carrying a dummy payload.  The dummy payload consisted of Starman and Elon’s Tesla (another of Elon Musk’s companies). Starman is a SpaceX dummy wearing SpaceX’s new spacesuit.

It was a historical day.  The best part about the entire launch is I watched it with Jackson. He watched the entire launch and was just as intrigued and excited as I was.  We began watching it when the countdown was at 13 minutes.  When Falcon Heavy launched and made it past the first phase, the Falcon 9 rockets successfully separated and began their trek back to Earth.  Something I didn’t really mention before is the Falcon 9 rockets are reusable, so when they came back to Earth, they landed at the exact location as planned*. Those rockets will be reused for future missions. Then, success; Starman and the Tesla made it to space.  The mission was a success.

Fast forward three weeks.  After dinner, Jackson started talking about building a spaceship and Elon Musk.  We couldn’t really figure out what he was saying at first, but then realized he was talking about the Falcon Heavy mission.  He said he wanted to build a spaceship and then have the other parts come back down and land. Check out the video of Jackson explaining his ideas linked here. That’s exactly what happened in the Falcon Heavy mission.  His memory amazes me every single day.

So, as a family, we did our best to build a spaceship with the materials we had on hand. I think we did a great job!  I think he did a great job!

As a parent, I want him to use his imagination and creativity as long as possible. He’s definitely starting down that path with the spaceship. I love that, as a 3 year old, he had an idea in his head, communicated his ideas and created his version of that idea.  At some point some of us lose that imagination and creativity and I want him to keep that hopefully forever.  I want him to be an innovator and a problem solver.  I want him to be like his daddy and question why things are the way they are.  When he asks someone why something is the way it is, I want him to challenge those ideas and innovate, just like I try to do.

As an educator, I often think about Jackson attending school.  I want my son to learn how he learns best.  I’m not interested in having him sit in a classroom to learn how everyone else learns.  If that’s what ‘school’ is going to offer him at every step or grade of his education, then I am going to create an environment for him to learn his way.  If that means I need to create a school for him, then that’s what I will do.  I’ve learned that there are more ways to educate a child than the way it’s always been done.  I’m not interested in ‘the way it’s always been done’ education, I want Jackson to learn however he learns best.  If that environment doesn’t exist, I will create it for him. With all of that being said, I must stress this very important point: it is my viewpoint that it is not the job of a teacher or school to educate my child.  It is my job, it is my wife’s job.  Together, we are responsible for his learning and a part of that responsibility is to partner with his teachers to ensure he’s successful.

I love that we built a spaceship.  I love that Jackson was so excited about the SpaceX launch. I’m excited for our future together.  We have some really awesome plans and learning opportunities in the near future, and I’m excited to share those experiences with you.

*The third rocket missed it’s landing.  It was supposed to land on a drone ship guided by GPS in the ocean, but something went wrong and the rocket landed in the ocean rather than on the drone ship. SpaceX identified the issues and I am certain they’ll be successful next time.