"Wanna Play Spaceship with Me?"

Kacia- I can't believe how many times I heard that for a whole 3 or maybe even 4 days. It all began with a bit of imagination and fun and eventually expanded into a whole world inside Levi's room. On first going in there, all you could see is an enormous mess, which is very unusual because, especially for a 4 year old, he usually keeps it pretty clean. From about Wednesday to Saturday, though, this mess was an enormous, spectacular spaceship. Captained by Levi (of course), and run by his crew of anyone-who-agreed-to-play-spaceship, it was the place of adventures flying across the milky way. It started out with this:

A front window painted by Kayley and Levi on the back of a pizza box for a spaceship. This is almost typical, because Kayley and Levi are usually the most gung-ho to play very imaginative games. However, this use of hand-made props was especially artistic. Of course, they needed chairs to pilot their ship:
and, as you can barely see by the cover of darkness on the left side, even more props were added for ambiance. Party wall covers with stars were draped in front of walls, individual beds were set up for a full crew of Kara, Kayley and Levi, his play kitchen/workshop was put to use as just that, maps of the solar system were put up by myself when I realized that pretending could be integrated with realizing new facts, and several random toys were placed around for levers, weapons, launch buttons, a headset, and steering controls. Levi loved the bed Kara set up for him. His interest in this thing was the exceptional thing about the experience. He kept playing this game for days! With me, it was always a mission to visit a planet or navigate the solar system. With the girls, flying was the focus, whether it be blasting off with great dramatics, fixing malfunctions, fighting off a slew of aliens, or navigating asteroids. I think he played it with other family members as well, but I didn't hear what they did.

I enjoyed it because it's a special time in his life when pretending creates a fun, complete world of his own that is so awesome to explore. His enthusiasm reawakened some of my old imagination which used to be very well-exercised. So, for all of us who joined Captain Levi, the days of this past week were a wondrous adventure through time and space.