The boy is obsessed with Neil Armstrong.

At first, I thought this was another naming phase. At one point or another, all members of the family (and some friends) have had names corresponding to various TV shows. We have been Bob the Builder characters, Sesame Street muppets, and friends of Christopher Robin.  At school, the boy read a book about the first moon landing and since then he has been Neil Armstrong. At first, I was Sally Ride, Sapana mawashee was Buzz Aldrin, and Eric was the mysterious astronaut “Billwam.” I’ve since been demoted to Neil Armstrong’s mom (sad, but true) but Neil persists.

This has now been going on for about 2 months, and it’s to the point where the boy asks to have his clothing labeled, “Neil Armstrong” instead of with his own, given name.  He has built rocket ships out of cardboard, and loves to dress up at the museum:

But more recently, and somewhat bizarrely, he gets himself together like this:

This is when he is Neil Armstrong landing on the moon.  He uses the links to connect himself to his toolbox and then proceeds to walk around the house, dragging the toolbox behind him, taking large wide steps. If he’s wearing pants with belt loops, the box is connected to those.  He is almost always shirtless in this scenario, which  makes me wonder exactly what “moon landing” book they were reading at school.

The girl, of course, has a name in this parallel universe.

She’s the SpaceDog.