the final frontier

Winding down at bedtime from a day that included a game of "jungle" with two lads in the guise of cheetahs ending in one such lad-as-cheetah taking an unfortunate but not surprising (or serious) tumble from his -- ahem -- tree limb, I sing "You Are My Sunshine" to the younger lad and lass  (the elder lad has already zonked out).   As is our tradition, after I sing the last line "please don't take my sunshine away", he says "I won't."

Then he says, "but Mama, the sun went down."

"I know," I say.  "The earth turned, so now the sun is shining on another part of the world. It'll come back up tomorrow when the earth turns so that we're facing the sun."  This is about the extent of my capacity for scientific explanation after such a wild day.

"Is the sun in outer space?"  he now wants to know.
"Yes."

"We're not in outer space.  We're in our beds."