Magic comes home

I was catching up on a bit of work on my laptop this morning when it dawned on me that the Discovery astronauts were conducting their first spacewalk of the STS-114 space shuttle mission. So I did what any modern-day geek with a broadband connection does: I loaded up NASA-TV in a new window, moved it to the corner of my screen, and continued to work while the otherworldly scene played out in front of me.

I called our two youngest munchkins over to see. They oohed and aahed as they asked a rapid-fire series of questions:

• "How can they breathe in space?"
• "Why do they have to go outside?"
• "How did they get outside? Did it let the space stuff into the space shuttle?"
• "Hello! Hellooooooo"

After the last one, I had to explain to our soon-to-be-five-year-old that they can't hear us from the kitchen table. With that, they settled in and watched the chaotic video from one of the astronaut's helmet cams for about another minute.

The viewing didn't last long. Almost as quickly, they were getting up to leave. "This is boring," uttered Noah as he scooted back to his Shrek DVD.

The magic lasted all of three minutes, but it was just enough for them to have a glimpse of another world before they went back to the comfort of their own.

Your turn: What's magical to you? To your kids? How do you know when something actually is magical?