An Imaginations's First Flight

Tonight, while putting Ashton to bed, we read the appropriately titled book "I'm Not Sleepy". The tale is a story within a story, beginning with a little boy, Alex, being put to bed by his father with a bedtime story. In the tale Alex walks through a jungle, (Alex in the real world walks to the bathroom to get a drink of water), drinks from a lake (Alex in the real world uses the potty), then is chased by a "Thingamajig". The Thingamajig chases Alex up a tree, where he escapes by grabbing on to the moon. It is only on a breeze that Alex floats back to his house landing in his bed and falling asleep. I've read "I'm Not Sleepy" to Ashton only a few times, as we just got it from the library last week and Ashton was VERY concerned by the pictures in the book. He's had a great misunderstanding that Alex is falling through the air.
After explaining to him tonight that Alex is not falling, but FLYING, Ashton showed me a wonderful side of his imagination. Without a word he got out of bed, solemnly raised his hands parallel to the ground and began to flap them up and down, explaining to me HE too was going to fly. I kept a watchful look as he scrunched his face up and flapped even harder, with a jump or two thrown in with hopes of lifting off. But, alas, no luck.
With the gloomiest of looks Ashton fell face forward on the bed in defeat. Ready to console him, I reached forward to rub his back, but my hand was quickly thrown off when he jumped up in the air with an "Ah-Ha!" look and said "Mommy, turn on the wind! Mommy, turn on the wind!", pointing to the switch on the wall behind me. Reaching up, I turned on the fan, to the highest of settings, and whirled around to see a quickly returned look of hope on his face with arms again flapping. After a minute or two, defeat slipped back on his face and his shoulders slumped once again.
My mind began to spin, wondering how to explain to my three-year-old the fine line between flying and floating, when he solved the problem for me. He let out a long sigh followed by a simple explanation, as if he were consoling me, "Mommy, I cannot fly. There are no wings on my back." and laid his head on his pillow to sleep.
I am so happy for him! While his body did not move an inch, his imagination soared tonight, high above any cloud and over the moon. Good night my darling.

Ashton and His "Moon"